Citizens’ access to on-line governmental financial information: Practices in the European Union countries

Abstract

Abstract In recent years we are witnessing simultaneously the need for public sector entities to be more transparent in the information they publish and a series of technological advances that are changing the way these entities relate to citizens. This latter fact could support the former; that is, the information and communication technologies – particularly the Web – could be put to use by governments and become the instrument through which to provide the citizens with regular accurate information on the public finances. In this context, this article (1) explores whether public sector entities (more specifically, the central public administrations of the EU countries) are becoming aware of the importance of including financial information on their Web sites that citizens can use in their decision making, and (2) proposes a model that will facilitate citizen access to financial information.