Governance: Lobbying register

To what extent do relevant laws, regulations, policies, and guidance provide a basis for collecting and publishing data on lobbying activities?

Definitions

Definitions and Identification

While there are considerable differences in how lobbying activities are defined for reporting purposes—a key impediment to studying lobbying comparatively—there’s widespread consensus on the underlying concept of lobbying. Here we use the International Standards for Lobbying Regulation’s definition: lobbying includes “any direct or indirect communication with a public official that is made, managed, or directed with the purpose of influencing public decision-making;” moreover, as their guidance notes, “a lobbying definition should address commonly known forms of lobbying, where a lobbyist enters into direct contact with a public official, but it should also cover indirect lobbying activities, for example, where lobbyists mobilize other stakeholders to represent their views or hire consultancy firms to do lobbying work on their behalf.”

Increasingly, governments at different levels are establishing frameworks to govern lobbying. Typically these take the form of lobbying registers. Lobbying registers track who engages in and with lobbying, how, and when.

This indicator is based on the presence and strength of legislation, regulations, or policies that govern whether:

• Lobbying register data is collected and maintained as structured, open data across the whole country.
• Lobbying registers contain structured data on the activities of lobbyists, clients, and public officials.
• Lobbying registers include a verification process.
• Lobbying registers are regularly updated in a manner that is timely and responsive to lobbying activities.
• Lobbying registers are published.

It's important to note that not every lobbying actor may be located in the same country. If a lobbyist in country A lobbies a local official in country A on behalf of a company located in country B, then lobbying registers in both country A and country B may in theory be expected to contain details of that activity.

Research Guidance

Verification of lobbying activities may be accomplished through various methods. For example, one method involves cross-verification of registers kept by lobbyists and public officials; another empowers an agency or official with an investigative or enforcement mandate that includes appropriate external auditing powers.

In the case of lobbying, it's possible for a framework to require regular updates without those updates being timely or responsive to lobbying activities. For example, if a framework requires updates every year, those updates may be regular but not sufficiently responsive to specific lobbying activities to offer insights into which lobbyist clients may have influenced a public official's stance on a policy. Check to make sure the framework includes not just regular updates but updates that are responsive to lobbying activities.

If there are multiple forms of lobbying registers operating under different frameworks, you should focus your assessment on the most common domestic form. If there are notable variations in the assessment you would make for other common forms of lobbying registers, please briefly comment on this in the indicator's justification box.

Starting points

• Sources:
  • High Authority for Transparency in Public Life's comparative study of lobbying regulation mechanisms; this covers 41 jurisdictions, primarily European but with examples from elsewhere around the world as well, with sources; from October 2020
  • The Open Government Partnership commitments on lobbying offer an overview of lobbying commitments and their implementation made by various countries and cities (currently 21 in number).
  • This 2014 report from the OECD reviewed the implementation of the OECD's 2010 principles for transparency and integrity in lobbying; chapter 3 in particular examines lobbying disclosures across OECD countries.
• Search:
  • For recent updates to lobbying laws in the country.
  • The website(s) of the country's lobbying registration agency or agencies for details of how they collect and manage data, and the basis of this in law or regulation.
  • For examples of current forms used to register lobbying activities.
  • For lobbying databases constructed by journalists or country-relevant NGOs that coordinate multiple streams of lobbying data; among other information, these may contain details on known gaps in this law or regulation.
• Consult:
  • Investigative journalists who focus on corruption and integrity issues in the country
  • Local officials of civil society organizations focused on transparency and accountability in governance
  • Lobbyists

What to look for?

Look for evidence that can answer the following questions:

• Is the framework for disclosure and verification of lobbying activities provided for in law, regulation, policy, or guidance?
• Does the framework focus on lobbyists, lobbying transactions, or both?
• Does the framework provide unambiguous definitions of lobbying activities, or is there a pattern of confusion or disagreement about what constitutes a lobbying activity?
• Does the framework empower an agency or official to ensure the accurate and timely collection and publication of required data? Does it require a verification process?
• Does the framework specify that information should be updated in a manner that is timely and responsive to lobbying activities?

National and sub-national considerations

In some countries lobbying registers have been established by individual states, regions, or cities.

This indicator is concerned with whether there is a framework that will support access to data about all lobbying activities in a country. This might be achieved by:

• Having a minimum set of practices and standards that lead to data collection across all sub-national units; and
• A framework that provides for aggregation of data from different sub-national units into a national database.

To assess countries where lobbying registers are organized sub-nationally, researchers should select the strongest example of sub-national practice, and then indicate whether this is an outlier or an example of widespread practice.

Researchers should also note whether a framework exists either to aggregate data from sub-national registers, or to provide this data in interoperable formats.

Question sub-components

Show/hide supporting questions

Existence

• Are there laws, policies, or regulations requiring collection or publication of this information in any form?

  • No.
  • They are being drafted, or are not yet implemented.

    Supporting questions: Please provide brief details.

  • They exist and are operational.

    Supporting questions: Please provide brief details.

• Do relevant laws, policies, regulations, or guidance discuss the publication of open data?

  • There is no mention of data or the publication of data in relevant laws, policies, or guidance.
  • Requirements to publish data are set out in non-binding policy or guidance.

    Supporting questions: Please provide a URL to the most relevant legislation, policy, or guidance.

  • Requirements to publish data are set out in binding policy, regulations, or law.

    Supporting questions: Please provide a URL to the most relevant legislation, policy, or guidance.

  • Requirements to publish this information as open data are set out in binding policy, regulations, or law.

    Supporting questions: Please provide a URL to the most relevant legislation, policy, or guidance.

Elements

• Provisions for definitions, kinds, and fields:

• The framework contains clear and unambiguous definitions of lobbyists, lobbying clients, lobbying activities, and public officials. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue and explain your 'Partially' response.

  If Yes: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue.

• The framework requires the collection and publication of the identities of lobbyists, lobbyist clients, and public officials who engage with lobbyists. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue and explain your 'Partially' response.

  If Yes: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue.

• The framework requires the collection and publication of information on lobbyists' goals for lobbying activities. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue and explain your 'Partially' response.

  If Yes: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue.

• The framework requires the collection and publication of information on timing of lobbying activities. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue and explain your 'Partially' response.

  If Yes: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue.

• The framework requires the collection and publication of information on topics of lobbying activities. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue and explain your 'Partially' response.

  If Yes: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue.

• The framework requires the collection and publication of information on how much money is spent on lobbying activities. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue and explain your 'Partially' response.

  If Yes: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue.

• Provisions for data quality:

• The rules/guidance empower an agency or official to ensure the accurate and timely collection and publication of required data. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue and explain your 'Partially' response.

  If Yes: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue.

• The framework requires a verification process. (No, Partially, Yes) There are many different kinds of verification processes. In some cases, data is required from multiple parties engaged in an activity and that data is then cross-verified. In others, a dedicated agency or official has the authority to conduct audits, engaging with other agencies or external parties to verify information received.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please briefly explain the verification process used, and which parts of collected data the framework requires to be verified and which parts it does not.

  If Yes: Please briefly explain the verification process used.

• Provisions for openness, timing, and structure:

• The rules/guidance require that data is regularly updated. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue and explain your 'Partially' response.

  If Yes: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue.

• The rules/guidance support the collection of structured data. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue and explain your 'Partially' response.

  If Yes: Please indicate which section of the framework refers to this issue.

Extent

• How comprehensive, in terms of jurisdiction, is the lobbying framework assessed for this question?
  • The framework assessed covers only some selected parts of national or local government.

    Supporting questions: Which parts or locality does this framework cover?

  • The framework assessed covers the national government, but may have some exceptions or may not apply to other levels of government.

    Supporting questions: What are the exceptions?

  • The framework covers the entire public sector.

Indicator Justification

In recent years lobbying has become an area of increasing regulation, with a priority placed on understanding who specifically lobbies. Thus, regulations typically require some form of lobbying register. Depending on how registers are construed, they may include not only identities of lobbyists but also transaction data regarding meetings, briefs, and gifts. Such registers ground a great deal of new empirical research (see, e.g., Bombardini and Trebbi 2020; de Figueiredo and Richter 2014) on lobbying. At the same time, they have gaps: different definitions of what requires reporting, sometimes within the same level of government (e.g., Mexico); more or less stringent sanction and cross-verification practices; differing capabilities for surfacing grassroots lobbying.

To understand both gaps and best practices across the world, this indicator investigates the frameworks countries have in place for collecting and publishing data on lobbying activities. This indicator pairs with a related availability indicator to compare frameworks and actual practice.