Transparency can boost efficiency, performance and innovation 

Organisations across the public sector benefit from being more open about where their money is going. Publishing more public contract information, for instance, would drive competition among suppliers and keep down the cost of the UK’s £288bn public sector procurement bill. The government recognised these benefits when developing the Procurement Act 2023 – but to continue making progress in this area then it must ensure that the act lives up to its promise, building on the experience of countries like Ukraine and South Korea which have transformed their public sector procurement through greater transparency.

Government also holds a huge amount of information about its policy areas – sharing more of this could improve the performance of public services. Michael Gove said he was “pleased” when his department released data on the removal of unsafe building cladding – publishing such information helps ministers be clear about their priorities and allows those outside government to “hold [them] to account more easily.”  ²⁰ Gove M, tweet, 16 November 2023, https://twitter.com/michaelgove/status/1725206377998512426  Data sharing breaks down barriers across the public sector, making co-operation easier: we found that publishing Environment Agency flood data has put the government in a better position to model future flooding.

Ministers who want to foster innovation may find transparency to be a useful way to encourage the development of new goods and services. Open data feeds from Transport for London support a whole ecosystem of travel apps, which have generated more than £130m worth of time savings for travellers, contributed to the success of British companies like Citymapper, and reduced the pressure on TfL’s own information services.  

It is time for government to ditch old habits like “take out the trash day”

These benefits aren’t guaranteed – just putting information out into the ether won’t be enough. Government needs to ditch old habits like ‘take out the trash day’ and make sure its transparency releases are user-friendly and part of the everyday business of government. This shouldn’t be seen as a chore: transparency can be a useful tool for government to build partnerships, as the recent National Action Plan for open government showed.  

Resetting attitudes to transparency will require clear political leadership. Ministers in post after the election should be bold enough to open up the workings of their government and make the most of the pay-offs. Whatever the priorities of the next government, greater transparency will help ministers to achieve their goals.