OMB has updated and expanded its guidance on agency responsibilities to comply with a 2009 Presidential memo on improving transparency, participation, and collaboration.
The Open Government Directive established deadlines for agencies to draft individual plans to advance their own open government initiatives and to document major actions taken by agencies to integrate a “presumption of openness” into their core missions, OMB said in memo M-16-16. That directive further required agencies to update their plans every two years, and the time to do that has come, it adds.
It says the updated plans should: describe achievements of the agency’s 2014 plan; include status updates on major initiatives; expand on past open government efforts and introduce new ones for the next two years in areas including open data, proactive disclosures and privacy; and include links to additional relevant information on the agency’s website.
Plans “should describe concrete, measurable steps the agency will take to conduct its work more openly and to publish information online, including where appropriate any proposed changes to transparency-related internal management and administrative policies,” including anticipated completion dates for initiatives that are not ongoing activities.
Also, it said, agencies should directly solicit input from key stakeholders. “As a best practice, agencies should prepare a short outline or summary of changes document for their 2016 Open Government Plans to use as they solicit stakeholder input and feedback on the agency’s Open Government Plan, before finalizing their 2016 plans. Where appropriate, agencies should strive to incorporate this public input and feedback into the updated plans,” it adds.