#Open Government Plan for The City of Philadelphia
Executive Order 1-12, signed by Mayor Michael Nutter in April of 2012, established a formal open data policy for the City of Philadelphia. As part of the Mayor’s Executive Order, this Open Government Plan is intended to outline specific objectives and deliverables to incorporate the principles of open government into the operations and activities of city departments.
The purpose of this plan is to provide background information on the City’s open data and open government efforts to date, and to identify goals that are being pursued to institutionalize the Mayor’s vision for open government in the City of Philadelphia.
This plan is organized into five main sections. The first section provides background information on the city’s open government efforts since the execution of Mayor Nutter’s Executive Order. Subsequent sections provide the status of specific actions in the three key areas laid out in the Executive Order to advance the principles of open government: 1) transparency; 2) public participation, and; 3) collaboration. The final section will highlight areas where new opportunities for transparency and sharing open data exist.
A common theme throughout this plan, and inherent in the city’s efforts to implement the Mayor’s vision, is that the concept of “open government” refers to an ongoing process rather than a final outcome. Integrating open government practices into the daily operations of the City of Philadelphia will be an area of constant refinement and improvement - we will build on our successes, learn from our failures and share with our partners in other cities.
The details outlined in this version of the City of Philadelphia’s Open Government Plan are meant to outline the steps that will be taken to realize Mayor Nutter’s vision for a more open and transparent government, taking us to the end of the Mayor’s second term in December of 2015.