The Finnish Transparency Register will be introduced in January – this is how you can prepare
You can ease the administrative burden resulting from the new act by preparing for the new tasks already now.
The Finnish Transparency Register Act applies to legal persons and private entrepreneurs who are engaged in full-time lobbying or lobbying consulting. They should report their activities if:
the activities are directed at Parliament or a Ministry, and
the activities are long-term and systematic.
The new Act will enter into force on 1 January 2024. Those subject to the disclosure obligation must register with the service between January and March 2024. After March, new actors will have to register with the service at the latest when they start lobbying. Disclosures of lobbying activities will be submitted for the first time in July –August 2024.
However, you can ease the administrative burden caused by the new task by preparing for your future obligations in advance. You can already now see to it that the persons who will be using the Transparency Register on behalf of your organisation have the authorisation to do so. In addition, organisations should plan how they collect information on lobbying activities and transfer it to the Transparency Register.
Plan how to collect information about your impact work
Organisations should also plan in advance how they will collect information on lobbying in their internal systems so that the information can easily be transferred to the Transparency Register.
The first thing to be disclosed to the Transparency Register is the subjects on which the organisation has contacted Parliament or the ministries. After that, each subject of lobbying is supplemented with information on who has been contacted and how. In the case of lobbying consultancy, the customer information should also be disclosed to the Register.
Careful planning is particularly important if the organisation carries out a lot of lobbying activities. Lobbying is not reported to the Transparency Register as soon as contacts take place, as in the case of a meeting journal, but it is reported twice a year: in July–August and January–February. The disclosures always concern the lobbying carried out during the preceding six-month period.
Grant authorisations to the users of the Transparency Register
The organisation's disclosures to the Transparency Register are submitted by a natural person in the name of the organisation.
The users log in to the service portal of the Transparency Register by identifying themselves in the Suomi.fi application with their online banking codes, mobile certificate or certificate card. After that, the service verifies the user's authorisations and provides a list of the organisations in whose name they have the right to act.
The managing director and the deputy managing director of an organisation, an entrepreneur, the chairperson of an association or a person authorised to sign for the organisation are automatically authorised to use the Transparency Register on behalf of the organisation. If other persons are to use the Transparency Register in the name of the organisation, they must be authorised to do so.
The authorisation is granted as an e-authorisation through the Suomi.fi service. An organisation can appoint one or more persons to be responsible for the use of the Transparency Register. It pays to grant the authorisations in advance so that the service portal, which opens on 1 January 2024, can be used as smoothly as possible.
