Availability: RTI performance data

To what extent is detailed RTI performance information available for public use?

DefinitionsResearch GuidanceQuestion sub-componentsIndicator Justification

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 describing the performance of a country's RTI/FOI processes. 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.

Examples

• The UK Cabinet Office publishes RTI performance statistics on information on outcomes, reasons for rejection, and handling of appeals. Most data is updated quarterly, with additional annual updates. This comprehensive dataset covers government departments and other public bodies. The data is available in machine-readable formats and can be downloaded in CSV, HTML, or ODS formats.

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.

Note: This indicator pairs with a related indicator that assesses the governance of RTI performance data in order to compare frameworks and actual practice. While completing each one, you will likely discover further information that will help answer the sub-questions of the other, so it is suggested that you work on the pair together.

Starting points

• 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?

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.

• Extent of existence:

• How nationally comprehensive is the data assessed for this indicator? (The data assessed covers one or more localities, but there are many other localities without data available or with data of a lesser quality., The data assessed covers one or more localities and is representative of the kind of data that can be found for most but not all localities., The data assessed provides national coverage.)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If The data assessed covers one or more localities, but there are many other localities without data available or with data of a lesser quality. or The data assessed covers one or more localities and is representative of the kind of data that can be found for most but not all localities.: Which locality or localities does this data cover?

  If The data assessed covers one or more localities, but there are many other localities without data available or with data of a lesser quality. or The data assessed covers one or more localities and is representative of the kind of data that can be found for most but not all localities.: Please explain your response.

  If The data assessed covers one or more localities, but there are many other localities without data available or with data of a lesser quality. or The data assessed covers one or more localities and is representative of the kind of data that can be found for most but not all localities.: Please provide supporting URL(s) as necessary.

• Existence summary:

• Please summarize your answers to the preceding existence sub-questions, including the extent of existence. [Open Text] Drawing on the research you have conducted and the evidence you have gathered for this section, describe what you have found (or not found) when answering the existence sub-questions for this indicator.

  Supporting questions

  Please provide the URL(s) for the evidence that supports the summary provided.

Elements

• Data fields and specifics:

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

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where data describing number of requests is located.

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

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where data describing response times is located.

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

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where data describing materials withheld and reasons for withholding is located.

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

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where data describing appeals and appeal results is located.

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

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where data disaggregated by agency is located.

• Data publication:

• The data is available free of charge. (No, Partially, Yes) This means that the data is accessible without any cost, unlike cases where accessing datasets requires a one-off payment or a subscription fee.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

• The data is openly licensed. (No, Partially, Yes) This means that the data is provided under a license that clearly states that anyone may reuse it, with minimal restrictions on its reuse (e.g., attribution, share-alike).

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If No: If there are explicit restrictions placed on reuse of the data, briefly describe those.

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

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

• The data is published with sufficient language coverage to make it accessible to all or almost all members of the public. (No, Partially, Yes) Assess this sub-question using the list of languages provided by your regional coordinator. If the country has only one official language (or de facto official language) and no national languages but there are other languages in use in the country, answer “Partially” if the data is available only in a single language. If the country has multiple official, national, or co-official regional languages, answer “Yes” if the data is available in the majority of these languages.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  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: Please explain your “Partially” response.

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

  If Partially or Yes: Do these tools rely on AI or machine-learning tools? For example, as interfaces. Please briefly explain.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide URL(s).

• The data is timely and updated. (No, Partially, Yes) If you have also assessed an associated governance framework, evaluate timeliness by comparing against the relevant schedule laid out in that framework. If there is no such schedule, look first for other indications of an expected schedule (e.g., does the site say the data is updated once a year?), and then examine the frequency, regularity, and recency of updates.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially: If only some of the relevant data is updated, please explain which.

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

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

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

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

• The data is provided in machine-readable format(s). (No, Partially, Yes) Assess the datasets you have provided in response to this indicator’s sub-questions; if there are multiple datasets, use the best example you can locate in terms of availability of open data. Note this selection in the elements summary box and then also answer the following sub-question (on bulk downloading) with respect to that specific dataset.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

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

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide a comma separated list of the formats available

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where machine-readable data is located.

• 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: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) 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.

• 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, please 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 seem reasonable?); and any broader research you may have done for this topic (e.g., have media articles decried the incompleteness of this data?). Note: this sub-question examines omissions only of mandated data; so if, for example, laws do not require the reporting of data below certain thresholds, that data is not considered “missing.”

  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.

• Nonscoring:

• There is evidence of use of this data. (No, Partially, Yes) Answer “Yes” for more than one example; answer “Partially” for a single example.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: In the example(s) provided, who is using this data? E.g., government, civil society, private sector, media, academia, others.

  If Partially or Yes: In the example(s) provided, for what purpose(s) is the data being used? E.g., for accountability, to improve access for marginalized populations, to influence policy for equity or inclusion, for red flag analysis, etc.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide URL(s) for example(s).

• Elements summary:

• Please summarize your answers to the preceding element sub-questions. [Open Text] Drawing on the research you have conducted and the evidence you have gathered for this section, describe what you have found (or not found) when answering the element sub-questions for this indicator.

  Supporting questions

  Please provide the URL(s) for the evidence that supports the summary provided.

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 right to information laid out by legislation, such as slow response times, inappropriate use of exemptions, difficulties in contesting decisions—even lack of appropriate staffing and technical expertise among the relevant records officers can be a critical de facto impediment.

This indicator investigates the administrative data that countries make available to describe the performance of their RTI/FOI obligations. In some cases, law may require the collection and publication of such data; in others, governments may simply provide it as part of good practice.