Latest on the Open Government Partnership National Action Plan

Over the course of last year, Compact Voice have worked closely with a variety of government departments and other voluntary sector organisations to help develop the UK's Open Government Partnership (OGP).

 

The OGP is a network made up of 62 countries that are committed to making their governments more open, accountable and responsive.

At the core of the OGP is the principle of government and civil society working together in order to create a government that becomes more sustainable and responsive to its society’s needs – something very much at the heart of the Compact way of working.

The UK Government have often reiterated their commitment for the UK to become ‘the most open and transparent government in the world’. This resulted in government forming a partnership with civil society to develop a National Action Plan (NAP) for the OGP, in which Compact Voice took a very active role.

The NAP sets out a series of commitments the UK government is making to improve transparency, participation and accountability. Compact principles are referenced throughout, particularly Principle 2 which outlines the need for effective and transparent design and development of policies, programmes and public services.

The NAP was unveiled at the Open Government Partnership Summit at the beginning of November and since then, Compact Voice have been continuing to work alongside the Cabinet Office and the Civil Society Network in order to promote the NAP and work toward the commitments it supports. 

A new report summarises the UK process and its benefits, and sets out a series of recommendations – based on the strengths and weaknesses of the UK process – for other countries to learn from when developing new NAPs.

In Annex A of the report, there's a detailed account and reflections on how the UK process operated, and next steps in Annex B.

This report has been developed by the UK OGP civil society network coordinators, with input from members of the network and UK Government officials, including through a dedicated workshop exploring the lessons learnt.

Compact Voice will continue to take an active role in this partnership and will post updates whenever there are developments.