By making data more widely available—even if only within the federal government—it will empower a wide range of users to more routinely make fact-based decisions. This has the effect of pushing analysis and decision making down to the front line instead of to staff offices. This could be the beginning of a new performance agenda, which author W. David Stephenson calls “democratizing data.” Support for making such data available more broadly to the public is being pushed by advocacy groups such as the Sunlight Foundation.

A couple weeks ago, I attended the Mercatus Center’s 10th annual ceremony releasing their assessment of how transparent agencies were in reporting their performance via their annually-required performance report under the Government Performance and Results Act. It made me think about how far the whole transparency movement has come.

A White House task force on creating a more transparent, participative, and collaborative government is due to report out it recommendations on May 21st.  It has been gathering federal employee input via a governm

President Obama signed a directive in his first full day in office committing his Administration to “creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government.” He directed the Chief Technology Officer to, within 120 days, create recommendations for an Open Government Directive.