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Availability: RTI performance data

To what extent is detailed RTI performance information available as open data?

Definitions and Identification

While most countries have some form of right-to-information (RTI) or freedom-of-information (FOI) framework, in practice not all implementations of these frameworks have lived up to expectations.

This indicator focuses on the availability of administrative data regarding the performance of a country's RTI/FOI obligations. Such administrative data may be required by law or simply provided by governments as part of good practice.

To assess the performance of an RTI/FOI regime, data should include information on: number of requests submitted; response times for filling requests; denials and reasons for withholding; and appeals and their results. Further, data should be linked to the relevant agency, department, or other governmental entity.

In some countries, national reporting on the performance of RTI/FOI practices is accomplished through a unified system, while in others such information is published by individual agencies. If in your country individual agencies report their own RTI performance data, you should focus your assessment on the most representative example of common domestic practice. If there are notable variations in the assessment you would make for other agencies, please briefly comment on this in the free text justification.

Starting points

  • Sources:
    • For COVID-19 disruptions or changes with regard to access to information, RTI Rating offers a specific COVID-19 Tracker.
  • Search:
    • Reports published by the information agency, media reports, and publications by development/donor agencies.
    • National statistical offices or the appropriate governmental agency that houses statistical information.
    • Independent oversight bodies, such as transparency councils, ombuds offices, offices of information services.
  • Consult:
    • Government officials who handle appeals to denials of public records requests, in order to obtain a sense of the conditions in which an agency denies (or grants) information.
    • Officers of civil society organizations with expertise in access-to-information issues.
    • Journalists who report on government transparency or who use RTI/FOI requests as part of their practice.

What to look for?

To complete the assessment for this question you will need to access and explore the available data. This may involve running queries on datasets to check the variety of fields included.

Look for evidence that can answer the following questions:

  • What information does the data provide? For example, does it include number of requests, response times, exemptions and reasons, appeals and their results?
  • Is the data available at the level of individual agencies, or only in aggregate?
  • Is there evidence of missing data, assessed first against the related governance framework, if that exists, or in the context of the datasets in front of you?
  • Is there evidence that the availability of this data was affected by COVID-19?

National and sub-national considerations

In some countries, governance frameworks for RTI/FOI processes have been established by individual states, regions, or cities; consequently, administrative data about RTI/FOI performance may be published at various levels of government.

To assess countries where RTI/FOI datasets are organized sub-nationally, researchers should analyze the administrative data associated with the strongest example of sub-national practice, and then indicate whether this is an outlier or an example of widespread practice.

Show/hide supporting questions

Existence

  • Is this data available online in any form?
    • Data is not available online.
      Supporting questions: Are there other offline ways to access this data in the country? (e.g., attending an office to inspect it).
    • Data is available, but not as a result of government action.
      Supporting questions: If government is not providing access to data, how is this data available? Please provide a URL(s) for where this data can be found.
    • Data is available from government, or because of government actions.
      Supporting questions: Please provide a URL(s) for where this data can be found.

Elements

  • Data fields and quality:

  • The dataset includes details on the number of requests submitted and processed. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: If RTI data can be found in multiple datasets, please provide the URL where number of requests data is located.

    If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

  • The dataset includes details on how long it took the relevant government agency or agencies to fill requests. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: If RTI data can be found in multiple datasets, please provide the URL where response times data is located.

    If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

  • The dataset includes details about material withheld and the reasons for withholding it. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: If RTI data can be found in multiple datasets, please provide the URL where exemptions and reasons data is located.

    If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

  • The dataset includes details about appeals to RTI determinations and their results. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: If RTI data can be found in multiple datasets, please provide the URL where appeals and results data is located.

    If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

  • Data is linked to the relevant agency, department, or other governmental entity. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: If RTI data can be found in multiple datasets, please provide the URL where disaggregated data by agency is located.

    If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

  • Data openness, timing, and structure:

  • Dataset is available free of charge. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

  • Data is openly licensed. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If No: If there are explicit restrictions placed on re-use of the dataset, briefly describe those here.

    If Partially or Yes: If the data is provided with an explicit open license, please provide the name of the license, or a link to it here.

  • Data is available in all the country’s official or national languages. If the country has no official or national languages, data is available in the major languages of the country. (No, Partially, Yes) Assess this against the list of official, national, or in-use languages you provided as part of your response to the governance indicator that asks, "To what extent do relevant laws, regulations, policies, and guidance require that data collection and publication processes be available in the country’s official or national languages?"

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: Please briefly describe the language coverage available.

  • There are accessible and open official tools available to help users explore data. (No, Partially , Yes) Answer 'Partially' if tools make it possible to get at extracts of data without having to download a full dataset. Answer 'Yes' if there is an interactive tool that displays user-filtered extracts of the data to answer simple questions without downloading data at all.

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: Please provide URL.

    If Partially : What are the main barriers to accessibility and usability?

  • Data is timely and updated. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: When was the most recent update to this dataset?

  • Historical data is available that allows users to track change over time. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

    If Partially or Yes: For what time period(s) (e.g., start and end dates) is data available?

  • Data is provided in machine-readable format(s) (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: Please provide a URL where this machine-readable data can be found. (Additional URLs can be included in the justification and supporting evidence)

    If Partially or Yes: Please provide a comma separated list of the formats available? (E.g. csv, json)

    If Partially: What prevents you from assessing this data as fully machine-readable?

  • The machine-readable dataset is available as a whole (No, Partially, Yes) Answer no if it's only possible to access individual records; Answer partially if it's possible to export extracts of the data; Answer yes if there are bulk downloads or APIs providing access to the whole dataset without financial, technical or legal barriers.

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: Please provide a URL where bulk download access is available or described.

    If Partially or Yes: If bulk access is provided through an API, please provide a link to where the API is described.

    If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

  • Negative scoring:

  • This information is missing required data. (There is no evidence of data gaps., There is evidence that a portion of mandated data is missing., There is evidence of widespread omissions in mandated data.) In cases where the indicator itself identifies a dataset(s) to assess against or a separate governance indicator has asked you to determine data requirements of a relevant governing framework, assess against that. In cases where there is no such identified dataset(s) or related governance indicator, assess based on the parameters laid out in the publication of the information (e.g., are some fields entirely empty when they shouldn't be?), your local knowledge (e.g., if the data is supposed to include information for all public officials, does the number of total entries look right?), and any broader research you may have done for this theme (e.g., have media articles decried the incompleteness of the data?).

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If There is evidence that a portion of mandated data is missing. or There is evidence of widespread omissions in mandated data.: Please briefly explain.

  • The availability of this data has been affected by government response to COVID-19. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: Please briefly describe how COVID-19 affected the availability of this data.

Extent

  • How comprehensive is the data assessed for this question?
    • The data assessed covers one or more localities, but there are many other localities without available data, or with data of a lesser quality.
      Supporting questions: Which locality does this data cover?
    • The data assessed covers one or more localities, and is a representative example of the kind of data that can be found for most but not all localities.
      Supporting questions: Which localities does this data cover?
    • The data assessed provides national coverage.

Right-to-information practices are a key part of transparency and accountability initiatives that support members of a public in assessing whether and how consistently public officials use political power for the common good. This right to access the information that public authorities hold is recognized by the special mandates for the UN, OSCE, and OAS and connects directly with SDG 16.10.

When RTI practices function well, they support oversight, reduce information asymmetries, and open a dialogue between members of the public and public officials. However, the quality, comprehensiveness, and attention to performance of these laws vary. Further, in practice, a host of obstacles may impede the RTI that legislation lays out, with regard to the timeliness of response, inappropriate use of exemptions, difficulties in contesting decisions—even lack of appropriate staffing and technical expertise among the relevant record officers can be a critical de facto impediment.

This indicator investigates the performance and administrative data that countries make available for RTI processes. It pairs with a related governance indicator to compare frameworks and actual practice. A separate indicator, built from secondary data sources, will assess RTI governance frameworks themselves.