2. Finland joined the OGP in order to get a new boost to her continuous work towards active citizen participation and open government. Finland’s
first Action Plan was drafted “as openly as we were able to” as Ms. Katju Holkeri, financial counsellor in the Ministry of Finance and chairman of
the OGP working group has expressed. The working group is a mix of civil society and civil servants. When drafting the Action Plan several open
workshops to all citizens with video-streaming and twitter-feedback were arranged. Discussion forums and crowd-sourcing were used. Members
of the working group even occupied a large shopping mall one Sunday and attracted the attention of citizens with free coffee to discuss open
government and barriers to citizen participation.
The cross-cutting theme of the Finnish Action Plan is citizen’s participation. Our commitments cover four working-areas: Open Procedures, Clear
Language, Open Knowledge and Government as an enabler. The commitments in the first three categories are mainly actions that government
has to implement. As for the fourth area, the main actor is civil society.
The implementation of Finnish Action Plan started on the first of July 2013. So far work on most of our commitments has started. Clear Language
as a working-area has stood out as a critical enabler of open government.
3. Open Government Partnership
OGP was launched 2011
Transparency, efficiency, accountability
8 founders, now 62 members
Finland joined in April 2013
Implementing the Finnish Action Plan started in
1.7.2013
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4. Principles of Open Government in Finland
Citizens Rights
Openness
Accountability
Coverage
Consolidation
Resources
Evaluation and continuous development
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5. Open procedures
Enhancing the openness of preparatory
processes
Emphasizing dialogue skills in the job
descriptions of civil servants
Strengthening proactive publishing and
communication
Promoting participatory budgeting
Increasing openness and customer
orientation in ICT and e-services
development Increasing the number of
open and online meetings
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6. Clear language
Standard language titles and resumes will be drafted of
the Government proposals.
Visualization of decisions
Training will be organised for civil servants in use of
clear language and plain language including
committing to use of terms already known.
The comprehensibility of the texts produced by public
administration will be tested together with citizens and
service users.
Standardizing and clarifying the terms and concepts
used in public administration and service production.
The comprehensibility of customer letters and
decisions will be enhanced, especially when using
standard texts.
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7. Open knowledge
Opening and publishing new data and
changing existing open data into a
machine-readable form.
Clear terms for use of for open data and
knowledge
Strengthening skills needed to understand
combining privacy and open data and
strengthening the citizen’s right to his/her
own personal information “the right to be
anonymous”
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8. Government as an Enabler
Tearing down barriers of action of the
civil society
The proactive presence and
accessibility of civil servants
Providing tools and training to
organizations
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