Selected financial and governance factors influencing the transparency of council decisions: The case of city councils in Victoria, Australia

Abstract

Research reveals that many local governments across the world do not demonstrate transparency by inviting local citizens in their decision-making activities. This research aims to explore the financial and governance factors that may influence municipalities/councils to make closed-door meetings. Based on the Critical Social and Critical Urban theories this research has hypothesized three models, which have been tested with empirical data collected from 79 local councils/municipalities in Victoria, Australia. The analysis reveals that financial factors such as surplus-income and cash equivalent significantly influence municipalities to conduct closed-door meetings. On the other hand, governance factors such as citizen-satisfactions have no significant relationship with closed-door meetings. These findings have implications for policy-makers and public managers to rethink and redesign the factors that influence on local government transparency.