New Action Plan for Open Government

The United States has released a new action plan for open government that lists existing policies and plans and includes new initiatives:

The Plan was developed as part of the United States' participation in the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. The OGP is overseen by a steering committee of governments and civil society organizations.
Participating countries in the Open Government Partnership pledge to deliver country action plans that elaborate concrete commitments on open government. In each country, these commitments are developed through a multi-stakeholder process, with the active engagement of citizens and civil society.
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Update Report on January 2010 Lost Docs

Report/Update In addition to our usual monthly report, we at the Lost Docs Project Blog will from time to time revisit, check, and update posted document receipts that at the time of their corresponding monthly reports were still classed as fugitives. The following report focuses on the receipts posted from January, 2010. They were reported to GPO between August 2008 and January 2010, the majority between December 2009 and January 2010. Of the 85 fugitive document receipts posted January 2010, 29 (34%) of the titles have had records added to the Catalog of Government Publications (CGP), 21 of these have been added since the January 2010 monthly report. Two of the titles we identified as "Preservation Needed". While the low percentage of those cataloged is disappointing, we are appreciative of those records that have been created and added to the CGP. Found documents can be viewed by looking at the blog posts with January 2010 dates http://lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/found/ and/or view a listing by visiting https://sites.google.com/site/founddocslisting/ One note, if you pull up the found or fugitive documents on the blog, you may notice that some are marked as both fugitive and found. This means that the receipt was for two formats of a document (usually electronic and paper), and a record has been added to the CGP for one of the formats. For this report we are also providing a breakdown of cataloging times. 36% of the items cataloged from the January 2010 posted receipt titles were cataloged between 200 and 300 days. 15% were cataloged within less than 100 days and 15% between 100 and 200 days. A more detailed breakdown is provided below. Note, these numbers and percentages include those titles with two versions reported. Both versions are represented in the figures below, 33 total. less than or equal to 100 days 5 (15%) >100 days but less than or equal to 200 days 5 (15%) >200 days but less than or equal to 300 days 12 (36%) >300 days but less than or equal to 400 days 4 (12%) >400 days but less than or equal to 500 days 4 (12%) >500 days but less than or equal to 600 days 1 (3%) >600 days but less than or equal to 700 days 1 (3%) >1000 1 (3%) If you report a fugitive document to GPO, please send your e-mailed receipt to lostdocs@freegovinfo.info. We welcome any item reported to GPO in the past month. It is best if you can send us the receipt the same day you get it from GPO. Some e-mail programs will support auto-forwarding. If so, please consider autoforwarding items where the subject contains "lostdocs submission." Continue reading

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National Dialogue For Improving Federal Websites

This announcement comes from GSA: From: Lisa Nelson (XCI) Date: Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 11:42 AM Subject: Invitation to Participate in the National Dialogue on Improving Fedeal Websites NATIONAL DIALOGUE FOR IMPROVING FEDERAL WEBSITES Please join me in participating in an exciting initiative that starts today: The National Dialogue on Improving Federal Websites. The Dialogue is a nationwide, two-week online conversation with web experts and the public to generate ideas for re-inventing how the federal government delivers information and services online. It's part of the larger .gov Reform Initiative launched earlier this summer by the White House and the U.S. General Services Administration. The dialogue will launch today, Monday, Sept. 19 at 2 pm ET and run until Friday, Sept. 30. You'll be able to access it at: http://www.usa.gov/webreform/dialogue.shtml The purpose is to allow people to submit and vote on ideas for improving various aspects of improving federal websites, such as: content, search, usability, accessibility, social media, multilingual content, and online services. The .gov Task Force will review the ideas and consider them as they develop a National Web Strategy and make recommendations for streamlining federal websites, strengthening federal web policy, and improving citizens' experience with federal websites. I know you have a goldmine of ideas, so I hope you'll actively participate in the discussion and share your expertise and knowledge. We want to hear what's working well, what can be improved, innovative ways to rethink the federal web, and specific examples you have from your industry or organization. Although the focus is on federal websites, we'd love to get the perspective of all of you in state and local government too, since many of the challenges andopportunities are the same. You can also follow comments about the dialogue on Twitter under the hashtag #dotgov. Please share with your networks and encourage your friends and colleagues to take part in this important conversation -- Lisa Nelson Research and Strategic Partnerships Center for Digital Government Excellence Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies General Services Administration 202-208-2530 Continue reading

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The Obama Administration’s Commitment to Open Government

The White House has released a new report, on open government:

In an analysis, Steven Aftergood says the report, "downplays or overlooks many of the Administration's principal achievements in reducing inappropriate secrecy. At the same time, it fails to acknowledge the major defects of the openness program to date. And so it presents a muddled picture of the state of open government, while providing a poor guide to future policy. Continue reading

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Economic census could get reprieve

Economic census could get reprieve, by LIZ ENOCHS, Housing Wire (September 17, 2011).

The 2012 economic census, which was at risk of being eliminated after the House of Representatives sliced the Census Bureau's funding 25% two months ago, could be retained after the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations voted for a smaller funding cut and specifically voiced its support for the report.... It's still unclear whether the Senate's smaller budget cut will leave the bureau enough financial wiggle room to continue producing the report, which costs $124 million, according to figures from NABE.
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