In order to maximise the transparency and efficiency of the public sector, the National Audit Office has opened the institution’s data sets on the Lithuanian Open Data Portal. From now on, data on the results of public audits and budget policy monitoring as well as administrative data on the institution’s activities are available to the public not only on the National Audit Office’s website, but also on the portal, where open data is provided by 166 public sector organisations. This platform provides data in a machine-readable format that allows computer systems to analyse, aggregate and use large amounts of information quickly and efficiently.
“Open data has a positive impact not only on the efficiency and transparency of the public sector, but also on citizens’ daily lives, the economy and the development of innovation. Studies in the European Union show that Member States’ profits from open data amount to billions of euros. We follow the policy of transparency in the National Audit Office, and it is encouraging that more and more institutions understand the benefits of open data and a platform has been created that allows public sector data to be shared centrally and in a form that ensures maximum efficiency of their use", said Mindaugas Macijauskas, the Auditor General.
The National Audit Office has been talking for years about the importance of opening public sector data to the public. The 2016 audit assessed the opening of public sector data and the audit report found that due to regulatory and technical barriers, an efficient and user-friendly data sharing platform had not been established. Today, such a platform has already been set up, with an increasing number of institutions joining it, and we will assess developments in the opening of public sector data in an audit to be launched in autumn 2023.