A Users' Guide to Measuring Local Governance

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