Transparency of VRU committees is on the upgrade

VRU committees publish more and more public information in the internet. This fact was discovered by OPORA after the assessment of 29 official websites and their content.

Representatives of the organization have checked whether the content of portals corresponds to legislative requirements, and compared October results with July's. However, despite there are some slow improvements, the amount of information published on official sites of government authorities is far from complete. Openness of 6 committees has decreased over the last quarter. Only 3 of 59 VRU committees promulgate more than 50% of public information. Therefore, the committees violate legislative requirements which provide that government authorities shall report on their activities. In order to facilitate the transparency of committees, OPORA has showed MPs possible ways to overcome the problem of limited public information available on the corresponding sites.

Openness of 6 VRU committees has decreased over the last quarter.

One of key challenges on the way to the establishment of democratic governance practices and European standards of political culture in Ukraine is the ability to secure transparency of government bodies. Transparency of government bodies includes promulgation of information about activities of VRU committees, which implement vital legislative and controlling functions.

According to the sociologists,*, the best way to promulgate information of government bodies is to publish it in internet. However, despite the government bodies are obliged to inform citizens about current activities, they use internet quite unwillingly when it comes to the promulgation of information. Promulgation of activities of parliamentary committees is a bright example of such passivity.

According to the results of a research conducted by OPORA, 15 of 29 committees published 7% more information of social importance which concerns their activities during the last quarter. This information mostly concerned the announcement of events and agendas of meetings. The Committee on Informatization and Information Technologies has created an official website, what is a huge step towards transparency. However, the site still contains little information. Only 8 of 29 possible types of data are used. Sites of the Committee on Science and Education and the Committee on construction, city planning, housing service and regional politics are being filled in with content on the same level – 38.7 % and 22.6 % correspondingly.

In general, the transparency level of 6 committees has decreased by 5%. These committees are: Committee on Fuel and Energy Complex, Nuclear Policy and Nuclear Safety; Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information; Committee on European Integration; Committee on Rules of Parliamentary Procedure, Ethics and Support to Work of The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; Committee on Family Matters, Youth Policy, Sports and Tourism; and Committee on Judicial Policy. Low transparency is due to casually updated information on the sites of government bodies. However, the situation in 6 parliamentary committees is the worst. They don't have official portals at all, and publish little information in internet. Activities of the Committee on Economic Policy, Committee on Health Care, Committee on Social Policy and Labor, Committee on Transport and Communications, Committee on Finance and Banking, and Committee on Foreign Affairs are the least promulgated in the Internet.

In general, OPORA has analyzed websites of Committees and checked their conformity to 31 criteria. In particular, the presence of information published during previous convocations of the Committee, as well as about the effective one and its current activities. Special attention was paid to activities of MPs during consideration of bills. Sites received 1 point for publication of information in every category, 0.5 point for partial publication or link to the other resource, and 0 points if the information is absent.

6 parliamentary committees don't have official portals at all, and publish little information in internet.

Despite there are some slow improvements, the amount of information published on official sites of government authorities is far from complete. Only 3 of 59 VRU committees promulgate more than 50% of public information in internet. Therefore, the committees violate legislative requirements which provide that government authorities shall report on their activities. Article 9 (2) of the Law on Committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine provides that information about current activities in committees shall be published on the official website of the Parliament. However, it's not implemented in practice. Instead of materials about meetings and taken decisions, web site of the Verkhovna Rada contains basic information about membership of committees, grounds for their creation, and contact information of the secretariats. However, due to the absence of typical requirements to their content, the level of promulgation differs.

Taking into consideration the research results, and social importance of the issue, Civil Network OPORA has prepared recommendations on the improvement of the information delivery through sites of government bodies, and provided them to heads and members of committees. These recommendations correspond to the requirements of domestic legislation, international transparency standards and experiences in promulgation of public information. In particular, it was proposed to follow the common standards of content on official websites, and adhere to the given list of information which has to be published.

A special attention was paid to law-making activities of MPs. In order to qualitatively assess such activities, we should have information about: the list of bills, which shall be elaborated by a committee, and draft initiatives, to which a committee shall submit propositions; division of draft laws among sub committees; dates and stages of documents' consideration; list and content of recommendations, expert opinions and decisions on them. However, such information is absent on the majority of websites. There is also little information about current activities of committees. Despite 1.5 million UAH was spent on the minutes of committees' meetings in 2012, most of the committees ignore the law and don't publish them.

Full list of requirements, according to which websites of committees were assessed:

History of a committee

1. Membership of previous convocations
2. Considered draft laws

Information about a committee

1. References to laws and principles which regulate activities of a committee
2. Membership of a committee
3. Membership of subcommittees
4. Authorities of subcommittees
5. Authorities of committee members
6. Contact information of committee members
7. Authorities of committee apparatus
8. Membership of committee apparatus
9. Contact information of committee apparatus
10. Accreditation in Committees
11. Access to committee meetings (for the media, CSIs, citizens)
12. Public council under a committee
13. Membership of the public council

Activities of a committee

1. Committee news
2. Dates of previous meetings
3. Hearings of previous meetings
4. Minutes of meetings
5. Dates of future meetings
6. Agenda for the future meetings
7. Attendance of MPs on the Committee sittings
8. Work plan of a committee

Draft laws

1. List of bills, which shall be elaborated by a committed
2. Draft laws, to which a committee shall submit propositions
3. Stages of consideration of bills
4. Recommendations from the subjects of recommendations
5. Approved and rejected recommendations
6. Expert opinions on bills
7. Division of bills among subcommittees
8. Dates of consideration of bills on committee meetings