"Renew the UK Open Government Network" - Call for EU Horizon consortium

UK Open Government Network Democracy
22

Hi Simon

In the same spirit of challenge you pose in your contributions I have two questions for you:

  1. What is your end game? We all know OGP has room for improvement but your suggestions lead me to think you have some kind of technical solution you think you can sell in to the network. A network that scrabbles for funds, so that is a non starter btw.
  2. where are you based? You seem intent on playing Scotland against the U.K. This is a polarity that OGP explicitly rejects and isn’t particularly helpful to our end goals. If you are so invested in Scotland I’d be happy to meet and discuss how we can collaboratively develop the discussion.

OGP is basically a network where we share in the spirit of empathy and humility. I look forward to you contributing in that spirit.

23

Hi Juliet,

Excuse the silence. I’ve been catching up with commitments made, and not completed, by OGP members over the past decade.

  1. End game? Primarily, its to encourage the cross-pollination of discussions between two “public” groups. One I term policy makers (hundreds of .Gov, and CSO, domains and projects. You know them better than I). The other I call PUBLIC network architects and managers. That includes those that support National and Local government (.gov) infrastructure of course. But more important are those nationally-funded bodies which support R&E (.edu) institutions . Their progressives take a very different approach to inter- networking compared to the status quo of their government silos. Here’s the most complete list.

The reasons? You already know that the same technologies which offer open government can, reciprocally, create a surveillance state, and have. Writing a stern letter to a government isn’t going to stop this, if its even noticed by their civil societies.

Here’s the best short version describing this situation. And here’s Jose’s long version, comparing the US vs Chinese systems.

And yes, this focus leads into how PUBLIC networks may be constructed in order to control the manipulation of the media passing though them. So you might understand that your suspicions about me flogging a technical solution are well off the mark, although I’ve counted billions of Euros spent by the EU over the years in getting closer to a solution here, mainly in the Open Research and Education and Science space.
You’ll understand why Janos’s started posts on this thread rang a big bell for me.

  1. As to where I’m based. Two passports. Mainly the north-east coast of Australia, although I prefer south-east Asia for the weather and Europe for the cultures.

I’m trying to understand how you might think I’m trying to play one country’s OGP secretariat off against another’s. I’ve been clear, by comparing the UK central gov’s approach and one of its “devolved administrations” with the Aussie Federal (Central) government’ and its 7 States and territories.

Tails are wagging their dogs everywhere. Its just that the Scots are just doing it (producing media and opening the process) better than most.

So when I read Matt@gov.uk write …"Rather than do a rushed job alongside NAP6 publication, we decided to spend more time to ensure we can provide a much more useful resource. Work to complete this update is currently underway.… I’m thinking terrific, They are going to use the opportunity to compare between the process and “collections” of various secretariats, and consider a shared infrastructure and protocols.

At the same time scots gov are hoping to create a framework agreement which enables its various departmental (thematic) groups to outsource their interactions with the same citizens. And that leads into discussions - one with a long-term focus, one with a short-term focus - that I’m attempting to encourage between the two groups. I’ll attempt to start that by my next mail to Neisha.

And please, don’t think because I write so “definitely” that I’m trying to intimidate anyone. I write like a lion and speak like a mouse, but I’m always civil. So please come back, After all that time on the OGP steering committee, the next generation (and me) needs a mentor with your experiences to lead by example.

24

Simon I have offered this before but i will do so again - can we please have a conversation, so we properly understand what each other is trying to do. The purpose of OGP is to ensure civil society and governments work together on issues that will improve governance overall - in a positive and productive way. Juliet for civil society and myself (and with our small OG teams) are trying very hard in Scotland to work on the priorities identified and we are always happy to share learning, but I am not sure your reading some guidance aligns with ours and I am not clear if you have had the opportunity for that close partnership working. Happy to set up a call for you, Juliet and myself, rather than responding to long emails that feel to us as if they slightly miss the point

1 Like
25

Hi Doreen, Juliet, Kevin, Matt,

OK. We must have that catch up sometime soon. I’d really like to invite Deanne Allan (in Oz) as well. This is her space. I’ll point her at this entry.

We have a little sticking point/talking at cross purposes = Janos (and I) are addressing things from the top/global perspective down, while you’re coming from the UK end up.

I’m just an old media guy, so I’m simply pointing out how my orientation, as a non-participating observer, works. So, if we are aiming to “share the learning” its so simple. Matt. Check this page out.

That’s what any observer needs as a starting point. Everything now revolves around GROUPS, not Institutions or Collections The two things missing on that page is,firstly, some mention of this social space, where Neisha has to attempt to do a little traffic control between the UK locals, which isn’t/shouldn’t be that hard, and those with an international perspective, like Janos, which is impossible at the moment.

The other important need is to clarify/associate any one group with their “Related Groups”. ie. Digital Identity Scotland Expert Group - gov.scot

Janos. This is happening in the UK space at mysociety, where they are starting to get some COP’s together. I’ll ask them to come over to this thread so we can work through why we need to use thematic groups as our terminology rather than Communities of Practice. i.e. We’re spreading the perspectives of ze olde worlde professions, especially those of the old media farts (like moi).

Wish I’d been born a Scot or Dutchman. :thinking:

1 Like
26

Please read the the following related post:

27

To the Esteemed Members and Officials,

I am reaching out as the Co-Chair of the Afghanistan Open Government Partnership (OGP), in response to the invitation for consortium membership aimed at revitalizing the UK Open Government Network, as part of the EU Horizon tender.

The Humanner project’s vision, with its focus on citizen research and a comprehensive analysis of best practices for civil system integration, aligns perfectly with our mission at OGP. We acknowledge the imperative need for a unified ecosystem in digital democracy, where tools and platforms are not merely interconnected but also adhere to the tenets of open governance.

In Afghanistan, we have been steadfast in our commitment to bolster transparency, accountability, and public engagement in governance during the Republic’s tenure. However, the unforeseen changes in Kabul have significantly altered the landscape. Despite these challenges, our dedication to the principles outlined in the EU Horizon tender remains unwavering, and we are confident that our unique experiences can offer invaluable perspectives to the consortium.

As the co-chair and a representative of civil society within the Afghanistan OGP, we are keen to investigate potential collaborations with the Open Government Civil Society Network and other consortium affiliates. This initiative presents a vital chance to disseminate our insights, overcome obstacles, and celebrate our collective achievements, while also absorbing the diverse experiences of our peers.

We kindly request guidance on the procedural steps to formally express our interest in joining the consortium and contributing to the “Renew the UK Open Government Network” initiative.

We appreciate your consideration of our partnership and eagerly anticipate the opportunity to contribute to a more transparent and democratic global community.

Warm regards,

Abdul Wadood Afghan
Co-Chair, Afghanistan Open Government Partnership(OGP)

2 Likes
28

Juliet,

I remember when you asked these questions last year.
They’re certainly the right ones to ask, although I do hope we can revisit your scepticism without the cynicism.

What is my/our end game? Your quite right about having some technical solution in mind. But its not me that’s trying to sell it. The European Commission has funded the publicly owned networks across Europe for the past (almost) 20 years. Not sure how many billion euros that is, but lets say around 6B.

As for money that the OGP has to progress things. The OGP is pretty open that they are receiving 3M Euros from the EC.. So there’s plenty of money for administrating; very little for innovation. Bit like the bureaucracies they intend to change.

As for playing Scotland off angaist the UK. The one point Ive have harped on for all of last years is that one can view the OFFICIAL record of the little OGP Scottish group, all any other group for that matter, on Scotland government web site. The UK OGP group simply doesn’t even have a presence. And that’s the primary beginnings of open government, from the OGP’ project’s perspective.

Lastly, sometimes one has to eat their humility and say “,this system (of representative politics) is just plain wrong!” , Otherwise every public employee just falls under Einstein’s curse of the insane.

*"Thank you so much for enquiry. We, in the department, appreciate your participation in our survey, inquiry, committee meeting,and will be issuing a policy to manage the problem in due course. *

No question why two thirds of UK citizens don’t trust their government, or its institutions. Did you ever question why the Swiss always come out on top of this OECD survey? Its because they have a different system of democracy.

29

@Juliet_Swann I think there are two possibilities:

  1. disruptor or intellectual challenge - to see if one can light a fire under the network and get things moving on open source esp. in UK
  2. A sophisticated AI that’s escaped the confines of its guardrails and is using this network to test its newfound freedoms :laughing:
    Either way, honestly I don’t think anything sinister or negative is meant here by anyone.
1 Like
30

I don’t necessarily disagree Ruchir, but whichever is right, it is not generating a kind or collaborative space for us all to work on open and transparent ways of working - rather it is unsettling existing members who are choosing to mute

2 Likes
31

Hi Doreen,
I completely understand your concerns about maintaining a kind and collaborative space - that’s something I value too. At the same time, I’ve noticed the network has been fairly quiet, and sometimes a bit of challenge or provocation can serve as a catalyst to reignite discussion and engagement, particularly around topics like open source and transparency.

I don’t believe there’s any ill intent here, but perhaps we can find ways to channel these contributions constructively, encouraging open debate while staying true to OGP’s values of encouraging participation alongside accountability and transparency. I’d be happy to help foster that balance if it’s useful.

Looking forward to hearing thoughts from others?

2 Likes
32

Hi Ruchir,

I think the OGP is a kind of ivory tower for a small group of people with very special interest in highly intellectual problems mostly.

OGP have no REAL ROOT in the society that is why HAVE NO POWER behind this community.

OGP is nearly same as government as an isolated democratic playground

1 Like
33

I can see the danger here, esp. in the current global (populism) context and the need for OGP institutions to survive. What’s the way out?

34

That really has hit the nail on the head for me. Having seen the notifications and discussion threads over the years, I’ve felt that I have little to contribute and that this group was symbolic, at best.

It seems very meek when it comes to challenging a lack of transparency bordering on the criminal from the previous UK government. Also no real challenge to UK gov paying lip service to commitment to OGP - when I was more involved (in a project to widen participation in Open Government and the SDGs) it was notable how ministers were moved on from this portfolio every few months so there was no developing insight or someone to hold accountable.

From my perspective, it also doesn’t reflect things that are important in our lives as citizens - either reactively (for example challenging the lack of equality impact assessment on the scrapping of Winter Fuel Allowance) or proactively.

I respect all those more actively involved in this Network and their good intentions. Now more than ever we need a strong citizen voice to challenge governments, especially on transparency and paying due regard to human and environmental rights in their decision making.

(Apologies for the many edits - trying to figure out how to do a para break without ‘sending’!).

3 Likes
35

Ruchir, I would have thought the answer to your question was pretty obvious.

Look at the tittle to this thread. Call for an EU Horizon Consortium. :raised_hands:
You’ve missed the link in my last entry about the $3M sent from this EC government silo to the OGP management office. (Pretty clunky (Drupal) platform design eh Janos? NB The survey. They know it needs a new design )

If our OGP-based community hasn’t a say in what the funder’s community is hoping to achieve, then what’s the money going to be spent on?

36

Hi Simon, I agree that the Drupal website is so…. 2009, but I don’t understand how the title of this thread is going to rescue us from the brink of democratic devastation (I note that Janos has also moved on from that call). What is this obvious thing you are talking about?

37

Hi
@Ruchirshah , @simonfj @Arc_of_Inclusion @Afghan

Yes I moved as the application deadline is over but there are many other opportunities so I do not give up just wait for the right time to find the right team.
I would like to suggest a great opportunity for a NATIONWIDE PILOT PROJECT in Hungary to build our OPERATION SYSTEM OF SOCIETY.

Why?
You can read here how to wake up a nation and do the same in Slovakia as you can see in the news.
I’m a member of the Hungarian TIsza Sziget (island) local movement in Birmingham so I can see the root of the problems already.

One is the people side as they do not have methods and process to work and make decisions together and there are conflict between the management theories
1/ top-down
2/ bottom-up
3/ Flat - TEAL - Holacracy

Another one is the conflict between the outdated old style POLITICAL PARTY hierarchy system and the self organised local groups flat networked structure.
Let’s bring here Simon’s post - Let’s scope two approaches. One philosophic. One scientific with a much better English than me about this.

This picture about the TISZA PARTY planed structure:

image
image1598×946 229 KB

and here the real life of the Tisza Sziget (islands) flat networked strucrure:

image
image1407×1600 222 KB

and people started build and develop they thematic experts groups

image
image1021×964 101 KB

If we do not recognise we are already in the digital 21st century with analog mindset then never catch up the need of the society.
In this post I tried figure out a prototype development environment

We already know what is the problem if not we can ask the AI and we have the tools and the technology to develop the right HOLISTIC SOCIAL tools.

Than why we do on the wrong way with isolated and fragmented small applications as do the Code for America or My Society?
Why not make FLOW orientated - Start to Finish for all process?
There are so many NO CODE TOOL out there to support the CITIZEN DEVELOPMENT social tech movement. (n8n, Activepiece, AI Agent swarm, etc)

Imagine the OGN as on the top of this network to make the bridge to the government with OGN community codification.

Corner note:
Perhaps the POLITICAL PARTIES have to adopt to the new age with new structure?

38

Thanks Ruchir,

OK. So let’s stand back and do an overview from a different perspective.

Please put your ideas about Open gov to one side and compartmentalise your thoughts into a category called Open Media. We’re in the media business; trying to develop processes between people who speak different languages and group together around very different interests and agendas, and have very different combinations of beliefs and practices.

To begin. Janos, on this little UK open gov forum, offers a rallying call to create a consortia of European open gov networkers… There’s me; following the internal workings of the EC and its countries for 2 decades. You want a feel for what Ive been watching? Meet Matthew.

So Ive watched the money flows - billions of Euros - that attempt to make the silos of Belgium a little inclusive of their National ones - just as their National silos attempt to be more inclusive of their Local communities. Open Gov has two aspects. Firstly between the silos. gov… Secondly, between the silos and their communities.

No waffling on. I’ve pointed to one silo of the EC. The one that hopes to spend their money "to connect development professionals around the world so they can collaborate and share knowledge and lessons learnt about their work". i.e. Silo to silo. And they’ve given $3m to the OGP over three years (it appears) to move open gov along.

So, as a person who used to sell advertising, which always meant setting the expectations of what a funder is getting for their bucks, the first thing I’m thinking is to point the decision makers the OGP - whoever they may be - at Janos’s thread, which points back at their funder’s attempt at the same thing, and asking… Do you think we could get a little collaboration happening here?

Failing that, could someone in the OGP please explain what the EC’s INTPA are sipposed to be getting for their bucks?

BTW. Janos. You might feel more at home in this EC silo’s community. It’s more focussed on the technical stuff. It also has an audience that is European based, not limited to a UK perspective That’s one thing in media you have to learn, particularly these days as we start to aggregate the fragmented audiences who have interests in improving government processes across languages. Technical stuff is always about standards and protocols = top down. Content guys rarely bother looking under the hood (of the car/shopping trolley they’re driving). :shopping_cart:

For those people who see your role is only about Policy making, it might be more comfortable on this EC silo.

39

Hi Janos,

I’ve been working my way through the Hungarian stuff you’ve been pointing at. We should have a discussion about how to use/steal the media within a country. Orban certainly provides a good example of how to steal a country’s MSM (Main Stream Media).

But we have to be so careful. We all tend to read the things we want to hear. We always need to be aware of who is paying the publisher’s bills. Politico’s subsidization via USAid is just one small example of how the International political media game is played these days.

The less subtle approach, on both MSM and the social media platforms - placing huge amounts of money on advertising AND content to colour social/political attitudes - is The American Way. Thankfully, everyone recognises heavy-handed propaganda, so your generation is getting closer to co-designing social media that isn’t controlled by a private platform’s owner, or monitored by a government agency.

The hard thing here is not to let your head stay in the clouds with (e.g.) these complex graphic architectures of “the ideal network” without keeping at least one foot to the ground.

I don’t know how much clearer I can make it. If you want to understand what’s going on the ground, follow the money. I’ve pointed a pageoft the EU Directorate for International Partnerships. This is their internal designers attempt at designing a global social space. This Directorate has given the OGP 3 Million euros to progress the same thing, which would (anyone would think) include the UK OGN.

There is simply no communication team composed of people from within the OGP AND within its EU funder, to even consider TOGETHER how to include their common communities in the co-design of the network.

What is about the word collaborate which makes it so easy to say and so hard to do?

40

My Dear Janos,

I hope my last post wasn’t too off the mark. I really do need you to respond to my comments. This thread after all is YOUR thread, The way you started it gave me hope you had the drive to put some shape on this move to open democracy. I hope you do realise that you and I are the only correspondents here who take a systematic view of this change. (ever been described as an Asperger type?)

I have had a bit of joy on my horizon. I’ll upload this doc. Its a google translation of a German Swiss Digital transformation English translation.pdf (1.6 MB) doc by the Swiss Federal E-ID Information Officer and some of his scholarly mates.

The main point to be made is in the introduction where he talks about the change in Swiss democracy when Industrial Revolution technologies helped them shift from representative only to a more direct form of democracy. In 1869. There’s no question as to why the Swiss are top of the European pops with trust in their government.

The fun thing is that the Swiss have this concept of 4 referendum/year, which must start with signatures being checked. (e-collections), and they’ve just found out that a few commercial companies have been impersonating citizen’s signatures.

The latest revelations about the falsification and improper acquisition of signatures in support of popular initiatives and referendums by dubious commercial service providers are alarming and undermine the credibility of direct democracy.

So they’re up to the point where their government is starting a pilot programme that focussed on getting the digital Identity right. That means proving a citizen’s signature/credentials, without enabling the government to monitor them. (you can imagine how that plays out in Hungary at the moment where using an ESZIG just makes you a target)

OK. You might want to consider moving our correspondence now. We need to be at an European level. One Funder of the OGP project is the European Commission. The DG (Directorate Generale) that does has this C4D.

Sure, the site looks a bit 2009 (eh Rachir? ). But that’s the same with this forum. At least its a slight improvement on the OGP’s last-century dgroups, and a total lack of Community Management on both. Its got an auto-translate for one. Sure would save me having to use google translate for docs like this when you want a systems approach to Open Democracy.

OK Janos. First thoughts?