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New contributions to the III Open Government Plan

The new contributions received for the III Open Government Plan are announced below.

They are ordered in ascending order of reception of the contributions.

A.C.M.F (21-04-2017)

  • It is a proposal of normative quality that affects future normative projects that may affect the subjective rights and interests of citizens and companies. Currently, only the "economic criteria" (articles 129 et seq.) are assessed by all Public Administrations according to Law 39/2015, of 1 October, on common administrative procedure, on a basic basis. I propose that "social and environmental criteria" be incorporated in detail in Royal Decree 1083/2009, of July 3, which regulates the memory of normative analysis. In its article 2.2 they are only mentioned but not developed. The idea is to develop these criteria by concretizing them: affecting vulnerable groups (elderly, minors, disabled), corporate social responsibility, information transparency, parity, etc... Even if it is only for the General Administration of the State, it could be an example for the other Public Administrations, especially the autonomous ones.

P.F.G (21-04-2017)

  • It is desirable to provide additional transparency in the identification of public officials involved in judicial proceedings where there may be economic interests of the public sector at stake. In order to also clarify the compatibilities of the "revolving doors", it is requested the introduction in the III Open Government Plan that officials representing the state in economic proceedings (administrative litigation) are identified with names and surnames (such as judges) and not with a generic "State Attorney".

Ex. http://www.poderjudicial.es/stfls/PODERJUDICIAL/JURISPRUDENCIA/FICHERO/20131106%20TSCA%20REC%202736.2010.pdf

S.C.M (22-04-2017)

  • The III Open Government Plan should include among its axes of action or priorities the full incorporation of all Consular Civil Registries into the electronic and unique Civil Registry system, allowing, on the one hand, the immediate forwarding by these Registries, exclusively digitally, of the relevant information to the Central Civil Registry, such as full telematic communication with the rest of Civil Registries in Spain. Likewise, the necessary measures must be adopted so that citizens can also request from the Consular Civil Registries, electronically, the literal certificates of birth, marriage and death corresponding to the inscriptions and annotations they make in their books.

A.P.R (24-04-2017)

  • Plan to declassify and publish official secrets such as in the United Kingdom, the United States or Sweden. To include in the Reform of Law 9/1968, of April 5, on official secrets that the Plenary of the Congress of Deputies, in its session of November 29, 2016, has taken into consideration the Proposed Law of reform of Law 9/1968, of April 5, on official secrets, published in the «BOCG. Congress of Deputies», series B, no. 32-1, of September 16, 2016.

M.A.L.L (25-04-2017)

  • Include a training program for officials on transparency and access to information. Unify criteria across all CCAA for active advertising. In other words, the systematics of the information offered are as similar as possible, sharing concepts of blocks of information. In another case, that this unifying work is done from the national eremu. It is currently a mess.

Consumer and User Council (26-04-2017)

CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE CCU FOR ITS ASSESSMENT FOR THE THIRD OPEN GOVERNMENT ACTION PLAN

The Council of Consumers and Users (CCU) is the body of representation and consultation at the national level of consumer and user organizations with State implementation, and holds the institutional representation of consumer and user organizations before the General Administration of the State or other entities and bodies, of a State or supranational nature. The CCU is currently composed of nine consumer organizations. Contributions of the CCU to the III Plan:

  • 1. The CCU highlights the importance of inclusion in the III Information Action Plan.Given the dispersal of regulations and competences, aimed at training consumers on the various bodies responsible for the protection of their rights and the competences of each of them according to the subject matter of the complaint. These actions would promote rapid access to public consumer protection. The training measures that could be adopted should take into account the existing digital divide and be designed in such a way that they could reach all groups. The CCU also highlights the importance of enhancing consumer and user education programs through the public media, in accordance with the provisions contained in article 17 of Royal Legislative Decree 1/2007, of November 16, which approves the revised text of the General Law for the Defense of Consumers and Users and other complementary laws. It is considered appropriate to define a more specific and complementary area of competence in relation to the rules and regulations to be applied in the field of consumer protection. It is essential to include European regulations and guidelines or those arising within the common space of debate, such as a compendium or collection of regulations related to consumer protection, repertoire of jurisprudence or similar informative actions. The interrelationship with all European regulations on consumer protection is fundamental. In terms of training, the objective would be to ensure that financial education becomes relevant in a real way in the school curriculum in the Spanish educational framework, especially through criteria and independent entities. In this area, the active participation of consumer associations is important, especially through a national financial education plan.
  • 2. The Council is configured as a body of representation and consultation at national level through the most representative consumer organizations to defend the interests of consumers and users and influence the decision-making that is adopted by the public authorities in relation to consumer policy. Article 8(e) of Royal Legislative Decree 1/2007 provides for the right of consumers to be heard in consultation, to participate in the procedure for drawing up general provisions that directly affect them and to represent their interests, through associations, groupings, federations or confederations of consumers and legally constituted users. This participation in the elaboration of the rules is exercised on many occasions with serious difficulties due to certain factors such as: the scarce deadlines for the formulation of claims; the lack of knowledge of how they are finally materialized or whether they have been taken into consideration in the final texts or the lack of knowledge about the contributions made by other social agents and market operators and their influence on the final versions of the rules under study. It is therefore proposed, on the one hand, to adopt the necessary measures to be able to exercise the right of participation under suitable conditions, with extension of administrative deadlines when necessary. And, on the other hand, the provision to the Council, and to all citizens, of instruments through which the content of the files relating to the rules subject to public consultation or hearing procedures that directly or indirectly affect consumers is accessed. In this phase of participation in the elaboration of norms, documents and meetings in the processing and approval of laws, decrees and norms acquire a great impact. The Transparency Act excludes working documents and drafts of the standard. For a consumer it is almost impossible to follow the process of approving a law and, much less, to know which actors and documents have participated in that process, and what contributions they have made in it. Therefore, the proposal involves the publication, together with each law (in the ‘analysis’ section of the BOE), decree-law and approved decree, of a legislative footprint report that includes actors and documents and how they have affected the final text. In relation to this same right, the CCU also raises the need to carry out a review of the functioning of the participation bodies. The Council participates in more than 60 collegiate bodies and some of them are inactive or malfunctioning either because of: their limited meetings; the short time frame for the examination of documentation related to the relevant agenda; the lack of balance between the number of members assigned to represent consumers and the other participants in the body; or the lack of publicity of the matters dealt with in the consultation bodies, among other circumstances. In order to alleviate these obstacles, it is proposed to carry out a detailed examination of the existing situation in relation to the exercise of the right of consultation, representation and participation of citizens through the organizations and, subsequently, the adoption of measures that ensure the existence of dynamic, participatory, transparent and effective consultative bodies where consumers’ concerns and proposals that improve their position in the market and respect their legitimate interests can be reached. These measures must seek to promote and favor a real system of negotiation that brings together all the social actors interested, where the power to intervene is greater and more real, and not only the possibility of knowing an administrative text to comply with the citizenship, without real possibility of modifying something.
  • 3. The diversity of agencies, outside the consumer administrations, to which citizens can send their queries or complaints as consumers and the lack of a mechanism that centralizes all the activity generated thereby, prevents the country from having global statistics on the subjects, sectors and quantitative data related to consumer protection. This lack of coordination prevents, in turn, the annual monitoring of the levels of compliance with consumer rights by the different market operators and the evolution of the consultations and complaints submitted. The CCU proposes to establish plans and mechanisms for coordination and transfer of information from the different bodies responsible for collecting and processing the annual complaints submitted by consumers and users to these bodies (AESA, AEPD, SETSI, CNMC, DGSFP, BDE…) and to prepare with these data the corresponding annual report, to which the data corresponding to the complaints processed by the consumer associations will be added. It is proposed to encourage the creation of an independent monitoring or observation instrument, either through a study service or observatory in relation to consultations, as well as a regulatory or monitoring body.
  • 4. The protection of consumers’ rights cannot be effective unless genuine supervision systems are put in place with effective, real and proportional sanctioning capacity to the economic damage caused to consumers by the sale of a product/service or by a certain abusive practice, and which also includes compensation to the consumer. The CCU calls for greater publicity, and accessibility, regarding the sanctions imposed on market operators who have violated consumer protection regulations. This information must be available to consumers in order to provide them with a reflective, responsible and safe choice of the suppliers of the goods and services with which they are willing to contract. In addition, it would promote market transparency and promote healthy competition between market operators. In addition to the information on sanctions imposed, it is important to have information on the inspection instruments and the rapid, effective and economically acceptable penalty system for consumers, where there is a single register or a single point of information on the subject. Therefore, it is proposed to encourage the publication of lists, actions of malpractice and/or sanctions received by entities or companies. Likewise, it is also necessary to provide citizen-consumers with instruments that provide uniform information on the inspection campaigns that are managed by consumer administrations at state and regional level, and on the opening of the subsequent sanction files for infringement of consumer protection rules.
  • 5. The CCU also proposes measures aimed at greater openness, ease and gratuitousness for the access of consumers to certain basic data contained in the Central Commercial Register with respect to companies marketing goods and services. This access would make it easier for consumers to file, and possible compensation, claims against those companies that do not face up to their obligations by changing their company name or address. Access to the data related to the ups and downs of the directors of these companies is especially significant in relation to those that, as usually happens in distance selling, only provide a post office as a contact address. These measures would reduce fraud and lead to a healthier market. There are regulatory bodies that nevertheless seem non-existent and disappear into the tangle of political-economic interests. It is important that there is publicity and demonstration of the alternatives regarding the mechanisms of conflict resolution either through collective justice, extrajudicial justice, etc. In relation to this opening of access to the basic data contained in the Central Commercial Register with regard to marketing companies, it is proposed to introduce an identification that allows in a clear, public and uniform way to identify those companies that are adhering to an alternative dispute resolution system in consumer matters, in compliance with European Directive 2013/11/EU, with the aim of guaranteeing consumers access to alternative dispute resolution mechanisms that effectively protect their rights. It is important to encourage and encourage the existence of this single register or similar body that promotes information on consumer related entities, including banks and/or credit institutions in relation to their mergers, takeovers etc. 6. It is necessary to seek the impartiality of the supervisory bodies, which are currently highly politicized. With the independence of these institutions, it is guaranteed that the decisions taken respond to the collective good. To certify this impartiality, specific criteria must be established for the designation of management positions.

A.C.B (26-04-2017)

  • Let’s put an end to the Senate and the Deputies, we can’t continue with these absurd expenses.

SPANISH ARCHIVISTS IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE AEFP (30-04-2017)

  • In order to demonstrate that the use of the ARCHIVE application means more than a measure of improvement in the implementation of e-government, we want to propose within the framework of this Plan, a practical application of ARCHIVE aimed at the electronic management of the procedures of access to public information, which is a "realistic, viable objective and that can be fulfilled in a period of two years" as expressed in the evaluation criteria of the contributions for the III Open Government Plan, as well as a clear, specific measure, with measurable results, which uses the technology of ARCHIVE to contribute "unequivocally to the openness of the Government".

Currently, the application for the Management of Access Requests (GESAT) has as its main function the management of the files related to access requests and, therefore, it is one of the main modules that interacts with the Transparency Portal. The proposal is to transform the electronic procedure for accessing public information managed through GESAT into a procedure that fully responds to the requirements of the National Interoperability Scheme (ENI) and the National Security Scheme (ENS), and that can be integrated into the final electronic archive application Archive (through the tools provided by Inside, also taking into account the European project E-Ark). In this way, in addition to ensuring that the procedure for access to public information is transformed into a procedure fully adapted to the digital Administration according to Law 39/2015, of 1 October, on the Common Administrative Procedure of Public Administrations, it will be facilitated that the information and data generated by said procedure can be freely consulted by all citizens through the Transparency Portal itself, once they have been turned into the Archive application. This would make the applications, the resolutions (both duly anonymised) and the information that, where appropriate, is granted to the applicants through GESAT, freely accessible to all (something like "transparency of transparency") with the exceptions provided in the transparency law and in the rest of the regulations.

Access Info Europe (30-04-2017)

  • Proposal 1: Amendment of the Law on Transparency, Access to Information and Good Governance by improving

All the shortcomings of this have been criticized by civil society and experts at national and international level.

Spain’s First Plan of Action of Open Government included as one of its main commitments the elaboration and approval of a Transparency Law resulting from the legislative authority of the Government, as well as from the existing political will to advance in transparency and open government. Four years after its adoption and after its entry into force, the law continues to show significant shortcomings in moving towards a regime of real transparency. The law is in position 77 of 111 countries with transparency laws, obtaining 73 points, far from the 150 that according to the Global Access to Information Rating have the laws that fully guarantee the right of access to information. Having a good Transparency Law is one of the essential pillars of open government, therefore, civil society continues to demand a law in line with international standards. Considering that Article 87 of the Spanish Constitution grants legislative initiative to the Government and that legislative measures have already been included in previous OGP plans, there is no legal and practical obstacle to carrying out this reform of the Law other than the absence of political will.

The Government has a very good opportunity to demonstrate this commitment and political will with transparency, including the modification of Law 19/2013 in the III Open Government Action Plan. Among the improvements that should be included are:

  1. Recognition of the right of access to information as a fundamental right, following the call made by more than 50 Spanish academics in December 2016.
  2. To extend the scope of the Law to all public institutions, the three branches of government, all public companies and those private companies that manage public services.
  3. To limit the causes of inadmissibility and Additional Provision 1.2 on special regimes of access to information by establishing a limited, proportional system and subject to evidence of harm and public interest.
  4. Improve supervision and sanction mechanisms by giving greater weight to the Congress of Deputies in the appointment of the President of the Transparency Council and granting the latter inspector and sanctioning power.

  • Proposal 2: Prepare the regulations for the development of the transparency law 19/2013

The Transparency Act was passed in 2013 and almost 4 years later, the Regulation has not yet been developed. This aspect is particularly worrying if one takes into account the large number of articles of Law 19/2013 that refer to the subsequent regulatory development and that are generating problems and legal uncertainty in practice. According to Article 97 of the Spanish Constitution, the Government is responsible for regulatory authority. In addition, according to the seventh final provision of Law 19/2013, the Government, within the scope of its competences, may issue as many provisions as are necessary for the implementation and development of the provisions of Law 19/2013. Regardless of the possible reforms of Law 19/2013 that are going to be debated in Parliament, the Government has the obligation to approve the Regulation for the development of the rule that has already been in force for several years. Therefore, the Third Open Government Action Plan must include among the measures the regulatory development of Law 19/2013 with the participation of civil society.

  • Proposal 3: Proactive transparency improvements by the AGE

Law 19/2013 of transparency that establishes minimum obligations of transparency but depends on the political will the improvement and expansion of the obligations of transparency contained in the Law. In order to implement transformative measures of open government, political will is essential and Law 19/2013 leaves ample scope to carry them out. In this regard, the Third Open Government Action Plan must include among its commitments the elaboration of a regulation or Plan to expand the proactive publication of information with the participation of civil society (and that includes measures to guarantee compliance).

The measures should include, at a minimum, the proactive publication of:

- Complete agendas of work of senior officials and management: including the documents exchanged during the meetings.
- The names and salaries of the contingent and trusted personnel.
- Detailed travel expenses and daily subsistence allowance for each senior position and management, as already done by the CGPJ.
- Publication of all requests for access to information and their responses.

  • Proposal 4: Ensure the proactive creation and publication of key information related to decision-making processes.

Law 19/2013 of transparency that establishes minimum obligations of transparency, but it depends on the political will to improve and expand the obligations of transparency contained in the Law. In order to implement transformative measures of open government, political will is essential and Law 19/2013 leaves ample scope to carry them out. In this regard, the Third Open Government Action Plan must include among its commitments the elaboration of a regulation or Plan to ensure the proactive creation and publication of key information related to decision-making processes (which includes, but is not limited to, the Legislative Footprint). This Plan must involve civil society and include measures to ensure compliance. The identified information to be published includes at least: minutes of meetings, documents received from third parties, legal advice, advice on policies and justifications for decisions taken.

  • Proposition 5: Identification Requirements to request information.

In order to achieve greater transparency, it is essential that citizens have access to public information through a simple, fast system that does not require more data from the applicant for access to the information than those strictly necessary to access the information, that is: a name, the information to be accessed and an address where to send the information. The procedure created by the Government, in particular the Ministry of the Presidency, to exercise the right to request information is complex, exclusive and time-consuming. The Transparency Law 19/2013 establishes in its article 17.2 that “the application may be submitted by any means that allows to have proof of the identity of the applicant; the information requested; a contact address, preferably electronic, for the purposes of communications; where appropriate, the preferred modality to access the information requested”. However, the Government only allows applications to be sent face-to-face, via postal mail and telematically through the transparency portal, excluding the use of e-mail, and obliging to deliver the ID or electronic certificate in order to request information. These requirements are being an obstacle to the exercise, in fact, the President of the Council of Transparency and Good Governance has stated on several occasions that this system should be reviewed to speed up the process. The government has long said that it is working on an identification system to request simple, fast and free information to improve the current limited system. However, civil society does not have information on these works. Introducing this measure into the open government plan would ensure that it is introduced with the participation of civil society and taking into account different points of view and the needs of the citizenry. Therefore, the III Action Plan of Open Government of Spain must include among its actions to be carried out during its first year of validity, counting on the participation of civil society, the establishment of a system of request for access to information simple and fast, allowing to send requests through email.

  • Proposition 6. Reduction in response times to requests for access to information

In order to implement transformative measures of open government, political will is essential and Law 19/2013 leaves ample scope to carry them out. Beyond legal obligations, guidelines, orders or other measures can be established with the participation of civil society (and including measures that ensure compliance) that reduce in practice the response times. Public authorities must ensure that at all stages of decision-making processes civil society has access to the information necessary to participate and that it is in clear and understandable language. To do so, requests for information necessary to participate must be answered as soon as possible and, undoubtedly, by one with sufficient time to allow such participation. The II Action Plan should include improvements in the timelines for responding to requests for access to information that allow civil society to participate in decision-making processes. To do this, the deadlines must never exceed 15 days and start counting from the day on which the request is sent.

  • Proposition 7: Create a permanent forum for dialogue with civil society within the framework of the OGP in Spain

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multilateral initiative that seeks to make governments more transparent, accountable and responsive to their citizens. This requires a change in standards and culture to ensure genuine dialogue and collaboration between government and civil society. The Government, through the Directorate-General for Public Governance, has initiated a process of developing the third most participatory Action Plan and has committed itself to the creation of the permanent forum for dialogue with civil society. We consider it essential that representatives of the different Ministries and institutions at the State level, such as the Transparency Council, participate in the Forum to promote dialogue and a meeting space between them and civil society.