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Interview with David Fletcher
By José Luis Tesoro
1.- Can you delineate an ideal scenario in Utah Open Government with a five-year horizon? Utah's open government approach is based on transparency, efficiency, and participation. Our goal in providing access to government information is to engender trust in our citizenry. With that in mind, Utah has implemented seven specific initiatives over the past three years to meet these overall objectives:
Transparent.Utah.gov provides an extreme amount of detail on Utah's spending, allowing the user to drill down to every single financial transaction that the state makes. This service was completed in May 2009. In May 2010, school districts, colleges, and universities were added to those required to submit data to Transparent.Utah.gov. Within another year, all local government will be providing complete spending data through this portal and citizens will have access to all expenditures made by state and local government. Within five years, expect the state to provide even better tools for aggregating and localizing this data so citizens can see exactly how government is spending the tax dollar.
Utah allows citizens or other interested parties to search its entire database of state contracts. Robust search criteria include keyword (even partial word), vendor, and expiration date. Once the user identifies the contract she is interested in, she can review contract usage reports and even download usage data for the past five years in a spreadsheet format for further evaluation.
Want to know who is vying for influence on Utah's Capitol Hill? Utah Lobbyist Online is the component of Open.Utah.gov that lets you see who is taking who to dinner and how much they are spending to do it. Even though Utah has lobbyist spending limitations, this service lets interested citizens get past that to see who is trying to influence the vote on Capitol Hill with data going back for over 5 years.
State of Utah Financial Disclosures is a filing system for all required campaign contribution reports for politicians running for state public offices. Currently, this data is available as scanned images. To be truly transparent, it will need to be provided in a more easily accessible and aggregate-able format, which I would expect to happen within the five year horizon.
Utah has an open meetings law, but before the state implemented its public meeting website, it may have been difficult to find out where and when those meetings would take place. Now Utahns can search in one place to find all upcoming meetings and their agendas for state and local government entities. Although many of these meetings new live-stream their proceedings, I expect the number of government entities that provide this level of accessibility to grow. More government agencies will also provide real-time feedback opportunities that are integrated with their streams such as Twitter and will respond more effectively to citizen input during public meetings. I also expect more real-time polling opportunities so that government can measure citizen response more effectively in real-time settings.
In June 2009, Data.Utah.gov introduced a new way for finding Utah-related government data. This open data portal offers over 40 data sets. Our goal for open data over the next five years is to change the organizational culture in a way that promotes sharing and encourages users to leverage data provided by government to develop new value and services. Within the five-year horizon, Utah will substantially increase the volume and quality of public data it provides. It will continue to pay attention to privacy issues. It will ensure that it is leveraging new tools that provide the citizen with greater abilities to analyze government data. Expect more GIS integration with government data using tools like www.arcgis.com that was introduced yesterday by ESRI.
The legal foundation of government requires as much openness as possible. Utah has opened up its legal process which makes it much more understandable, enabling participation. Both of the major parties making up the Utah House and Senate have regularly updated blogs that allow open comment. Presenting a platform for real-time comment reduces suspicions, particularly if the citizenry can see that government takes their feedback seriously, particularly at times when the law-making process is most intense. For Utah, that is during a 6-week legislative session each year. Updates to bills are made in real-time and citizens have the ability to contact legislators directly through multiple electronic channels, including in real-time through tools like Twitter. Government should work hard to ensure that when they use tools like Twitter that the communication is asynchronous and that they are responding effectively when citizens register concern and questions about government. Within five years, I expect that tools will be available to more seamless implement the information provided through these various channels in a way that provides relevancy to the individual citizen. One of these tools will be GIS since almost all data is geographical in some sense. Citizens will have a better understanding of how their tax dollar is spent and how it is benefiting them. Governments will be able to make better decisions as business intelligence and decision-making tools improve and their decisions will increasingly be based on science and data. The results of these improvements will be available to the public who will become more involved in providing input to important governmental actions and activities.
2- Which are, in your opinion, the basic conditions necessary to formulate and implement Open Government policies and strategies? •Service: In order for open government to success, the government organization should normally be oriented towards service vs. control. Although it is not necessary that the politicians overseeing the government organization be integrally involved, it is certainly favorable if they are at least supportive of the overall objectives of digital government and understand how open government can help them achieve their political objectives. Without a strong e-government foundation, open government initiatives will likely not go far. Technology is a strong enabler of openness, both in terms of providing platforms for participation as well as the means for widespread information dissemination. Government organizations should also work hard to engender trust which is another foundation of open government. If the government does not consistently provide reliable information, the lack of trust that will occur will doom the initiative. •Political Climate - Ultimately, politics must tend towards reason and enlightenment, vs. ego, control, and the cult of personality if open government is to succeed. •Executive Branch Focus - There must be champions within the executive branch that understand why government openness is important and they must be able to elegantly state the case for open government within their organizations. •Legislative support - Citizens need to demand openness from their legislators. Legislators need to understand and encourage an abundance mentality that is not focused on greed and self interest which tend to close the decision-making processes that occur in government. •Simple governance structures - Governments are often their own worst enemy by making processes that become impediments to success. Simple governance is best, but for simple governance to be successful, it must be open.
3.- Which are, in your opinion, the main contextual and structural factors that determine (or condition) the authenticity, legitimacy and performance of Open Government policies and strategies? • Honesty and integrity within the government is perhaps the most critical condition for success with open government initiatives. When the citizenry perceives that government can be trusted, then the data and information it provides has value •Government must be technologically competent. If the skills do not exist within government to provide effective digital government initiatives, then it must partner with reputable businesses to ensure that its e-government efforts are effective. Poor quality in the presentation and delivery of e-government, generally translates into poor reception and participation by citizens. •Government should measure what it does and respond to those metrics. If government does not measure and understand the impact of what it is doing, it will be unable to improve in the ways it needs to in order to achieve true excellence as an organization. •Government should learn from its mistakes and successes. Government leaders should engender and environment of learning within the bureaucracy. •Collaboration. Government needs to learn how to collaborate effectively and implement digital structures for effective collaboration. •Empowerment. Political leaders need to empower government employees and work to provide tools that support that empowerment and encourage and reward success.
4.- How do you conceptualize relations between Electronic Government and Open Government? What are the conditions for a synergy between both? e-Government is a platform for providing information and services to citizens. Open government is a way of looking at those information and services and leveraging the e-Government channel as well as other channels to make it more accessible for citizens to participate in the process and structure of government. Both channels will be more successful if they are pursued conjointly. If there is a perception that government is not open, e-government initiatives will be less successful.
e-Government is vitally linked to the open government initiative. No other method of collaborating and information sharing can have the widespread distribution and participation that is possible through digital government channels. Government needs to understand the digital world and work to develop strategies that encourage technology education and improvements in digital infrastructure. Once citizens become accustomed to using the information and services provided through e-government, the likelihood that they will participate in the process of government through open initiatives increases substantially.
6.- How do you see, with a horizon of five years, the relationship between Open Government and e-Government in societies that succeeds in translating a real movement towards Open Government? I expect that the era of collaborative and open government has just begun. Citizens are now demanding that government become accountable and have many examples of good government that is open and responsive. Government is becoming a more competitive business. Within five years, open government will not be an option, it will be essential for government to survive and those governments that succeed will do it well.
David Fletcher David Fletcher is the Chief Technology Officer of the state of Utah. In that role, he oversees the technical architecture, innovation, and e-government initiatives for the state. In 2008, Utah was recognized as the #1 Digital State in the United States of America by the Center for Digital Government. In 2009, Utah.gov, the state's web portal was recognized as the #1 state portal in the United States. David is a proponent of open government initiatives, particularly emphasizing the important role that technology plays in delivering government service.
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