This document discusses the increasing complexity of society and government policies and regulations. It argues that the complexity has led to problems like citizens and businesses losing track of which rules apply to them, increased administrative burden, and difficulties for politicians developing effective policies. The document proposes that using technology to convert laws and regulations into formal models could help increase transparency and allow citizens, businesses, and government agencies to better understand how policies apply in specific situations. This may help reduce skepticism about government and engage citizens and businesses in policy development. Four research tracks are proposed to further explore using policy modeling.

1. Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership
Contribution on
“Future Research on ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling”
For the CROSSROAD project
Submitted by:
Be Informed BV
Geert Rensen
Thei Geurts
Jan Willem Ebbinge
Apeldoorn, March 2nd
2010
Correspondence:
De Linie 620
7325 DZ Apeldoorn
T: +31 55 368 14 20
E: t.geurts@beinformed.nl

2. 2 Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership
Table of Contents
Summary ................................................................................................ 3
A complex world .................................................................................... 5
Society’s complexity ...................................................................................... 7
Coping with complexity ................................................................................ 8
Policy Modeling to cope with complexity .......................................... 10
Policy modeling in a distributed environment ............................................ 12
Authentic Sources ................................................................................... 12
Added Value ............................................................................................ 13
Research ............................................................................................... 14
Track 1: Government as a service ............................................................... 14
Track 2: Policy Modeling for policy advisors/officers ................................. 14
Track 3: Extracting knowledge from policy documents .............................. 15
Track 4: Policy Modeling as an opportunity for e‐participation ................. 15
The Applicants ..................................................................................... 16

3. Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership 3
Summary
It is not easy for citizens or businesses to operate in the forest of institutions,
laws and regulations, products and portals of the government. Through the
years we have created a complex system. Citizens, businesses, but also
governments themselves are subject to large amounts of rules they must
apply in their daily practice and business.
A number of consequences can be distinguished:
 Citizens no longer understand what politics is about and they
become cynical towards the government;
 Companies lose sight and grip on legislation and conditions;
 Increase of administrative burden resulting in near paralysis of the
business environment;
 Executive agencies experience problems with the execution of laws
and keeping up with adjustments, resulting in failed IT projects and
high IT costs and even postponement of laws;
 Politicians experience difficulty in estimating the impact of proposed
policies and their ability to develop effective policy decreases.
Politics degenerates into a specialized area of lobby groups, increasing an
aversion to politics with the general public. The restricted role of laymen in
participation initiatives only increases the gap between government and the
public.
We are convinced that the solution lies in using technology to increase
transparency in the development and dissemination of laws and regulations
by converting these laws and regulations into formal models. Citizens and
companies can be informed tailor‐made about the implications of existing
legislation and new laws and regulations by describing policies in formal
models en presenting them through applications and services. Executive
agencies can take these models into consideration in their operations and
provide accountability for it. Politicians can use the models to simulate the
impact and effectiveness of new legislation beforehand en publish the scope
of proposed policies. This way, an infrastructure will arise which will enable

4. 4 Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership
both professionals and citizens to participate actively in the development
and assessment of policies.
In the Netherlands we gained much experience with describing policies in
formal models, which has delivered a major contribution to improving the
quality of service, lower implementation costs and improving the
effectiveness of laws and regulations.
Based upon our vision and experience we propose to initiate four research
tracks in order to further explore and develop a number of aspects around
policy modeling.

5. Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership 5
A complex world
It is not easy for citizens or businesses to operate in the forest of institutions,
laws and regulations, products and portals of the government. Through the
years we have created a complex system. Citizens, businesses, but also
governments are subject to large amounts of rules they must apply in their
daily practice and business.
Laws and regulations are imposed on European, national, regional and local
levels and are defined from an overall level to thoroughly detailed. They are
aimed at protecting consumers, the environment, free trade, etcetera. These
laws and regulations are drawn up from the government’s perspective,
whereas citizens and companies initiate activities in which different
governmental organizations and policies are involved. This leads to the
situation where citizens and companies even in the smallest activities are
confronted with a variety of laws and regulations from different
organizations and policies. Complying with these rules then proves to be a
complex matter, even with the simplest of activities.
1600
organisations
15.000
laws &
regulations
10.000’s
products &
services
1.000.000’s
document
announcements
I want to come
to work in the
Netherlands
Gap citizen and government
Many different institutions involved
Red tape / large numbers of rules
Lack of transparancy
Administrative burden
Confronted with an overwhelming amount of institutions, laws and
regulations citizens and business loose track.
They do not know which rules apply in their specific situation.

6. 6 Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership
For instance, an entrepreneur who wants to start a catering company in the
Netherlands is soon confronted with regulations from the Catering Business
Community, the Food Quality Authority, the Chamber of Commerce, the Tax
Department, the Labor Inspection, the local Fire Department and several
local community regulations. All these rules were drawn up and are
presented from the different institutions’ perspectives. The entrepreneur is
left to ascertain by himself which rules from which organization are
applicable in his situation.
Should he be able to find all the information he needs, he will probably not
be able to interpret it correctly due to lack of consistency. A great deal of
government information is not available in a way that is comprehendible for
citizens and companies. This information is often documented in reports,
laws and protocols with their own specific formulations. These documents
are hardly comprehendible for non specialists and their practical usability is
low.
Increasing and continuous variability in laws and regulations provides even
greater complexity. Both initially and after the implementation of
adjustments, the entrepreneur is forced to hire expensive specialists to
interpret the relevance of laws and regulations for him.
This also applies for executive agencies. They are confronted with frequent
adjustments in laws and regulations which are to be implemented in their
processes, systems and their communication with clients. These adjustments
occur faster and more frequent, because society expects politicians to hedge
risks with regulations.
This situation leads to more and more problems in execution. ICT costs are
on the rise and projects fail. ICT complexity increases because rules are
converted into software code, hiding manageable policies behind vast
amounts of software, processes, manuals and other systems. This frustrates
the insight, transparency and manageability of processes and the ability to
swiftly adapt to changes.

7. Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership 7
Politicians, finally, want to intervene; they want to solve social issues and
exclude risks. In order to achieve this, they initiate policies. The problem,
however, is that new laws must agree with ‘the big picture’ and politicians
lack an overview of all laws and regulations.
Of course politicians and policy makers seek broad and thorough support for
their policies, but public participation presents them with new demands that
are not easily met.
The complexity and the lack of transparency also affect e‐participation and
democracy. Participation and consultation prove to be difficult because
citizens have no insight into what the proposals include exactly. Politics has
degenerated into an area for specialist lobby groups. This has strengthened
the aversion for politics with the public. Participative initiatives show
insufficient consideration for laymen, which widens the gap between
government and people.
Society’s complexity
The essence of the problem is that society is complex as it is. This complexity
has to be managed by an evenly large and complex system. The way in which
EU Directives
national legislation
policies and risks
Mass individualisation
Complexity of society increases
Speed & impact of change
Risk averse society
More and more law, regulations,
procedures, inspections, ….
An increasingly complex society requires increasingly complex laws,
leading to more and more complex applications and business processes
to execute these laws.

8. 8 Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership
the government is organized is a reflection of this observation: in the
Netherlands alone government consists of some 1,300 organizations varying
from municipalities, provinces, executive agencies and supervisors to
ministries.
The methods we use to specify laws and regulations go back to the middle
ages and are no longer sufficient in our current complex society.
Consequently, problems occur in many areas: paralysis of execution, high
administrative burden for citizens and companies en complaints about
governmental services. But also skepticism regarding the government:
‘Waste of tax payers’ money’, ‘rules, rules, and rules’.
Coping with complexity
The number of rules, the detail of regulations and the fragmentation of
government have indeed gone too far. Although simplification of rules and
procedures would definitely contribute to reducing administrative burden, it
cannot solve all problems concerned. Even more than the complexity of
regulation, the lack of insight and transparency in relevant government
regulation, information and services poses a real problem for citizens,
companies and public officials.
We are convinced that many problems would be solved by giving citizens,
companies and public organizations always full insight into the rules, rights
and duties which apply in specific situations. In the example of the afore
mentioned catering entrepreneur, this implies that he should be able to
‘push a button’, in order to know which rules, permits, rights and duties are
relevant for him to start his company (considering the type of company,
proposed activities, intended location, etcetera). A complete advice, but
tailored to the specific context of the entrepreneur, comprehendible,
applicable and consistently presented, enables the entrepreneur to swiftly
consider his options en take necessary actions.
If all laws and regulations would be available in a transparent way and
presented consistently and tailor made, citizens would be served more

9. Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership 9
effectively, companies would work more efficient and effective and officials
would enforce the rules better. Governments would also gain better insight
in the interdependence of regulations, improving their levels of application
and enforcement.
That is why we suggest to increase the accessibility, transparency,
comprehensibility and applicability of laws and regulations. Policy modeling
is a prerequisite to this perspective.

10. 10 Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership
Policy Modeling to cope with complexity
Nowadays, solutions are at hand to present large amounts of complex
regulations to users in a transparent and insightful way by enhancing laws
and regulations with semantic models.
Regulation is characterized by norms which apply to certain recipients in
specific situations. Therefore, laws and regulations carry descriptions, often
in abstract terms, of such situations. Those situations often serve as link
between different norms and norm systems, both within a specific law and
between different laws. For example, the term ‘partnership’ indicates an
existing or a possible relation between people. Different norms may apply to
this situation. In fiscal legislation, the concept can be used for a tax debt
division standard, whereas in social security legislation the concept can be
used for a standard which defines benefit claims.
Descriptions of situations are the linchpin in making the original sources of
laws and regulations accessible and in realizing (automated) systems for the
benefit of executing these laws and regulations. The formal situation
descriptions are also referred to as situational frames1. From these
situational frames, relevant Legal objects and their interdependency can be
identified. Coupled with formal descriptions of concerned standards, these
situational frames can express the meaning of laws and regulations.
With the rise of the semantic web (Web 3.0), a widely supported standard
language which facilitates these semantic models has become available.
Thus, legal objects can be defined uniformly in controlled vocabularies (i.e.
thoroughly organized and managed lists of uniformly defined terms). Reuse
of well characterized and defined legal objects reduces the ambiguity
common for cooperation between organizations in different domains. The
afore mentioned semantic web standards can also describe criteria and
1
A popular example of this are the so called life events, increasingly used by
governments to inform citizens about the impact of legislation.

11. Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership 11
situations as defined in any law, executive policy, and product or insurance
terms2.
An integrated semantic model allows for easy and accessible executive
support. Real situations (events) are easily translated into existing rights and
obligations, freeing citizens and companies from solving governmental
integration problems themselves.
However, this does not initiate any need for a monolithic building of models.
Techniques which originate from the semantic web allow for local model
development and management, maintaining autonomy for distinguishable
policy areas.
An additional advantage of policy modeling is that it provides politicians
better insight in consistencies and interdependencies of laws. They can also
swiftly identify possible effects of proposed policies en define their opinions
consequently. Even evaluations allow for comparison of realized outcome
with intended effects.
Finally, possibilities for realizing e‐participation are improved considerably.
Citizens and companies can be involved in policy development in the earliest
stages. They can see the outcome of intended policies from their
perspective, they can organize their own information environments
concerning a specific policy and they are given new possibilities to
communicate the effects of implemented policies.
The Dutch government has developed a number of initiatives in this field,
like the Environmental Licensing Portal by the Housing Department, the Legis
Program by the Justice Department and the Rule Support Program by the
Health Department. Also, a growing number of executive agents is redefining
the criteria for managing (models of) laws and regulations, in order to cope
with increasing complexity and volatility of laws and regulations3
.
2
The meant W3C standards RDF(S) and OWL are extensions on XML, that were developed to
make internet content also interpretable to computer applications.
3
Be Informed has been involved with a large number of projects in this area.

12. 12 Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership
Policy Modeling in a distributed environment
Organizations which are responsible for the domain concerned, are of course
best suited for keeping the models up‐to‐date. Identifying commonalities in
different policy sources will have a positive effect on reducing governance
complexity as a result of reusing each other’s models (maybe after
specialization). This will enhance regulation coherence and reduce the
perceived regulatory burden.
Authentic sources
If all public institutions would register the rules within their responsibility this
way, this knowledge can be used by others in digital domain or target group
specific portals, company processes and dossiers. If on top of that associated
agreements on management, quality and responsibilities are made, a true
system of authentic sources of rules can arise.
Significant progress has already been made in similar areas; collecting data
from citizens and companies. The government in the Netherlands is realizing
a system of basic registrations, making it possible to collect data once and
provide them to several authorized institutions. Through this initiative, the
government aims to reduce the administrative burden, management costs
and significant higher data quality. We are convinced that setting up
authentic sources for rules will provide similar benefits. In the Netherlands,
steps are being taken to realize a system of authentic rules registrations,
A system of authentic sources is not implemented overnight, but will have to
grow. Introducing a common language and conceptual framework would be
a good start, because it does not impose obligations on government where
the structuring of rules is concerned, but it does offer the opportunity to
profit from this effort and enhance information provision towards citizens
and companies. Examples of this are governmental projects which increase
transparency, like the portal for all government related issues;
www.overheid.nl, www.omgevingsloket.nl and www.regelhulp.nl, as well as
smaller initiatives like www.newtoholland.nl

13. Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership 13
Added value
Citizens, companies and public institutions want their government to be
more transparent. The answer to this call not only lies in the simplification of
rules or reorganizing government but also and particularly in having
regulatory and executive organizations define and publish the meaning and
scope of rules within their area of responsibility.
Through this effort, government will be able to provide clear and uniform
answers to the public, regardless of how tasks and responsibilities are
distributed among administrative levels, departments and/or services.
Companies will then be able to economize on compliance issues and on the
involvement of external expertise and government will l be able to cut costs
involved with the interpretation, publishing and presenting of rules. And
because the rules are more uniform and comprehendible, enforcement
becomes more effective both for citizens and companies, and for public
officials. Not least because this way of working facilitates cooperation
between different enforcement institutions.
And last but not least, policy modeling can contribute to restoring public
trust in politics, by regaining participation and consultation from the
exclusive domain of special interest groups.

14. 14 Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership
Research
In the Netherlands, quite some experience has been gained concerning
policy modeling. This experience is substantiated by thorough scientific
research (see for example research programs AGILE4
, SEAL5
, ESTRELLA6
).
Despite this experience, pursuit of necessary additional answers will prove
valuable. With regard to ICT for Governance and Policy Modeling, we
distinguish four research tracks.
Track 1: Government As A Service
How can regulatory and executive government organizations separately
describe and publish rules on their specific area of responsibility, which are
consequently made available to other governments, citizens and companies?
How can these organizations then combine these services to provide tailor
made answers, without knowing all services in detail?
With which infrastructural demands should the system of authentic policy
sources comply for this?
Aspects to be addressed include: semantic web, semantic harmonization,
standards, linked open data, services registries, legal ontologies, ontologies
for situational frames, trust and security, coping with the distributed nature
of government and size and management of the models, and feedback.
Track 2: Policy modeling for policy advisors/officers
Should legislation be defined in systematically designed knowledge models
and should regulatory lawyers, policy makers and decision makers operate
within the relevant frameworks when developing new policies, then the
manageability of the situation would improve considerably.
4
AGILE: Advanced Governance of Information services through Legal Engineering
5
SEAL: Smart Environment for Assisting the drafting and debating of Legislation
6
ESTRELLA: European project for Standardized Transparent Representations in order to
Extend Legal Accessibility

15. Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership 15
In this track, we propose to explore ways to support policy makers efficiently
in drawing up formal policy and regulatory models. Policy makers currently
already think in informal mental models which are consequently converted
into text (and later into formal models/software by programmers again).
How can policy makers be supported in expressing policies in formal models?
Which metaphors (graphic models, structured language, tables, etc.) are
practical for policy makers? Which categories and customized tools can be
distinguished? Which methods could be useful?
Laws are not easily converted into execution rules, nor do they easily fit in
any other legal framework because every regulatory lawyer draws up a tailor
made design for every law, with specific formulations and definitions. We
therefore advocate building a pattern library of standards, permissions, etc,
as common in laws and regulations. Recognizing and managing patterns in
laws and regulations allows for the growth of a library of policy patterns and
related models which can be reused for initiating and adjusting policies. It is
our experience that the quality of policies benefits from this.
Track 3: Extracting knowledge from policy documents
In this track we propose to extract rules from text. How can rules, already
defined in laws and procedures, be extracted from these sources and serve
as input for models? Which methods and/or possibilities exist? What is the
balance between automated and manual labor? What pros and cons can be
distinguished? How can the knowledge and expertise of both professionals
and ‘the crowds’ contribute to a solution?
Track 4: Policy modeling as an opportunity for e‐participation
By describing policies in formal models and publishing them through
applications and services, citizens and companies can be informed tailor
made about the implications of new legislation. This creates an infrastructure
which enables both professionals and citizens and other stakeholders to
actively participate in the development and testing of policies.

16. 16 Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership
Which methods can be distinguished for this? How can citizens and
companies link their reality to that of government models? How can this lead
to new and more powerful forms of feedback than traditional instruments?
Which conditions should apply?

17. Transforming policy skepticism into policy co‐makership 17
The applicants
Geert Rensen
Geert Rensen is a technology innovator and marketing professional with over
15 years of experience at leading companies in the software and software
services industry. He is one of the founders of Be Informed and a thought
leader on the topic of citizen centric government. Geert Rensen currently
holds the position of Director Marketing & Strategy at Be Informed.
Thei Geurts
Thei ‘s roots are in the domains of library and information management,
publishing, content and context management. He has worked as a business
developer, consultant, thought leader, solution architect and competence
manager in the field of knowledge solutions, information technology and
innovation. Thei has a special interest in realizing the vision of a semantically
enabled infrastructure to support context driven information, advice and
transaction services in the public, finance and industry sector. Thei Geurts
works as a Partner and Customer Consultant at Be Informed.
Jan Willem Ebbinge
Jan Willem has a passion for, and a great deal of experience in
communication. All too often, communication is about removing obstacles
that interfere with the message of the sender. Jan Willem is convinced that
true communication, i.e. interaction with target groups , leads to more
sustainable results across the board. Jan Willem is Strategy and Marketing
Editor at Be Informed.