This chapter looks at Slovenia’s recent progress and challenges in building a data-driven public sector. It evaluates approaches to data governance, how data is used to improve services and inform policies, and what mechanisms exists to ensure data is shared and used in a trusted way.
Digital Government Scan of Slovenia
Abstract
Data is now central to how governments function and deliver results. Rapid technological change has expanded both the volume and complexity of data, creating new pressures on public administrations but also new opportunities. When used effectively, data helps governments improve services, design better policies, allocate resources more efficiently, and build trust by making decisions more transparent and evidence based.
Slovenia’s score in the data driven public sector dimension of the 2025 OECD Digital Government Index (DGI) has increased from 0.49 in 2023 to 0.62, representing a rise of 26%. Improvements since 2023 has been driven by:
the introduction of a public sector data strategy embedded in the Digital Public Services Strategy 2030 (Slovenia, 2023[38]) and Digital Slovenia 2030.
the expansion of the national interoperability system Pladenj/Tray at central level.
Advances in ethical data management initiatives that allow citizens to view information held about them by public sector organisations.
Alongside these improvements, Slovenia has preserved several important strengths that support more consistent data governance. The Ministry of Digital Transformation, created in 2023, now serves as the de facto leading institution for public sector data, providing a clearer institutional anchor for this agenda. Data continues to be exchanged across public administrations without fees, reducing barriers to reuse. Requirements for public bodies to maintain data inventories remain in place and these inventories continue to be kept, supporting transparency and internal coordination. Slovenia also maintains documented data use cases that help anticipate and plan government interventions, signalling an ongoing commitment to embedding data use in policymaking and service delivery.
For open data, Slovenia ranks 12 out of 35 OECD countries in the OURdata Index with a score of 0.62. This remains above the OECD average of 0.53 but represents a 7% decline from 2023. Slovenia scores above the OECD average across all three pillars of the Index. Data accessibility has improved while data availability and government support for re use have slightly decreased.
Note: Preliminary
Source: OECD (2022) Survey on Open Government Data 5.0, OECD (2025) Survey on Open Government Data 6.0.
Note: Preliminary
Source: OECD (2022) Survey on Open Government Data 5.0, OECD (2025) Survey on Open Government Data 6.0.
The OURdata Index also measures the availability and accessibility of high-value datasets (HVDs) considered particularly valuable for businesses, society or the environment. Slovenia has made 67% of these high value datasets available as open data, above the OECD average of 56%. Since 2023, access has improved for meteorological data while access to public accountability datasets has declined slightly. Slovenia performs above the OECD average in six out of ten categories and provides 100% geospatial and meteorological data, compared to the 73% and 53% OECD averages.
Note: Preliminary
Source: OECD (2022) Survey on Open Government Data 5.0, OECD (2025) Survey on Open Government Data 6.0.
On the quality and accessibility of high value datasets Slovenia performs above the OECD average across all components. 91% of available HVDs are up to date and can be accessed through the central open data platform OPSI.si. Moreover, 91% are available in non-proprietary formats (e.g. CSV) (OECD average 79%) and metadata quality reaches 94%. API access remains lower at 55%.
Note: Preliminary
Source: OECD (2022) Survey on Open Government Data 5.0, OECD (2025) Survey on Open Government Data 6.0.
Despite Slovenia’s strong overall performance in both the DGI and OURdata Index, the results point to several gaps that still limit the country’s ability to use data effectively across government. Slovenia remains below the OECD average in the DGI DDPS dimension, and the area continues to be its third weakest of the six dimensions measured. The most prominent challenges that create this gap are:
Leadership on data exists in practice at the national level (Ministry of Digital Transformation), but it is not anchored in law. This means responsibilities could shift or weaken as governments change. The same gap appears within organisations.
While guidance and training on data stewardship are available, the absence of a formal requirement for each institution to designate a data lead makes it difficult to build consistent practices across the public sector.
Other missing elements further reduce the impact of Slovenia’s data efforts.
Citizens do not yet have mechanisms to exercise their data-related rights in a simple and transparent way. The country also lacks a public sector data quality framework, which makes it harder to build trust and ensure that data can be reused reliably.
Local governments and institutions of the wider public sector are only loosely connected to the national interoperability system Pladenj/Tray, limiting smooth data exchange beyond central administration.
Data inventories have not been updated or reviewed in several years, creating uncertainty about what data exists and how complete it is.
For open data, compared to 2023, the government has had a reduced level of consultation with businesses, civil society and public servants on decisions about data releases, and limited tracking of open data’s impact for the economy, society or public services and insufficient evidence to demonstrate those effects.
The common business intelligence platform Skrinja/Chest enables data-driven decision making in the fields of public procurement and administrative procedures. The public procurement data is also publicly available online by Odprta Skrinja / Open Chest (https://ejn.gov.si/en/skrinja/skrinjaeng.html. However, the use is still limited for other contents such as public salaries, administrative procedures, common agricultural policy and others.
Finally, there have been no recent initiatives to strengthen the use of data in designing or improving services or in monitoring policy results. This limits Slovenia’s ability to convert its growing data foundations into better services and more resilient, evidence-informed decision making.
Based on these findings, the government could consider the strategic objective below, which could be achieved by addressing the associated recommendations:
Slovenia has significantly strengthened data access, sharing and open data performance, but legal, institutional and implementation gaps are limiting its ability to translate these gains into sustained public value and more effective, data-driven policymaking. Slovenia could take concrete steps forward by:
Recommendation 14:
Formalising government data leadership by legislating the role of a Government Chief Data Officer and agency-level Chief Data Stewards, while continuing data stewardship training.
Recommendation 15:
Developing a data quality and interoperability framework that ensures data, in particular core business data (e.g. data on people, businesses, land, environment, income), are managed and shared in a consistent way across the Slovenian public sector, including at the local government level.
Recommendation 16:
Prioritise closer engagement with key stakeholders on data governance and open data to foster a strong and inclusive data ecosystem in Slovenia. This should focus in particular on local governments, businesses and SMEs, academia, and civil society, including citizens.