Openness to Standard Document Formats in Swedish Public Sector Organisations

There is a strong movement in Europe to promote products that support open, well-documented standards. Directives and proposals at European and national levels have been developed in this area. There is in particular an increasing recognition of the need for governmental organisations to support and promote standard document formats. This vision can stand in stark contrast with the reality of those document formats which can currently be accepted and produced by those organisations. In this paper we address the question: to what extent can and do Swedish governmental organisations respond appropriately when presented with a document in a format that conforms to an open standard? We find that a small minority of organisations can actually do so, whereas all are willing and able to accept documents in a proprietary format. The study also highlights a lack of transparency in organisations regarding formats which should be accepted and used for communication with the general public.