A Users' Guide to Measuring Local Governance
A Users' Guide to Measuring Local Governance
A Users' Guide to Measuring Local Governance
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20<br />
Standards of Municipal Transparency (Chile)<br />
Producer<br />
Asociación Chilena de Municipalidades and Chile<br />
Transparente<br />
His<strong>to</strong>ry<br />
The “standards of municipal transparency”<br />
elaborated for Chile are the result of a study<br />
consisting in several steps: the investigation of the<br />
process of function and management of<br />
municipalities, the selection of the pieces of<br />
information on municipal management that have<br />
<strong>to</strong> be divulgated (on the basis of their importance,<br />
relevance and feasibility in sharing the<br />
information), collection of international<br />
experiences on municipal transparency. The first<br />
proposal of standards has been analysed and<br />
debated by an expert group and applied in three<br />
Chilean municipalities: Santiago, Recoleta, Maipù.<br />
Objectives<br />
The objective of the standards of municipal<br />
transparency is <strong>to</strong> provide a model guaranteeing<br />
access <strong>to</strong> information in all municipalities of Chile.<br />
The “standards of municipal transparency”focus on<br />
“active transparency”, i.e. on the availability and<br />
clarity of information that a municipality should<br />
provide <strong>to</strong> citizens on a continuous basis, through<br />
a webpage and government offices in each<br />
municipality (as opposed <strong>to</strong> information provided<br />
on the basis of citizen requests.)<br />
Types and sources of data used<br />
Objective only. The data used are represented<br />
by municipal standards, procedures, norms and<br />
regulations as well as municipal and national laws.<br />
Methodology<br />
95 indica<strong>to</strong>rs have been identified according <strong>to</strong> the<br />
following criteria: fundamental information on the<br />
municipality; complete information on municipal<br />
norms and regulation, on municipal management<br />
and orientations, on the management of public<br />
financial resources; information useful for citizens’<br />
participation in municipal programmes of benefits;<br />
necessary information <strong>to</strong> access other municipal<br />
information. Table 39 outlines the 11 dimensions<br />
for the standards of municipal<br />
transparency, and provides an example of indica<strong>to</strong>r<br />
for each dimension:<br />
The third dimension related <strong>to</strong> “Information on<br />
municipal management and the decision-making<br />
process” has the highest number of indica<strong>to</strong>rs (64)<br />
as it assesses the availability of information on the<br />
municipal council, on public hearings, on human<br />
resources, on the municipal budget, on municipal<br />
development planning, on subsidies and social<br />
programmes, and on decentralised services.<br />
The indica<strong>to</strong>rs require a simple yes/no answer.<br />
They are divided in<strong>to</strong> three categories: those that<br />
represent a basic standard that any municipality<br />
should be able <strong>to</strong> comply with, those that require<br />
additional effort (intermediate), and those that are<br />
most demanding in terms of compliance<br />
(advanced). The municipalities are then divided<br />
in<strong>to</strong> three groups, according <strong>to</strong> an assessment of<br />
their capacity <strong>to</strong> meet the three levels of<br />
‘standards’. An example of some indica<strong>to</strong>rs and<br />
their classification is provided in table 40:<br />
Given the heterogeneity of Chilean municipalities,<br />
the 345 Chilean local governments are divided in<strong>to</strong><br />
3 different groups according <strong>to</strong> their population,<br />
socio-economic situation, technological conditions<br />
(number of computers in the municipal officers)<br />
and access <strong>to</strong> IT (number of households with<br />
internet access). These groups represent the more<br />
(group 1) or less (group 3) municipal favourable<br />
conditions <strong>to</strong> implement transparent practices.<br />
On the basis of these groups, the Chilean<br />
municipalities have <strong>to</strong> comply with all the<br />
advanced standards (groups 1), at least with all the<br />
intermediate or basic standards (group 2) or at<br />
least with all the basic standards (group 3).<br />
Key ac<strong>to</strong>rs/stakeholders<br />
The project is at the inception stage and has not<br />
been tested on the ground yet. It is therefore <strong>to</strong>o<br />
early <strong>to</strong> tell which stakeholders will be involved.<br />
138 UNDP Oslo <strong>Governance</strong> Centre