Municipal Transparency Research Articles

Budget Transparency in Croatian Counties, Cities and Municipalities: November 2020 – April 2021

The average level of budget transparency in all Croatian local government units, expressed as the number of key budget documents published on their respective official websites, stands at 4.5 (out of a maximum 5). All counties published all five requested budget documents, cities published 4.7 documents on average, while municipalities’ average score stands at 4.4. However, despite high average rates, 8% of cities (10) and 16% of municipalities (68) still fail to publish all three documents required by law, while 20% of cities and 31% of municipalities fail to publish the two documents whose publication was recommended by the Ministry of Finance. Although the publishing of key budget documents does not in itself signify absolute transparency, it is considered the initial step toward higher transparency levels necessary for citizens’ constructive participation in the budgetary process and control over the collection and spending of public funds. A summary of results for all counties, cities and municipalities is provided in the text below, while more detail is available in the form of an interactive map and an Excel table.

Budget transparency in Croatian counties, cities and municipalities: 2019 – April 2020

The overall average level of budget transparency in Croatian local government units2 , expressed as the number of budget documents published on their respective official websites, stands at 4.1 (out of a maximum 5). The average value for counties stands at 4.9, for cities 4.5 and 4 for municipalities. Even though the average results keep improving year after year, around 20% of the local government units still fail to publish all three legally required documents, while 41% do not follow the recommendation of the Ministry of Finance for publishing two additional documents. Although the publishing of documents does not, in itself, guarantee absolute transparency, it is considered the initial step toward higher transparency levels necessary for citizens’ participation in the budgetary process and control over the collection and spending of public funds. In these exceptional times of crisis brought about by the coronavirus (plus the earthquake in the case of Zagreb and its surroundings), when revenues are lower and expenditures higher, such control is necessary even more. Exceptional circumstances should not act as an excuse for non-transparent activities that could affect, in both the short and the long term, efficiency and justness, the economic, social and political circumstances as well as the well-being of citizens. More detailed results for all counties, cities and municipalities are provided in the text below and are also available in the form of an interactive map and an Excel table.

Is transparency a way to improve efficiency? An assessment of Spanish municipalities

ABSTRACT This paper shows that the level of municipal transparency influences the level of efficiency, which is measured by parametric and non-parametric techniques. More concretely, the findings suggest that the most transparent municipalities in terms of financial and economic information, as well as information on public services contracts, tend to be more efficient. The results were obtained for a sample of the 100 largest Spanish local governments over the period 2008–14, which focuses attention on the information disclosed by local governments.

Transparência nos Municípios Brasileiros: uma análise do fator desenvolvimento

This article aims to analyze the municipal transparency index, looking at whether the development of the municipality has any impact on its degree of transparency. The analysis is based on data from the second edition of the Brazil Transparent Scale Program - EBT, developed by the Comptroller General of the Union - CGU and data from the Atlas of Human Development in Brazil. It is hypothesized that the more developed the municipality, the greater its degree of transparency. For the analysis, two models were used: the negative binomial and the GAMA transformation. In both analyzes, it was found that the indicators of social development, average per capita income and HDI significantly impact the degree of transparency of the Municipality. Regarding the GINI Index variable, the test showed that an increase of one unit of this variable causes a 3.5% decrease in the Municipal Transparency Index. The variable illiteracy rate, among people aged eighteen or older, behaved statistically insignificantly in the impact of the municipal transparency index.

E-government-enabled transparency: The effect of electoral aspects and citizen’s access to Internet on information disclosure

ABSTRACT Recent literature on transparency claims that e-government-enabled transparency through websites may be conditioned by political and social factors. Being more transparent while conducting its activities and political responsibilities has been the response of governments to citizens’ demand for access to public information. This paper analyzes if political and social conditions influence transparency in Portuguese municipalities. The results show that political ideology, electoral turnout, proximity of elections, citizens’ access to Internet and geographic location influence municipalities’ transparency. The analyses are based on panel data from all 308 Portuguese municipalities.

The Role of the Auditor-General in the Promotion of Efficient Financial Management in Municipalities: A Case Study of the North West Province

That South African municipalities, in vast majority, are experiencing serious financial problems is well-known to anyone with an interest in local government sector. Given that, the study considers the role of the Auditor-General (AG) in promoting sound financial management in municipalities. The disciplinary perspectives from which the inquiry is considered are law and public administration. The context for this consideration is the North West, a province which is inundated by poorly performing municipalities that are literally on the brink of financial and operational collapse. The study proceeds from the premise that efficient financial management practices are essential to the long-term sustainability of municipalities. The role of the AG is key in this regard in that the latter is a watchdog over state coffers and the pivot of the oversight mechanism over the management of public finances. Furthermore, the AG strives to institutionalise and promote a culture of good governance, accountability and transparency in municipalities. It achieves this through routine auditing and provision of audit recommendations that seek to improve municipalities’ internal controls. However, this purpose gets undermined, and eventually defeated, in the instance where audit recommendations are being ignored. Of concern is that the non-implementation of audit recommendations has become a norm in most municipalities in the North West. The study has considerable breadth in its analysis of this problem by looking closely into three municipalities: Mahikeng, Ditsobotla and Tswaing. It is not immediately clear why this trend is emerging or has emerged. In that note, a resolve to embark on this study was impelled by a sense of commitment to try to understand the real issue behind this trend and to see how best it can be countered. This brings the study to then ask: How can the AG’s recommendations be better and adequately given effect in the North West municipalities? In response, it will be argued that this issue cannot be solved by the AG alone. What is needed, instead, is the development of an action plan, policy and institutional framework that will guide and facilitate the multi-agency approach and inter-institutional collaborations towards addressing the problem. Further argument will be advanced to say that the efforts undertaken to reconstitute and strengthen the legal framework governing the AG through the 2018 amendments to the Public Audit Act do not constitute a magic bullet solution to the dismal downward trajectory across the North West municipalities, as contemporary narratives seek to suggest.

DETERMINANTES DA TRANSPARÊNCIA MUNICIPAL: UMA ANÁLISE EMPÍRICA COM MUNICÍPIOS BRASILEIROS

O presente estudo investiga os determinantes da transparência municipal brasileira, utilizando o Índice Nacional de Transparência como proxy. Através de uma análise de 4.472 municípios brasileiros, e utilizando-se da regressão Generalized Linear Models, notou-se que maiores municípios tendem a serem mais transparentes. A localização dos municípios nas regiões brasileiras foi apontada como uma relação positiva, como também o nível de desenvolvimento humano (IDHM) e a qualidade da gestão fiscal (IFGF). Os resultados sinalizam pela relevância do monitoramento, por parte dos decisores políticos, na transparência, sendo esse fator preponderante para o estabelecimento de uma sociedade de auditoria permanente no contexto brasileiro.

The effects of the political environment on transparency: evidence from Spanish local governments

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the evolution of economic and financial transparency in Spanish local governments (LGs) and their determining factors. The main results show that the level of financial disclosure seems to be the result of pressure from, on the one hand, opposition groups when there is rivalry and political competition, and, on the other hand, the increased demands of citizens involved in public affairs, who want to know how the government is spending their money and how public services are financed. Political parties are therefore key to increasing municipal transparency since greater pressure from opposition parties enhances transparency. Pressure from the parties as well as from citizens positively affects transparency; in other words, the more active people are in terms of voter turnout, and the greater the pressure from and debate among citizens, the higher the level of transparency. One way to increase transparency could therefore be to raise awareness about the importance that citizen pressure can have on governments.

Variáveis socioeconômicas determinantes para a transparência pública passiva nos municípios brasileiros

Resumo Este artigo apresenta variáveis socioeconômicas determinantes para a transparência pública passiva nos municípios brasileiros a partir da Escala Brasil Transparente (EBT). Por meio de amostra aleatória, formada por 1.133 municípios, as análises bivariadas e multivariadas revelaram correlação significativa entre a transparência pública passiva e as variáveis escolaridade da população, receita per capita e idade da população, e esta última apresentou resultado inverso ao esperado. Os resultados descritivos revelaram o baixo índice de transparência pública passiva nos municípios brasileiros que obtiveram uma média de nota de apenas 1,93 (em escala entre 0 e 10). Além dos achados estatísticos, o estudo contribui para expor a diferenciação entre transparência pública ativa e passiva, onde foram apresentadas as características representativas de cada tipo.

Indices of transparency and management in public entities as to tool of control and performance: a comparison between municipal indicators in Alagoas - Brazil

This research seeks to describe and correlate indicators of management and control in municipal governments. For this, a descriptive and quantitative research was carried out, observing indicators of efficiency and transparency of municipalities in Alagoas that presented values in institutions of control and planning at national level, correlating with other indicators of conjuncture of each municipality. For this purpose, references were sought on transparency and public governance, data was collected from official sites and the statistical treatment was performed to identify the correlations between the indicators of the Transparent Brazil Scale, Municipal Management Efficiency, the Fiscal Management Index, of the Gross Domestic Product per capita, of the Participation Fund of the Municipalities, of the Transfer to the municipalities, of the Demographic Density and of the Degree of Urbanization of the municipalities of Alagoas, trying to find variables that can explain the relations between the indicators. Finally, it is concluded that there is a correlation between them, especially between the transparency indicators and the municipalities that receive the greatest contributions of resources; it is observed that the municipalities do not continue with the necessary transparency for the knowledge of the information by society and, consequently, it inhibits the practice of electronic governance and the participation of the citizen in the management of public policies.

Relação entre a qualidade da gestão fiscal e a transparência dos municípios brasileiros

O objetivo deste trabalho foi analisar a relação entre a qualidade da gestão fiscal e a transparência nos municípios brasileiros. Para tanto, foi realizado um estudo de caráter descritivo e quantitativo. Os dados foram secundários dos anos de 2015 e 2016. O indicador de qualidade da gestão fiscal utilizado foi o Índice Firjan de Gestão Fiscal (IFGF); para transparência, foi utilizado o índice de transparência do Ranking Nacional de Transparência divulgado pelo Ministério Público Federal. As variáveis de controle foram Índice de Desenvolvimento Municipal, população, receita orçamentária bruta per capita, bem como dummies de tamanho e produtividade e arrecadação. A análise descritiva das variáveis de interesse da pesquisa identificou indicadores de gestão fiscal em níveis de dificuldade e transparência médios, heterogeneidade no tamanho, receita per capita e na transparência municipal. Por meio do modelo de regressão de mínimos quadrados generalizados (MQG), foi evidenciada uma relação positiva e significativa entre o indicador de qualidade de gestão pública municipal (IFGF) com todas as variáveis do modelo, validando o argumento teórico de que há influência dessas variáveis no indicador de qualidade de gestão pública municipal do Brasil. Portanto, aceita-se a hipótese geral da pesquisa ao se afirmar que a qualidade na gestão fiscal (IFGF) apresentou relação com a transparência dos municípios brasileiros e que a transparência municipal, Índice de Desenvolvimento Municipal, população, receita orçamentária bruta per capita, bem como dummies de tamanho e produtividade e arrecadação, estão relacionados com as variações do indicador de gestão fiscal.

Transparency in Portuguese Local Government: A Study of its Determinants

Transparency of public management is fundamental to bringing citizens closer to public managers and as such universally considered an element of good governance.The main aim of this study is to identify the factors determining transparency in public management of Portuguese local authorities. Using the Municipal Transparency Index of 2013 and 2014, socio-demographic, political and economic-financial variables are studied for the population of 308 Portuguese local authorities by the means of testing the previously formulated research hypotheses in the light of the agency theory.The results show that transparency in public management of Portuguese local authorities is determined by their size, the number of individuals aged between 15 and 74 who use the internet, unemployment rate, financial autonomy and the net debt.

Transparency and Performance in the Italian Large Municipalities

Transparency and Performance in the Italian Large Municipalities

Determinants of Budget Transparency in Lithuanian Municipalities

The objective of this paper is to find evidence whether Lithuanian municipalities use new technologies to disclose all relevant budget information in a timely, systematic, and comprehensive manner. The article creates a budget transparency index for each municipality using criteria from theory and previous research and then builds an empirical model to identify what determining factors make the budget process more transparent in some municipalities than in others. The results show that the percentage of population living in rural areas and turnout at local elections are negatively related to budget transparency while the level of debt is positively related to the level of transparency. The findings also provide evidence that revenue per capita and level of intergovernmental grants are negatively related to budget transparency. The research contributes to the existing literature by adding Lithuania to the relatively small set of countries that have developed budget transparency indices for subnational governments.

Budget transparency in Croatian counties, cities and municipalities (November 2017 - March 2018)

The overall average level of budget transparency in Croatian counties, cities and municipalities, measured by the number of budget documents published on their respective official websites, stands at 3.52 (out of a possible 5). The number of budget documents published has grown year by year in all types of local government units, averaging 4.9 in counties, 4 in cities and 3.3 in municipalities in this research cycle. For the first time, there are no cities without at least one budget document published, or municipalities without an official website. However, despite the improvements in average results achieved, differences among individual local units, notably municipalities, are still huge. A large number of cities and the bulk of municipalities will have to intensify their efforts to comply with their legal obligations and recommendations of the Ministry of Finance in this respect. While the publishing of budget documents does not in itself guarantee absolute transparency, it should still be prescribed and encouraged, because it is the first step towards achieving higher transparency levels necessary for citizens' participation in the budget process. More detailed results for all counties, cities and municipalities are given later in the text and are available on an interactive map and in an Excel table format.

Benford’s Law and transparency: an analysis of municipal expenditure

This study aims to ascertain an adherence between the level of municipal transparency and the application of Benford's Law in implementing the municipal expenditure. Therefore, two municipalities in the state of Goias were selected, one with a higher and one a lower level of transparency, according to the National Transparency Ranking of the Federal Public Ministry, of 2016. Then, we performed Z and chi-square tests on the expenses engaged in the first four months of 2016 to check for incompliances with the Benford’s Law. Based on the data analyzed we were able to conclude that: the municipality with greater transparency has greater conformity with Benford’s Law; the municipality with less transparency showed greatest discrepancies between the expected and observed frequencies; the municipality with less transparency showed higher likelihood of irregularities in the execution of expenditures, compared to the municipality with greater transparency. Both municipalities showed discrepancies regarding Benford's Law, differing from each other only by the degree of calculated divergences from the model.

The influence of transparency on budget forecast deviations in municipal governments

AbstractThis paper analyzes the impact of transparency on fiscal performance. Our sample considers the 100 largest Spanish municipalities for the years 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2014. The results show that the level of municipal transparency influences budget forecast deviations in tax revenues and current expenditures. On the one hand, less transparent municipalities overestimate their revenues, allowing them to provide more public services without an immediate increase in taxes. On the other, these local governments, which are aware of the overestimation of their revenues, may spend less than they budgeted. More transparent municipalities, meanwhile, seem to be more prudent in their revenue estimations, since they underestimate their revenues, meaning they can spend more than projected. Our results also show that the behavior of politicians is influenced by the phase of the electoral cycle in which they find themselves, with politicians overestimating expenditures in the year before election.

Does Gender Equality Affect Municipal Transparency: The Case of Spain

ABSTRACTThe influence of women in organizational transparency is an understudied vein of representative bureaucracy. Literature claims that the increase of women in formal political representation opened the opportunity to bring to public organizations gender diversity, experiences, and values different from those of men. It highlights the beneficial leadership styles and the legitimacy of public bureaucracies. Since gender equality in Spanish local government has increased in recent years, it was the trigger and the aim for this study: to understand the influence of women’s political representation on the level of Spanish municipalities’ transparency. The analysis draws on panel data econometric techniques. The results reinforce the discussion that the representation of women in local political life will increase information transparency and reduce information asymmetry in municipalities.

Explaining the transparency of local government websites through a political market framework

This paper contributes to the literature on government transparency by addressing the question of what drives the differences in local government levels of transparency. Our main objective is to ascertain whether transparency is mainly driven by the leadership, capacity and other political traits of the local governments themselves – “supply-side determinants” – or, rather, if it hinges on social, cultural and/or other local community factors (“demand-side” determinants). We test the hypotheses derived from this theoretical framework using the results of the Municipal Transparency Index which is based on the information disclosed in the local governments' official websites and was applied to all Portuguese municipalities for the first time in 2013. Our findings indicate that municipalities with less financial autonomy, run by male mayors, with a larger number of consecutive terms in office, and smaller margins of victory in local elections display lower levels of transparency. On the demand-side, the unemployment rate and the average age of the municipal population emerge as the best predictors and are both negatively associated with transparency.

A Estrutura Orçamentária como Determinante do Nível de Transparência Fiscal

National and International research studies often relate fiscal transparency to political, socio-economic and fiscal variables. Therefore, this study seeks to analyze how budget execution (revenues and expenses) influence active fiscal transparency in municipalities in the state of Paraiba. Thus, Focco-PB (Forum on Fighting Corruption Paraiba) reports were analyzed, with a view to identifying the Active Fiscal Transparency Index in Paraiba’s municipalities in relation to this study’s dependent variable. Subsequently, independent variables were collected (intergovernmental transfer revenue, individual per capita revenue, spending on human resources, education and health) in the TCE / PB database. Initially, a Pearson correlation test was performed and later an analysis of panel data with a fixed effect. Furthermore, descriptive analyses of the dependent variables in relation to data for the years 2013, 2014 and 2015 were conducted. The results suggest that Income from Transfers and Health Expenditure reflected a negative relation with respect to the Active Fiscal Transparency Index whilst (ITFA) Individual Income Per Capita and Spending on Human Resources indicate a positive relation. As proposed in this study, it can be concluded that most of the variables studied and which make up budgetary structure impact on the Active Fiscal Transparency Index in Paraiba’s municipalities.