4 Openness
The openness indicator is defined as: the regular practice and degree of consultation with citizens to help guide the decisions we make and extent of transparency in our decision-making. It is included in the index because the need for transparency within a civil service is imperative for the public to trust and feel empowered to hold the government accountable for their actions, whilst at the same time reducing corruption. The World Bank (2017) notes that “transparency initiatives [are] an important first step toward increasing accountability”. The UN also outlines the need for transparency and accountability in governance: “[this] implies a proactive effort to make information accessible to citizens” and it is “one indicator of a government that is citizen-focused and service-oriented” (United Nations, 1999). Graham et al. (2003) also refer to the United Nations Development Program’s five principles of good governance, in which transparency is identified as a key characteristic.
This indicator is comprised of 10 metrics, an increase of one from the 2017 Pilot edition of InCiSE. The data sources for the openness indicator are:
- The open government domain of the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index (RLI) [2017].
- The United Nations’ E-Participation Index(UN) [2018].
- Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) [2018].
- The World Wide Web Foundation’s Open Data Barometer (ODB) [2016].
- Open Knowledge International’s Global Open Data Index (OKI) [2016].
- The OECD’s Open, Useful, Reusable (OUR) Government Data Index (OECD) [2016].
| Metric | Source | Type | Public sector proxy | Data transformation | Weighting within indicator | Definition of the source metric (e.g. question wording) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| In theme (A) | Theme (B) | Total (C=A*B) | ||||||
| Degree and qualty of societal consultation | ||||||||
| Civic pariticipation | RLI | Expert assessment | No | None | 33.3% | 37.5% | 12.5% | Average of 31 opinion/assessment items measuring the effectiveness of civic participation and feedback mechanisms. [Normalised index ranging from 0 to 1] |
| E-government engagement | UN | Expert assessment | No | None | 33.3% | 37.5% | 12.5% | Reviews the quality and usefulness of e-government programs for the purpose of engaging people in public policy-making and implementation. [Normalised index ranging from 0 to 1] |
| Negotiating public suport | SGI | Expert assessment | No | None | 33.3% | 37.5% | 12.5% | To what extent does the government consult with societal actors to support its policy?[Rated 1 to 10] |
| Public and service user complaints | ||||||||
| Complaint mechanisms | RLI | Expert assessment | No | None | 100.0% | 12.5% | 12.5% | Average of 5 opinion/assessment items measuring whether people are able to complain about public services/officials, how government responds. [Normalised index ranging from 0 to 1] |
| Government data availability and usability | ||||||||
| Open data impact | ODB | Expert assessment | No | None | 33.3% | 30.0% | 10.0% | How governments are publishing and using open data for accountability, innovation and social impact. [Index ranging from 0 to 100] |
| Open data extent | OKI | Mix of public opinion survey and expert assessment | No | None | 33.3% | 30.0% | 10.0% | Assessment of the ‘openness’ of government datasets. [Index ranging from 0 to 100] |
| Reusable data | OECD | Government assessment | No | None | 33.3% | 30.0% | 10.0% | Assesses government’s open data efforts across the domains of openness, usefulness and reusability. [Index ranging from 0 to 100] |
| Right to information | ||||||||
| Right to information | RLI | Mix of public opinion survey and expert assessment | No | None | 50.0% | 10.0% | 5.0% | Average of 25 opinion/assessment items on how government handles requests for information. [Normalised index ranging from 0 to 1] |
| Access to information [new] | SGI | Expert assessment | No | None | 50.0% | 10.0% | 5.0% | To what extent can citizens obtain official information? [Rated 1 to 10] |
| Published laws | ||||||||
| Published laws | RLI | Mix of public opinion survey and expert assessment | No | None | 100.0% | 10.0% | 10.0% | Average of 17 opinion/assessment items on how whether laws and legal rights are publicly available (including in plain language). [Normalised index ranging from 0 to 1] |
| Tables 3.2.A & 3.2.B in the original 2019 publication | ||||||||
4.1 Imputation of missing data
None of the 38 countries selected for the 2019 edition of InCiSE have completely missing data for the openness metrics. As a result the imputation of missing data for the openness metrics is based solely on the data within the indicator.
4.2 Changes from the 2017 Pilot
Compared to the 2017 Pilot, an additional metric from the Bertelsmann Sustainable Governance Indicators on access to information has been identified and added to the indicator.