tom'riik'ee

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TOM - Enhance Public Participation in Public
Decision making

• tom.riik.ee
• A state-supported internet system TOM
• of public proposals for legislation in Estonia
• Patron Prime Minister
• Administration Prime Ministers office

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How it works?

• Proposals
• Proposals submitted by people via internet
• Legislation projects from the ministeries
• Participation
• Everybody can read the materials
• You have to register (no restrictions) in order
  to submit, comment, vote and sign

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Pipeline
People
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Background internet in Estonia

• Basic facts
• Ca 1.400.000 inhabitants
• Ca 20.000 state and local government officials
• Inhabitants between 15 and 75
• 36 have used internet during last 6 months
• 25 have a PC at home
• 13 are heavy internet users (active use every
  day)
• Public sector
• 95 of state officials have PC-s with internet on
  their desk

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Background e-government in Estonia

• Existing
• Cabinet meetings system
• State portal and www sites for practically all
  institutions
• Laws and proposals on the internet
• TOM
• In the implementation phase
• Obligatory to publish all official documents on
  the web
• Electronic ID card with electronic certificates
• All state databases as web services (XML-RPC)
• (Internet voting in local elections)

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TOM statistics after six months

• High use, low active participation
• 2629 registered users
• 405 proposals submitted
• 69 proposals removed
• 83 proposals voted out
• On the average there are 10 votes per proposal
• On the average there are 7 signatures per
  proposal

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Lessons learned

• Receives a lot of publicity in the press
• A large number of passive readers
• A large number of proposals
• Fun, quick, transparent
• Most proposals are short and sketchy, many
  repetitions
• Most proposals are not directly legislation
  proposals
• Relatively few votes and signatures
• Users are de facto anonymous

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Crucial for success in the future

• Involving more civil society, NGO-s
• TOM as one aspect of participation
• Defend and explain the proposals by users in
  discussions
• Eliminate stuped ideas
• Edit the proposals put them into a processable
  form
• Top level support for processing in state
  machinery
• Collecting and publishing feedback from the state
  machinery
• Authentication of users