transforming policy skepticism into policy co makership

Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership

Contribution on

“Future Research on ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling”

For the CROSSROAD project

Submitted by: Be Informed BV Geert Rensen Thei Geurts Jan Willem Ebbinge Apeldoorn, March 2nd 2010 Correspondence: De Linie 620 7325 DZ Apeldoorn T: +31 55 368 14 20 E: [email protected]

2 Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership

Table of Contents Summary ................................................................................................ 3

A complex world .................................................................................... 5

Society’s complexity ...................................................................................... 7

Coping with complexity ................................................................................ 8

Policy Modeling to cope with complexity .......................................... 10

Policy modeling in a distributed environment ............................................ 12

Authentic Sources ................................................................................... 12

Added Value ............................................................................................ 13

Research ............................................................................................... 14

Track 1: Government as a service ............................................................... 14

Track 2: Policy Modeling for policy advisors/officers ................................. 14

Track 3: Extracting knowledge from policy documents .............................. 15

Track 4: Policy Modeling as an opportunity for e‐participation ................. 15

The Applicants ..................................................................................... 16

Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership 3

Summary

It is not easy for citizens or businesses to operate in the forest of institutions,

laws and regulations, products and portals of the government. Through the

years we have created a complex system. Citizens, businesses, but also

governments themselves are subject to large amounts of rules they must

apply in their daily practice and business.

A number of consequences can be distinguished:

Citizens no longer understand what politics is about and they

become cynical towards the government;

Companies lose sight and grip on legislation and conditions;

Increase of administrative burden resulting in near paralysis of the

business environment;

Executive agencies experience problems with the execution of laws

and keeping up with adjustments, resulting in failed IT projects and

high IT costs and even postponement of laws;

Politicians experience difficulty in estimating the impact of proposed

policies and their ability to develop effective policy decreases.

Politics degenerates into a specialized area of lobby groups, increasing an

aversion to politics with the general public. The restricted role of laymen in

participation initiatives only increases the gap between government and the

public.

We are convinced that the solution lies in using technology to increase

transparency in the development and dissemination of laws and regulations

by converting these laws and regulations into formal models. Citizens and

companies can be informed tailor‐made about the implications of existing

legislation and new laws and regulations by describing policies in formal

models en presenting them through applications and services. Executive

agencies can take these models into consideration in their operations and

provide accountability for it. Politicians can use the models to simulate the

impact and effectiveness of new legislation beforehand en publish the scope

of proposed policies. This way, an infrastructure will arise which will enable


both professionals and citizens to participate actively in the development

and assessment of policies.

In the Netherlands we gained much experience with describing policies in

formal models, which has delivered a major contribution to improving the

quality of service, lower implementation costs and improving the

effectiveness of laws and regulations.

Based upon our vision and experience we propose to initiate four research

tracks in order to further explore and develop a number of aspects around

policy modeling.


A complex world

It is not easy for citizens or businesses to operate in the forest of institutions,

laws and regulations, products and portals of the government. Through the

years we have created a complex system. Citizens, businesses, but also

governments are subject to large amounts of rules they must apply in their

daily practice and business.

Laws and regulations are imposed on European, national, regional and local

levels and are defined from an overall level to thoroughly detailed. They are

aimed at protecting consumers, the environment, free trade, etcetera. These

laws and regulations are drawn up from the government’s perspective,

whereas citizens and companies initiate activities in which different

governmental organizations and policies are involved. This leads to the

situation where citizens and companies even in the smallest activities are

confronted with a variety of laws and regulations from different

organizations and policies. Complying with these rules then proves to be a

complex matter, even with the simplest of activities.

1600organisations

15.000laws &

regulations

10.000’sproducts &

services

1.000.000’sdocument

announcements

I want to cometo work in the Netherlands

Gap citizen and government

Many different institutions involved

Red tape / large numbers of rules

Lack of transparancy

Administrative burden

Confronted with an overwhelming amount of institutions, laws and regulations citizens and business loose track.

They do not know which rules apply in their specific situation.


For instance, an entrepreneur who wants to start a catering company in the

Netherlands is soon confronted with regulations from the Catering Business

Community, the Food Quality Authority, the Chamber of Commerce, the Tax

Department, the Labor Inspection, the local Fire Department and several

local community regulations. All these rules were drawn up and are

presented from the different institutions’ perspectives. The entrepreneur is

left to ascertain by himself which rules from which organization are

applicable in his situation.

Should he be able to find all the information he needs, he will probably not

be able to interpret it correctly due to lack of consistency. A great deal of

government information is not available in a way that is comprehendible for

citizens and companies. This information is often documented in reports,

laws and protocols with their own specific formulations. These documents

are hardly comprehendible for non specialists and their practical usability is

low.

Increasing and continuous variability in laws and regulations provides even

greater complexity. Both initially and after the implementation of

adjustments, the entrepreneur is forced to hire expensive specialists to

interpret the relevance of laws and regulations for him.

This also applies for executive agencies. They are confronted with frequent

adjustments in laws and regulations which are to be implemented in their

processes, systems and their communication with clients. These adjustments

occur faster and more frequent, because society expects politicians to hedge

risks with regulations.

This situation leads to more and more problems in execution. ICT costs are

on the rise and projects fail. ICT complexity increases because rules are

converted into software code, hiding manageable policies behind vast

amounts of software, processes, manuals and other systems. This frustrates

the insight, transparency and manageability of processes and the ability to

swiftly adapt to changes.


Politicians, finally, want to intervene; they want to solve social issues and

exclude risks. In order to achieve this, they initiate policies. The problem,

however, is that new laws must agree with ‘the big picture’ and politicians

lack an overview of all laws and regulations.

Of course politicians and policy makers seek broad and thorough support for

their policies, but public participation presents them with new demands that

are not easily met.

The complexity and the lack of transparency also affect e‐participation and

democracy. Participation and consultation prove to be difficult because

citizens have no insight into what the proposals include exactly. Politics has

degenerated into an area for specialist lobby groups. This has strengthened

the aversion for politics with the public. Participative initiatives show

insufficient consideration for laymen, which widens the gap between

government and people.

Society’s complexity

The essence of the problem is that society is complex as it is. This complexity

has to be managed by an evenly large and complex system. The way in which

EU Directivesnational legislationpolicies and risks

Mass individualisation

Complexity of society increases

Speed & impact of change

Risk averse society

More and more law, regulations, procedures, inspections, ….

An increasingly complex society requires increasingly complex laws, leading to more and more complex applications and business processes

to execute these laws.


the government is organized is a reflection of this observation: in the

Netherlands alone government consists of some 1,300 organizations varying

from municipalities, provinces, executive agencies and supervisors to

ministries.

The methods we use to specify laws and regulations go back to the middle

ages and are no longer sufficient in our current complex society.

Consequently, problems occur in many areas: paralysis of execution, high

administrative burden for citizens and companies en complaints about

governmental services. But also skepticism regarding the government:

‘Waste of tax payers’ money’, ‘rules, rules, and rules’.

Coping with complexity

The number of rules, the detail of regulations and the fragmentation of

government have indeed gone too far. Although simplification of rules and

procedures would definitely contribute to reducing administrative burden, it

cannot solve all problems concerned. Even more than the complexity of

regulation, the lack of insight and transparency in relevant government

regulation, information and services poses a real problem for citizens,

companies and public officials.

We are convinced that many problems would be solved by giving citizens,

companies and public organizations always full insight into the rules, rights

and duties which apply in specific situations. In the example of the afore

mentioned catering entrepreneur, this implies that he should be able to

‘push a button’, in order to know which rules, permits, rights and duties are

relevant for him to start his company (considering the type of company,

proposed activities, intended location, etcetera). A complete advice, but

tailored to the specific context of the entrepreneur, comprehendible,

applicable and consistently presented, enables the entrepreneur to swiftly

consider his options en take necessary actions.

If all laws and regulations would be available in a transparent way and

presented consistently and tailor made, citizens would be served more


effectively, companies would work more efficient and effective and officials

would enforce the rules better. Governments would also gain better insight

in the interdependence of regulations, improving their levels of application

and enforcement.

That is why we suggest to increase the accessibility, transparency,

comprehensibility and applicability of laws and regulations. Policy modeling

is a prerequisite to this perspective.


Policy Modeling to cope with complexity

Nowadays, solutions are at hand to present large amounts of complex

regulations to users in a transparent and insightful way by enhancing laws

and regulations with semantic models.

Regulation is characterized by norms which apply to certain recipients in

specific situations. Therefore, laws and regulations carry descriptions, often

in abstract terms, of such situations. Those situations often serve as link

between different norms and norm systems, both within a specific law and

between different laws. For example, the term ‘partnership’ indicates an

existing or a possible relation between people. Different norms may apply to

this situation. In fiscal legislation, the concept can be used for a tax debt

division standard, whereas in social security legislation the concept can be

used for a standard which defines benefit claims.

Descriptions of situations are the linchpin in making the original sources of

laws and regulations accessible and in realizing (automated) systems for the

benefit of executing these laws and regulations. The formal situation

descriptions are also referred to as situational frames1. From these

situational frames, relevant Legal objects and their interdependency can be

identified. Coupled with formal descriptions of concerned standards, these

situational frames can express the meaning of laws and regulations.

With the rise of the semantic web (Web 3.0), a widely supported standard

language which facilitates these semantic models has become available.

Thus, legal objects can be defined uniformly in controlled vocabularies (i.e.

thoroughly organized and managed lists of uniformly defined terms). Reuse

of well characterized and defined legal objects reduces the ambiguity

common for cooperation between organizations in different domains. The

afore mentioned semantic web standards can also describe criteria and

1 A popular example of this are the so called life events, increasingly used by governments to inform citizens about the impact of legislation.


situations as defined in any law, executive policy, and product or insurance

terms2.

An integrated semantic model allows for easy and accessible executive

support. Real situations (events) are easily translated into existing rights and

obligations, freeing citizens and companies from solving governmental

integration problems themselves.

However, this does not initiate any need for a monolithic building of models.

Techniques which originate from the semantic web allow for local model

development and management, maintaining autonomy for distinguishable

policy areas.

An additional advantage of policy modeling is that it provides politicians

better insight in consistencies and interdependencies of laws. They can also

swiftly identify possible effects of proposed policies en define their opinions

consequently. Even evaluations allow for comparison of realized outcome

with intended effects.

Finally, possibilities for realizing e‐participation are improved considerably.

Citizens and companies can be involved in policy development in the earliest

stages. They can see the outcome of intended policies from their

perspective, they can organize their own information environments

concerning a specific policy and they are given new possibilities to

communicate the effects of implemented policies.

The Dutch government has developed a number of initiatives in this field,

like the Environmental Licensing Portal by the Housing Department, the Legis

Program by the Justice Department and the Rule Support Program by the

Health Department. Also, a growing number of executive agents is redefining

the criteria for managing (models of) laws and regulations, in order to cope

with increasing complexity and volatility of laws and regulations3.

2 The meant W3C standards RDF(S) and OWL are extensions on XML, that were developed to make internet content also interpretable to computer applications.

3 Be Informed has been involved with a large number of projects in this area.


Policy Modeling in a distributed environment

Organizations which are responsible for the domain concerned, are of course

best suited for keeping the models up‐to‐date. Identifying commonalities in

different policy sources will have a positive effect on reducing governance

complexity as a result of reusing each other’s models (maybe after

specialization). This will enhance regulation coherence and reduce the

perceived regulatory burden.

Authentic sources If all public institutions would register the rules within their responsibility this

way, this knowledge can be used by others in digital domain or target group

specific portals, company processes and dossiers. If on top of that associated

agreements on management, quality and responsibilities are made, a true

system of authentic sources of rules can arise.

Significant progress has already been made in similar areas; collecting data

from citizens and companies. The government in the Netherlands is realizing

a system of basic registrations, making it possible to collect data once and

provide them to several authorized institutions. Through this initiative, the

government aims to reduce the administrative burden, management costs

and significant higher data quality. We are convinced that setting up

authentic sources for rules will provide similar benefits. In the Netherlands,

steps are being taken to realize a system of authentic rules registrations,

A system of authentic sources is not implemented overnight, but will have to

grow. Introducing a common language and conceptual framework would be

a good start, because it does not impose obligations on government where

the structuring of rules is concerned, but it does offer the opportunity to

profit from this effort and enhance information provision towards citizens

and companies. Examples of this are governmental projects which increase

transparency, like the portal for all government related issues;

www.overheid.nl, www.omgevingsloket.nl and www.regelhulp.nl, as well as

smaller initiatives like www.newtoholland.nl


Added value Citizens, companies and public institutions want their government to be

more transparent. The answer to this call not only lies in the simplification of

rules or reorganizing government but also and particularly in having

regulatory and executive organizations define and publish the meaning and

scope of rules within their area of responsibility.

Through this effort, government will be able to provide clear and uniform

answers to the public, regardless of how tasks and responsibilities are

distributed among administrative levels, departments and/or services.

Companies will then be able to economize on compliance issues and on the

involvement of external expertise and government will l be able to cut costs

involved with the interpretation, publishing and presenting of rules. And

because the rules are more uniform and comprehendible, enforcement

becomes more effective both for citizens and companies, and for public

officials. Not least because this way of working facilitates cooperation

between different enforcement institutions.

And last but not least, policy modeling can contribute to restoring public

trust in politics, by regaining participation and consultation from the

exclusive domain of special interest groups.


Research

In the Netherlands, quite some experience has been gained concerning

policy modeling. This experience is substantiated by thorough scientific

research (see for example research programs AGILE4, SEAL5, ESTRELLA6).

Despite this experience, pursuit of necessary additional answers will prove

valuable. With regard to ICT for Governance and Policy Modeling, we

distinguish four research tracks.

Track 1: Government As A Service

How can regulatory and executive government organizations separately

describe and publish rules on their specific area of responsibility, which are

consequently made available to other governments, citizens and companies?

How can these organizations then combine these services to provide tailor

made answers, without knowing all services in detail?

With which infrastructural demands should the system of authentic policy

sources comply for this?

Aspects to be addressed include: semantic web, semantic harmonization,

standards, linked open data, services registries, legal ontologies, ontologies

for situational frames, trust and security, coping with the distributed nature

of government and size and management of the models, and feedback.

Track 2: Policy modeling for policy advisors/officers

Should legislation be defined in systematically designed knowledge models

and should regulatory lawyers, policy makers and decision makers operate

within the relevant frameworks when developing new policies, then the

manageability of the situation would improve considerably.

4 AGILE: Advanced Governance of Information services through Legal Engineering 5 SEAL: Smart Environment for Assisting the drafting and debating of Legislation 6 ESTRELLA: European project for Standardized Transparent Representations in order to Extend Legal Accessibility


In this track, we propose to explore ways to support policy makers efficiently

in drawing up formal policy and regulatory models. Policy makers currently

already think in informal mental models which are consequently converted

into text (and later into formal models/software by programmers again).

How can policy makers be supported in expressing policies in formal models?

Which metaphors (graphic models, structured language, tables, etc.) are

practical for policy makers? Which categories and customized tools can be

distinguished? Which methods could be useful?

Laws are not easily converted into execution rules, nor do they easily fit in

any other legal framework because every regulatory lawyer draws up a tailor

made design for every law, with specific formulations and definitions. We

therefore advocate building a pattern library of standards, permissions, etc,

as common in laws and regulations. Recognizing and managing patterns in

laws and regulations allows for the growth of a library of policy patterns and

related models which can be reused for initiating and adjusting policies. It is

our experience that the quality of policies benefits from this.

Track 3: Extracting knowledge from policy documents

In this track we propose to extract rules from text. How can rules, already

defined in laws and procedures, be extracted from these sources and serve

as input for models? Which methods and/or possibilities exist? What is the

balance between automated and manual labor? What pros and cons can be

distinguished? How can the knowledge and expertise of both professionals

and ‘the crowds’ contribute to a solution?

Track 4: Policy modeling as an opportunity for e‐participation

By describing policies in formal models and publishing them through

applications and services, citizens and companies can be informed tailor

made about the implications of new legislation. This creates an infrastructure

which enables both professionals and citizens and other stakeholders to

actively participate in the development and testing of policies.


Which methods can be distinguished for this? How can citizens and

companies link their reality to that of government models? How can this lead

to new and more powerful forms of feedback than traditional instruments?

Which conditions should apply?


The applicants

Geert Rensen

Geert Rensen is a technology innovator and marketing professional with over

15 years of experience at leading companies in the software and software

services industry. He is one of the founders of Be Informed and a thought

leader on the topic of citizen centric government. Geert Rensen currently

holds the position of Director Marketing & Strategy at Be Informed.

Thei Geurts

Thei ‘s roots are in the domains of library and information management,

publishing, content and context management. He has worked as a business

developer, consultant, thought leader, solution architect and competence

manager in the field of knowledge solutions, information technology and

innovation. Thei has a special interest in realizing the vision of a semantically

enabled infrastructure to support context driven information, advice and

transaction services in the public, finance and industry sector. Thei Geurts

works as a Partner and Customer Consultant at Be Informed.

Jan Willem Ebbinge

Jan Willem has a passion for, and a great deal of experience in

communication. All too often, communication is about removing obstacles

that interfere with the message of the sender. Jan Willem is convinced that

true communication, i.e. interaction with target groups , leads to more

sustainable results across the board. Jan Willem is Strategy and Marketing

Editor at Be Informed.