In late January President Obama published an Memorandum on Transparency. Here it is (I've added the bold):
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Transparency and Open Government
My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.
Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.
Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government’s effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.
Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.
I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum. The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.
This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
Last week the UK Government published a new document called ‘Working Together - Public Services on your side’ outlining its vision for public sector reform.
This contains the comments below in the Strategic Government section which refer to the Power of Information Taskforce report:
Delivering transparency
A focus on outcomes is only meaningful when it is combined with clear and reliable information on performance. Transparency that delivers accessible and useful information on the performance of services and the outcomes they achieve is at the heart of our strategy for improving public services.
The independent Power of Information Task Force published its report on 2 March. The report contained 25 challenging recommendations to government aimed at improving the use of information in this new world. The Task Force’s work has been recognised internationally as providing a cutting-edge vision, with examples of what modern public service delivery might be.
The Government welcomes the task force’s vision, accepts its overall
messages and will be responding on the detailed recommendations
shortly. We are already taking steps to implement this vision and in
2009 we will seek to deliver the following:
Open information. To have an effective voice,
people need to be able to understand what is going on in their public
services. Government will publish information about public services in
ways that are easy to find,easy to use, and easy to re-use, and will
unlock data, where appropriate, through the work of the Office of
Public Sector Information.
Open innovation. We will promote innovation in online public services to respond to changing expectations. The Government will seek to build on the early success of innovate.direct.gov.uk by building such innovation into the culture of public services and public sector websites.
Open discussion. We will promote greater engagement with the public through more interactive online consultation and collaboration. We will also empower professionals to be active on online peer-support networks in their area of work.
Open feedback. Most importantly, the public should be able to have a fair say about their services. The Government will publish best practice in engaging with the public in large numbers online, drawing on the experience of the www.showusabetterway.com competition and the www.londonsummit.gov.uk, as well as leading private sector examples like www.ideastorm.com.
It's amazing just how much political currancy and baggage is now hanging on the word transparency. Sunlight's London based designer, Kerry Mitchell, has come up with this brilliant visualization that shows the mentions of the word “transparency” in The New York Times from 1990 until 2009.
Think of it as a clock. 1 o’clock would be the early ’90s and 11 o’clock being 2008/2009. As you go around the clock the instances of the word increase. Each line is a month of time.
Kerry didn’t write the code that generates the image. The visualization was created with Processing, and makes use of The New York Times Article API. The Processing code comes from a tutorial available from blprnt.com.
Some time ago, I did need to buy a car for my organization but I didn't earn enough money and could not purchase anything. Thank God my fellow adviced to take the home loans at trustworthy creditors. Hence, I acted that and was happy with my collateral loan.
Posted by: RileyCORINNE29 | June 12, 2011 at 09:59 PM