Index 2: TRANSPARENCY
The efficiency of a government can be seriously reduced, if its regulatory policies are not viewed as being legitimate by the eyes of the public at large. Regulations and policies can be accepted as legitimate only if they are fundamentally transparent and based on objective criteria. In order to legitimize their policies, governments must provide transparency about their actions, as well as about the procedures that underpin the carrying out of their actions.
Transparency requires that governments not only do not impede the flow of information to the public, but also undertake an active involvement on their part to make the necessary provisions to ensure that public information can have a feedback effect on governmental performance. Since it empowers the public to put pressure on government to deliver services and to do so properly, transparency can thus strengthen the legitimacy of local government. In order to instill a stable and predictable policy environment, local governments must therefore subject themselves to the scrutiny of the public. That involves subjecting their operations to regular and independent financial audits.
Looking at the spectrum of indicators that attempt to evaluate government transparency, one can select, for instance, an indicator of administrative transparency, such as whether procedures for the appointment and removal of judges are undertaken through a transparent and constitutional process. Another indicator on transparency could be the existence of an ombudsman office, which is fully staffed and funded. But such types of indicators do not immediately impact on governmental efficiency, and are unrelated to the indicator proposed for governmental efficiency. It is thus suggested that the indicator on transparency should be whether there are regular and independent financial audits of local governments along with any and all alter-ego entities such as economic development agencies, tourism promotional entities, and other non-profits dependent on taxpayer dollars. Transparency is only achieved by making these timely audits available to the general public and the media in a timely and simply accessible manner after broad public disclosure of the availability of the audits.
PAGE 4: PARTICIPATION
