Kundra, Chopra say most open-government plans need more work
After a first assessment of agencies' plans to increase openness, administration officials say most organizations have more work to do.
The Health and Human Services and Transportation departments and NASA are the only three government organizations with plans that met all the requirements of the Obama administration's open-government directive, according to the first assessment of all agencies' road maps.
Agencies and departments released their transparency road maps earlier this month and administration officials have been working with those organizations to evaluate them against the directive, released last December.
Although administration officials found the open government plans of Transportation, HHS and NASA achieved the requirements and took steps that might serve as models for other agencies, governmentwide the situation was more mixed.
All cabinet departments and major agencies submitted plans that “make significant strides towards open government as called for in the directive,” Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra and Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra wrote on the White House blog. However, the officials said the initial assessments show the government still has “much more work to do as we transition our overall efforts towards effective agency implementation.”
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Departments and agencies were also scored on the process in which they formulated the plan, and the transparency, participation, collaboration and flagship transparency program aspects of their plans.
The administration released the results in a dashboard that’s checkered with green and yellow. None of the organizations received a red for failing to meet expectations.
“There are important lessons to be learned not only from the government’s self-evaluation efforts, but also from the reviews and recommendations that we’re receiving from outside groups and individuals,” the officials wrote. “Some of the constructive criticisms are already being incorporated, while others are sparking new thoughts and approaches to how agencies are pressing forward with their initiatives.”
OpenTheGovernment.org, a coalition of outside advocates and experts, has also been scoring the road maps against the directive’s requirements and plans to release its evaluations April 30. Amy Bennett, a program associate with the group, called the dashboard is a great accountability tool.