P olitical agenda and budgeting under public scrutiny

1. Political agenda and budgetingunderpublicscrutiny HILLE HINSBERG PraxisCentre for Policy Studies www.praxis.ee

2. About the organization • Private non-profit non-partisan public policy think- tank in Estonia founded in 2000 • 33 employees in 5 policy areas + Academy (training department) • Funded via public sector procurements (60%), NGO grants (20%), international research grants and procurements (20%); • Annual turnover appr. 1 MEUR • Around 90 different projects/initiatives/commissioned work yearly

3. Case 1: Government Watch Initiativetargeted at fighting populism and promoting political accountability Bigquestion: how to empower people to getengagedand improve public policy debates? Weanalysedand „translated“ politicalpledges, policy issues and government plans. Weorganiseddiscussionevents to get people active and contribute to policy agenda. Fundedby Open SocietyFoundation

4. Who did we target?

5. Monitoring cycle: from agenda to implementation

6. For the election campaign: 1) Prepared 6 policy analyses of campaign platforms: 1. options for tax system in Estonia, 2. challenges of Estonian labour and social policies, 3. future of Estonian education system, 4. supporting families, 5. civil society in party platform, 6. choices in health care policy. 2) Held two major policy dialogue events: 1. impact of demographic gap on public policies, 2. priorities for the use of EU structural funds for the period of 2014+ 3) Candidate debate on civil society development. 4) Organised a network of independent experts and opinion leaders who contributed to policy discussions and analyses

7. For the analysis of the coalition programme of elected government 2011-2015 1) Combined brief analyses of the topics monitored during elections: options for tax system in Estonia, challenges of Estonian labour and social policies, future of Estonian education system, supporting families, civil society visionin party platform and choices in health care policy. 2) Analysed the state budget and the costs of implementing government policy choices: www.meieraha.eu, created byopen data activists. The idea was to promote a more transparent budgeting process and provide information to the public on the costs related to the implementation of the government policy choices.

8. For the implementation of the Government Action Plan: Created a special websitewww.valvurid.ee, together with Estonian Public Broadcasting (ERR). Analysedthe first year of government and highlighted main achievements and shortcomingsby all policyareas - policybriefactingasmediainput Ongoingmonitoring and commenting on policyformation and implementation Co-operationwithmediatohighlightpolicyissues

9. Results of Case1 - Government Watch Presents „third party“views on political choices to hold politicians, parties and government accountable. Creates synergy and adds value by cooperation with media, civil society organisations and think-tanks. Increases the public’s interest towards policy making Creates a track record of government decisions and reactions in the society Analyses and discussions feed into monitoring government actions up to 2015 Actual impact: to be measured by analysing political programmes for next elections

10. Case 2: Our Money - opening up the state budget Theidea: • tovisualizemostimportantpolicydecisions • to show in a simplewaywherethemoneycomesfrom and wherethemoneygoes

11. Data sources 1) State budget (the bill and explanatory compendium as adopted by the Parliament): 442 pages of pdf! 2) Mid-term budget strategy of achieving government goals, renewed annually 3) Individual budgets and work plans of ministries, used for detailed information 4) Mediathathighlights topical issues in financial decision-making

12. Steps in work process Analytical work on available data sources to determine the most useful items of information and record the data in work files The collected financial data needs to be adjusted to the website features The code and methodology will require ongoing analysisto find the right match

13. Lessons learned • Geeks are good at buildingapplicationsthatreusegovernmentdatainunexpectedways • Analysts are good at miningdatabutthepresentationhastobekeptsimple • Balancebetweenaccurate and simple! • Media isgood at pickingupissues, butthese need tobeinterpretedbyexperts • Advocacygroups need togetengaged and bemorevocal • Goodchoiceofhighlights, objectiveopinions

14. Results of Case2 - Budget visual • Presentsthebudgetforthe „ordinaryguy“ • Increases the public’s interest towardscostsofpolicydecisions • Takesforward Open Dataprinciples • Actualimpact: • Min of Financehaschangedthemethodologyforcollecting info and presentingpublicspending • Government publishesfullbudgetearlierthanbefore • CSOs usethevisualfortheirownfinancialoverview

15. Visualizingquantitativedata and accesstoservices

16. What is the visual about? • The visual combines geographical data (maps) with statistical data on selected indicators, defined by location of all 226 local municipalities in Estonia. • Users have access to indicators in four areas, where services are rendered by local municipalities: water and sewage, social care facilities, basic and secondary education and community services, including community centres and recreational facilities. • Financial data includes tax revenue per capita and investments per capita which show the ability to attract new residents and develop local services and infrastructure.

17. How to use? • The tool can be used either for browsing data or for comparison of indicators, e.g. the water and sewage tariffs for home owners; the price per person in elderly care facility; the number of kids per teacher in your nearest kindergarten. • The user can choose a location to log in and compare his/her home municipality and a randomly selected other municipality, or compare with the calculated average on the selected county .

18. Side effects The tool is a precedent as none of the data was available in machine-readable formats, to be automatically streamed for re-use. The tool demonstrated demand for providing new formats for governmental agencies which keep the databases.

19. What next? Additional data, e.g location of general practitioners and pharmacists Updating data, based on demand Focus on sore topics, advocacy based on highlighted issues