IMPORTANT: MSF meeting with Minister + Thematic Groups

UK Open Government Network
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Hi all

I hope you are well.

Following the recent letter to the Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office, Julia Lopez, the first Multistakeholder Forum (MSF) has now been confirmed, with the Minister as co-chair. It will take place on Tuesday 13th April.

This will begin the process of developing the UK’s next (fifth) National Action Plan as part of its membership of the Open Government Partnership.

Due to the short timescale, attendees from civil society to the first MSF will be those who attended the pre-meeting in December 2020.

A draft Terms of Reference has been developed (which includes the possibility of changing MSF members).

The Terms of Reference also details some of the key opportunities civil society will have to engage with the process of developing the National Action Plan including:

  • Thematic Groups

These will bring together subject-matter specialists from civil society and government to co-create recommendations for inclusion in the National Action Plan.

There are currently nine proposed Thematic Groups: Open Procurement / Contracting; Open Justice; Data Ethics (Algorithmic Transparency); Health; Misinformation; Freedom of Information; The Environment, Climate Change, Net Zero; Democracy building | Processes and models; Public Standards and Accountability.

An Expression of Interest form will be shared on here (and more widely) for involvement in these groups very soon.

Appreciative it’s a holiday weekend but if you could add any comments to the Draft Terms of Reference by 12 noon on Tuesday April 6th, that would be great.

And any comments / questions welcome below too.

Best wishes

Kevin

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I appreciate this may be quite late, but is there potential for tenth theme on Global Britain, ie data relating to the UK’s overseas impact (beyond aid spending) and the implementation of the Government’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy?

This could, for example, include better data on arms exports, stolen asset recovery, international money laundering, sovereign debts to UK Export Finance etc. (see https://bit.ly/2QWydVr for more examples) and could be relevant to a range of development CSOs as well as those working on debt, arms, corruption etc.

Justin

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Thanks for this @JustinMoore I will raise this with the committee and with secretariat too. It may be there are overlaps with some of the existing thematic groups. I would certainly recommend attending the open contracting / open procurement thematic group. But leave with me. Will come back to you.