Appendix 3 - Official Information Act, Thailand: Implementation Guidelines

1. To promote and develop the acknowledgement of the Act content, its utilization, the mechanism and the procedures to utilize the Act to meet people's right to access information.
   
   
   1. State agencies should provide more training on the knowledge of the law as well as to change the attitude and enhance their skill of law enforcement. This should be done on the different target groups, ranging from executive officials, legal officials, officials in charge of OIA and top management staff of local administrative bodies. The training should be aimed at encouraging State officials to know the Act well and realize its significance. This will help improve the capacity and efficiency of the agencies and of the nation as a whole.
      
      
   2. Public relations campaign will be more utilized as a means to educate people about the law and the mechanism of using the law as a tool to access the State information. Activities should be concentrated on building the awareness of the public and educate people to realize the importance of the Information Act to ensure their right to know about their freedom of information. They thus should be more involved in employing the Act to get access to the information as a crucial activity in making the government more accountable and transparent.
      
      
   3. Mass media has been targeted to be more active in participating in the information community as the media will be of great help in promoting people's freedom of information. Media could perform as a carrier of law knowledge and a teacher to the public of how to use the law as well as a representative of the public who utilize the law and get access to State information by the name of the people. The training for media is thus recommended in the coming year.
   
   
   
2. To develop the administration of State agencies
   
   
   1. To develop the reform of the documentary management of all government offices to be more efficient, more systematic, eventually leading to nationwide linkage in compliance with the Official Information Act implementation. Each agency might manage its own information by categorizing what information could be released at the level of certain official in charge and what should be taken into consideration of higher level officers.
      
      
   2. The Official Information Commission will develop the manual or handbook for State officials in order to standardize procedures and mechanisms of the information law enforcement.
      
      
   3. The Monitoring and Evaluation should be carried out in all State agencies, by both internal auditors and external inspectors, even from academic institutions, university and NGOs. The objective of the Monitoring and Evaluation is to follow up the understanding and motivation of officials and also the satisfaction of the people to the State information disclosure services. The Monitoring and Evaluation will help the Official Information Commission to improve the administration of the law, to develop strategy and guideline and to supervise the law implementation to eventually achieve the goal of promoting freedom of information.
   
   
   
3. To improve the Monitoring and Evaluation of the Official Information Act implementation of State agencies
   
   The Official Information Commission proposed guidelines to the cabinet in November 1999, (4) and 4 measures were approved to follow up the implementation of the Official Information Act by all government agencies: (5)
   
   
   1. All State agencies have to report their activities on implementing the Official Information Act to the Official Information Commission twice a year
      
      
   2. The Office of the Permanent Secretary of the Prime Minister's Office will be the main agency in charge of monitoring and evaluation, through the annual operation inspection plan of the Prime Minister Inspector General
      
      
   3. All ministries and departments must take this evaluation as a significant policy by appointing the inspector general of each minister to be responsible for this mandate.
      
      
   4. Inspector general of the department of local administration will be responsible for the monitoring and evaluation of local entities.
   
   
   
4. To develop the efficiency and capacity of the Official Information Commission
   
   The Office of the Official Information Commission was established to serve as the secretary and assistant to the Official Information Commission. The office is small compared to the scope of work in dealing with 8775 state agencies around the country. To serve the commission and the state agencies, in order to achieve the goal of promoting the freedom of information, the office should be developed to perform as a small but highly efficient office. This year, the Official Information Commission has set up the development strategy for the office to be organized with potential to serve at its best capacity in evaluation and monitoring. Concurrently, close coordination with state agencies will be more emphasized in order to assist and facilitate proper and efficient implementation of the Act.