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This research focuses an optimal arrangement of open spending as added instrumental value to the accountability in communicating financial information towards citizens within The Netherlands. Open Spending is more and more of relevance in the Netherlands and is addressed as one of the key action points in the Open Government Partnership Action plan of The Netherlands. In order to adequately communicate financial information towards citizens, 5 arrangement variables of accountability (transparency, liability, verifiability, responsibility and responsiveness) as defined by Jonathan Koppell where explored and extended with the notion of social accountability. As social accountability mechanisms are geared towards public expenditure management processes - mechanisms that seek to directly involve ordinary citizens in processes of allocating, disbursing, monitoring and evaluating the use of public resources - have proved very effective since it is this resource flow that puts policy into action. From a viewpoint of the 'Civic Engagement Model' created by The World Bank, we reflected on the current formats of accountability in a focus group with six key actors from amongst others Dutch Ministries, Open State Foundation, Provinces and Municipalities and verified afterwards with delegates of the Open Knowledge Foundation. After empirical analyses current initiatives surrounding open spending within The Netherlands are lacking a clear goal, content and format and an adequate completion on a National level. This research also showed a twofold goal for further open spending developments, on one hand generating social accountability, civic engagement and clarifying financial Open Government Data by providing contextualised information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research focuses an optimal arrangement of open spending as added instrumental value to the accountability in communicating financial information towards citizens within The Netherlands. Open Spending is more and more of relevance in the Netherlands and is addressed as one of the key action points in the Open Government Partnership Action plan of The Netherlands. In order to adequately communicate financial information towards citizens, 5 arrangement variables of accountability (transparency, liability, verifiability, responsibility and responsiveness) as defined by Jonathan Koppell where explored and extended with the notion of social accountability. As social accountability mechanisms are geared towards public expenditure management processes - mechanisms that seek to directly involve ordinary citizens in processes of allocating, disbursing, monitoring and evaluating the use of public resources - have proved very effective since it is this resource flow that puts policy into action. From a viewpoint of the 'Civic Engagement Model' created by The World Bank, we reflected on the current formats of accountability in a focus group with six key actors from amongst others Dutch Ministries, Open State Foundation, Provinces and Municipalities and verified afterwards with delegates of the Open Knowledge Foundation. After empirical analyses current initiatives surrounding open spending within The Netherlands are lacking a clear goal, content and format and an adequate completion on a National level. This research also showed a twofold goal for further open spending developments, on one hand generating social accountability, civic engagement and clarifying financial Open Government Data by providing contextualised information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, governmental bodies in many countries acknowledge ICT applications to be powerful tools for increasing involvement of citizens in public policy-making, and as such a sound investment in better public policy (OECD 2003: 9). Within the Dutch governmental bodies a study by Prof. Dr. Kickert (2005:10) has shown that these ICT developments also demand an optimal public service. Furthermore citizens are inclined to participate more often if governments use digital tools, because of their (usability) speed and comfort (Beffers & Van den Brink, 2007). The last decade the Dutch governmental bodies have become increasingly aware of the possibilities of ICT applications and the growing digital behaviour of its citizens. To prepare the next phase of large scale and structural implementation of eDemocracy, the size and range of that task must be researched. This paper describes research conducted at the municipality of The Hague (The Netherlands). It was aimed to determine how many political issues lend itself to e-democratic support. The research then categorized the issues using the policy cycle (agenda-setting, preparation, determination, execution, monitoring and evaluation) and styles of citizenship (dutiful, pragmatic and society critic). Some results of the research: During the course of 3 years the city council and its committees treated 1834 issues. Of these, 69% were treated by the city council committees and 31% by the city council itself. 78% of issues could be categorised within the policy making process. According to the styles of citizenship, citizens are most likely to participate when issues directly relate to their personal environment (pragmatic), as well as issues concerning the qualitative functionality of the local government (society critic). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of the rise of the network society, information technology (IT) will be utilised in new fields of application and new techniques will be used. Against this background, the question can be posed as to how the governance of IT in the future must be organized and to what extent current steering instruments can be used to do this. In recent years, studies have been made to determine how the management of IT must be organized. However, these studies focused on past experience and took insufficient account of the changes that will occur in the future as a result of the rise of the network society. This framework is based on two developments that should be taken into account and, based on these developments, a set of constraints and principles are described to which steering instruments must comply. This framework is then used to examine to what extent a current steering instrument is suited to manage IT in the future. When this instrument is being plotted against the constraints described in the normative framework, it becomes clear that the scope in which the instrument is applied so far is different to the scope in which the instrument should be used in the future. Based on the principles described in the normative framework, some observations are made as to how the steering instrument could be used in another way. Finally, based on this analysis, a number of conclusions and recommendations are formulated for the development of steering instruments in the network society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]