e-participation and transparency in the decision making process Rauna Nerelli Ministry of Justice, Finland

National E-participation Environment Part of Action Programme on eServices and eDemocracy (SADe) Enhances and enables dialogue and interaction between citizens, NGOs, politicians and public servants Improves e-participation possibilities at local and national level free of charge Ministry of Justice organises training on e-democracy

Open Government Partnership Finland joined the international program in 2013 Currently implementing the first national action plan The cross-cutting theme of the plan is citizen’s participation Four working-areas: Open Procedures, Clear Language, Open Knowledge and Government as an enabler Unique in Finland: Campaign for clear and more understandable language at public sector in

Services for e-participation a channel for participation and interaction open to all a system for the electronic collection of signatures for citizens’ initiatives a system for the electronic collection of signatures for initiatives to municipal authorities a service for responding electronically to official requests for comments

Otakantaa – ”Have your say” Ministries, municipalities, institutes, NGOs and citizens can open discussions on a certain topic Drafting of laws, planning strategies and programmes, evaluation of services and policies, mapping citizens’ needs and ideas Several participation tools: discussion forum, chat, web questionnaire, poll E-participation can be linked to activities IRL, e.g. seminars or meetings Marketing of the participation projects essential

Citizens’ initiative New tool for direct democracy Enables a minimum of 50,000 Finnish citizens of voting age to submit an initiative to the Parliament of Finland to enact an act 50,000 electronic and/or paper signatures, 6 months for collecting them A bill or a proposal to start drafting legislation 6 initiatives have gathered more than 50,000 signatures Audited by Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority Users’ names are not visible to the public

E-participation for youth The further development of the young people’s online democracy service aloitekanava.fi In co-operation with the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Youth information and counselling centre Koordinaatti Children, youth and NGOs taking part in the planning process in workshops and online Youth can submit initiatives or present ideas for the municipality, school or NGO To be developed in 2014

Data protection JHS 190 (previously JHS 129) guidelines for planning and developing public web services Privacy policy published in all services Strong electronic identification (optional in some services) Users can decide if they want to show their support openly in municipal initiatives User information between different initiatives can not be linked in citizens’ initiatives as personal identification number is encrypted separately on each initiative

Key benefits of e-democracy services Cost-effective, open Reaching larger groups of stakeholders Quality and effectiveness of drafting increases Tools and methods support variety of participation methods Participation with less time-bound or physical limits Increased service level, knowledge and interaction Legitimacy and increased trust in the society

Contact information facebook.com/otakantaa