Here are the comments made by citizens through the form published for this purpose.

• Dear friends: I want to know if in addition to the consultation form they will develop other activities open to the citizen for the development of that public consultation process associated with the OGP Process in Spain. I also want to know if the answers they give to citizens in the use of this form, will be public and known by all in order to know what the citizens ask and what is the response given by the government, paying attention in any case to the LOPD.

• You have many pdf files with which you do not facilitate the consultation of the information.

• The background of the idea of self-evaluation is excellent, and I congratulate you, I would only recommend improving the methodology of evaluation of the same commitments. Using other compliance parameters making a more timely and pedagogical explanation. I am a predoctoral researcher at the UAM, my subjects are open government and I am at your service if I can collaborate with you on anything.

• Access Info Europe considers that both the II Action Plan that Spain presented in 2014 and the self-evaluation plan are of very low quality and in very little they are going to achieve a change towards an Open Government in Spain. One of the commitments made within the framework of the Open Government Partnership is the use of specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-oriented indicators (SMART criteria). However, both the Plan and the evaluation lack this type of indicators, making it very difficult to correctly and properly monitor them. There is a clear lack of political will on the part of the Spanish Government to effectively implement the commitments and principles of the Open Government Partnership (OGP). This lack of will is perceived not only with respect to the lack of information and participation mechanisms of civil society but also due to the low ambition of the different measures implemented. This aspect has already been transmitted by Access Info Europe to the OGP Monitoring Committee through a formal complaint, as will be seen below. As an example of this, it has been identified that currently the deficiencies and problems detected in the Transparency Portal persist; once again, policies that have nothing to do with this matter are considered open government and confusion is maintained in terms of Open Government and e-government measures. On the other hand, despite having spent a year and a half since the entry into force of the Transparency Law, the Regulation has not yet been approved. From Access Info Europe we want to draw positive attention to the work of the Council of Transparency and Good Governance, since we believe that an effort is being made to act as an independent body defending the right of access to information and stimulating the debate on these issues. Appreciating the possibility of sending you our comments - related mainly to the axis of transparency and to that of citizen participation -, we are attentive to a response to them. We also take this opportunity to appeal to the Government and ask that the action plan that it must present in 2016 be of higher quality and speak more about improving open government in Spain. At the same time, we call for the improvement of public consultation systems and mechanisms to effectively enable civil society to work with the government to achieve shared goals. Attentively, Access Info Europe

1. Transparency The commitment to create a transparency portal is not new since it was in the first action plan and is a legal obligation assumed in the transparency law. Despite the progress of having a transparency portal, there are still some considerable deficiencies in the design and development of the portal:

Information request system: In practice, requests for access to information through the portal can only be made by Spanish citizens and residents of Spain who have an electronic ID or a specific access code that is very difficult to obtain. This fact makes the Transparency Portal a deterrent to the right of access to information, an aspect even recognised by the Ombudsman following a complaint lodged by Access Info Europe. Although this aspect has been denounced by civil society, the Government’s inaction so far in this regard is worrying. The self-assessment report submitted by the Government itself acknowledges the need to continue working to improve and facilitate requests for access to information. Access Info welcomes this statement, although we believe that an evaluation document is intended precisely to evaluate and not to make promises. Recommendation: Establishment as soon as possible of a more publicly accessible application system, including consultations with civil society during this process.

Lack of information and analysis regarding the data and statistics of visits on the website of the portal. This aspect limits the possibilities of evaluating the "usability" of the portal with an alarmingly low number of requests for information. The Government informs in its report that the visits to the portal up to September amount to more than 3,800,000 in terms of page views, likewise it is said that up to September 2015 2,850 consultations have been carried out for right of access, a practically insignificant amount if we take into account the 47 million inhabitants of Spain. There is no reading or analysis regarding the considerable difference between the number of visits on the web and the number of requests for access; when those responsible in the Ministry of Presidency were asked about it they attributed the difference to that "the user has found the information he needs", without questioning whether the identification system can be a limiting factor of this right of access to information. On the other hand, only aggregated data on the resolution of requests for access to information are provided. The only data provided in the report state that 94% of the requests have been resolved, with an administrative silence of 1.2%. Access Info considers this information insufficient for proper accountability and evaluation. The type of responses offered are not detailed in the report. According to the data available to Access Info Europe and based on our experience, quite a few answers are partial or incomplete and partial denials of information. In addition, in many cases, the answer is to refer to the non-application of the Transparency Act in the matter requested by the Transparency Act, referring to the application of other legislation in this regard and, on multiple occasions, without providing the details or contact information on how to make the request.
Recommendation: Provide data disaggregated by type of response to allow for proper monitoring by civil society.

As for the administrative silence figures offered, the main problem that we find ourselves as users of the portal is the time it takes for the Government to register requests (from which time it begins to count the time it has to respond). For example, with a request from Access Info Europe, it took the government about three weeks to register it and then replied about four weeks later.

Recommendation: Include in the report a measurement of the average response time and that this is taken into account from the moment the request is made by the user.

2.- Lack of participation mechanisms in the evaluation process of the action plan It is disappointing that after almost 4 years of involvement in the Open Government Alliance, the government of Spain has not dedicated efforts to establish a greater dialogue with civil society. Most of the indicators and sources of verification provided on participation in the different commitments undertaken are practically exclusively limited to the use of social networks by the Government. On October 5, Access Info Europe sent a formal complaint to the Committee to follow up the OGP, which included:

No communication mechanisms have been established to allow dialogue with civil society and facilitate consultation procedures on plans and evaluations. This aspect includes the absence of aspects such as: an identifiable and accessible point or contact person; the establishment of a website, there is only one space enabled within the website of www.transparencia.gob.es but that has very little information about the process and that was created on October 15, 2015; or the publication of information about OGP proactively.

Unlike previous consultations on open government plans and evaluations, this time the consultation has been published on the transparency portal website and it seems that the Government has proactively contacted civil society organizations to provide input. However, from Access Info Europe we believe that the Government should invest more efforts in facilitating this consultation and in its communication to citizens since it has to be done through an electronic form and our data show that to date only 8 tweets have been published (two on 25 September and two on 29 September, one on 6, 7, 8 and 9 October respectively) to disseminate the possibility of participation, which is a fundamental part of the Open Government Partnership process.

A year and a half after the entry into force of the Transparency Act, the Transparency Act Regulations have not yet been approved. The government sent a very limited draft to civil society for input, which not only fails to clarify key terminology – such as what an "internal report" is – but extends it further, making access even more difficult, for example, by excluding any document that "contains opinions" from the scope of the law. Comments on the draft were sent from Access Info Europe in July 2015 but no response has yet been received from the Government.

The Second Action Plan did not establish any real commitment to increase citizens’ participation in decision-making processes. We find some references as in the third commitment on the creation of a social network in order to increase the participation of the educational community, but the indicators provided confirm that this commitment is more related to sharing knowledge and not to a shared decision-making process. On the other hand, despite the fact that the Plan has included a formal mechanism of participation in the eighth commitment to create the Spanish Council of Drug Addiction and Other Addictions, no indicators related to participation are provided.

Recommendation: Establishing mechanisms and concrete measures for communication and dialogue with civil society.

Recommendation: Respond to each input received during the consultations by explaining how the inputs have been used. This includes making public the number of contributions received and the content (previously asking the authors of the same). From Access Info Europe we want to draw positive attention to the work of the Council of Transparency and Good Governance. Despite the limitations of this body, both in terms of competences and resources, derived from its conception in the Transparency Act itself, it is making an effort to act as an independent body defending the right of access to information and stimulating debate on the subject. An example of good practice can be found in the public consultation that was held on the draft of its strategic plan. In this process, an effort was made to disseminate the draft among as many civil society organizations as possible and the contributions were published as well as a dossier with the responses to the contributions of each organization. Likewise, it is noted that the organization Reporters Without Borders, Spanish Section (member of the pro-access coalition), subscribes to the present comments.