Scotland

Introduction
This is your plan for making Scotland run in the most open and accessible way.

Together we can make government work better for people by ensuring it is transparent, accountable and engaging.

Let's make government act openly, act with integrity and act with us.

Transparency
According to Transparency International, transparency is about 'governments, companies, organisations and individuals of being open in the clear disclosure of information, rules, plans, processes and actions’ (Transparency International 2009). In this context therefore, transparency is about ensuring openness in how governments and public sector organisations operate. This means having clear and visible processes and procedures that provide easy access for citizens to information on the actions of organisations - for example about public budgets, performance, contracts, beneficial ownership, expenditure, lobbying and/or decision making processes. If information is available to citizens and civil society organisations it can enable them to monitor, assess and challenge the performance and policies of the government and become a leverage tool for demanding accountability. However to be really useful information needs to not only be accessible but also relevant, meaningful and actionable.

Accountability
Accountability, simply defined, is the obligation of one actor to account for their actions. In a government/public context accountability can be understood as part of the broader social contract between the public and their delegated representatives and government. This social contract about the rights of the public and the roles and responsibilities of government in relation to the distribution of resources and the provision of public services. A fundamental principle of democracy is that citizens have the right to demand accountability and public actors have an obligation to be held to account.

On a practical level accountability initiatives can be understood as attempts to involve citizens in activities designed to hold public officials and service providers to account for the provision of public services, such as healthcare, education, water, and transport.

Participation
) they could include anti-corruption commissions, auditors-general, ombudsmen and other regulatory and oversight agencies in addition to the internal checks and balances provided by the executive, legislature and the judiciarySocial Accountability not only cuts across both these dimensions but more recently the institutionalisation of new methods for social accountability (e.g. participatory public policy-making, participatory budgeting, public expenditure tracking, citizens report cards or scorecards, citizens complaint mechanisms developed conjunction with citizens charters) have begun to be referred to as mechanisms for diagonal accountability.

What should we do to get a more open government in Scotland
These are the bits and bobs where we can make a real difference in Scotland through an open government approach.

Feel free to add to this list. Remember, it's your agenda!

The list below follows the framework set by the Sustainable Development Goals to give it an additional international punch.