News item | 01-04-2022 | 9:00 am
Openness and transparency are essential for trust between society and the government. From 1 May 2022, the new Open Government Act (Woo) will come into effect, which replaces the Open Government Act (Wob).
Woo Instruction
A lot has changed with the coming of the new law. To help government officials on their way, a handbook has therefore been drawn up: the Woo instruction. This instruction is intended as a reference for the execution of the Woo requests. The various authorities themselves are responsible for implementing the Woo. It is up to them to decide how they do this. With the Woo instruction we ensure that we handle Woo requests in the same way within the central government.
The most important changes
The Woo changes a few things. The main changes are:
- There will be an independent advisory board for transparency and information management;
- Each administrative body that falls under the Woo must designate a contact person to whom anyone can turn with questions about the availability of government information;
- Administrative bodies will work on getting the information system in order, the Government Commissioner has been appointed for that purpose;
- In due course, the Woo obliges to actively disclose designated information;
- The term for processing a request will be a maximum of four weeks, with a possible extension of two weeks;
- Partly in view of the shortened term, it is important to quickly identify the information request and to contact the applicant for this purpose;
- Under the Wob, personal policy views were already made public more often, and this line is continued under the Woo;
- Information older than five years is also assumed to be made public.