Self-governing regions in Slovakia administer over one billion euros a year – roughly 185 euro per capita. They bear responsibility for regional communications, education system as well as social, cultural and medical facilities. Transparency’s ranking shows how transparent are regions in spending and how open and accountable they are to their citizen.
Open Self Government: Regions 2015 is a transparency survey of the Slovak self-governing regions. It measures information availability and accessibility as well introduced anti-corruption measures in place in 11 policy areas. The survey ranges from 0 (least) to 100 (ideal case).
The survey highlights both strengths and weaknesses of Slovak regions, offering practical fixes for improvements.
Data for the survey come from the official websites of the regions, their replies to the Freedom of Information Requests, website of the Office for Public Procurement , data from portal tender.sme.sk , and information from regions’ print media. The evaluation took place during July – October 2015.
MORE ON THE PROJECT
Open Self-Government 2015, a survey of Transparency International Slovakia (Transparency), measures level of transparency, quantity and quality of provided information, anti-corruption measures and openness in 8 Slovak self-governing regions.
Data for the survey had been collected in several ways:
- Quality of Information on the region’s website (64,2 % of the total score)
- Replies to Freedom of Information Act (211/2000) requests filled by Transparency (18,4% of the total score)
- Replies to Freedom of Information Act (211/2000) requests filled by Transparency’s co-workers (“mystery shopping”) (7,3% of the total score)
- Data from portal tender.sme.sk (3,1%)
- Information from regions’ print media (3,6%)
- Information from regions’ facebook profiles (1%)
- Response of Chief Comptroller (1,8%)
- Response of Chairman of the Region (0,5%).
POLICY AREAS ASSESED
Regions have been assessed and ranked in 11 areas. Areas assessed cover powers and duties vested with regions (e.g. public property sales and leasing) as well as policy areas deemed important by Transparency for good and ethical governance (e.g. ethics, conflict of interests).
Out of the areas selected, access to information, public procurement and budgeting were considered as the most important (see policy areas’ score weights below). For the greater part the survey assessed a presence of a given transparency tool (e.g. Do you use e-auctions? Yes/No). Results rendered are based on publicly accessible, easily measurable and verifiable data. Maximum score for a municipality including all areas was 193 points. Questions and scoring details are provided here.
| POLICY AREA |
SURVEY WEIGHT in % |
| Access to Information |
25,9 |
| Finance and Public Procurement |
24,4 |
| Professional Ethics and Conflict of Interests |
9,6 |
| Public Property Sales and Lease |
7,8 |
| Human Resources |
6,2 |
| Municipal Businesses, Organizations and Invesments |
6,2 |
| Public Participation |
6,2 |
| Media |
4,7 |
| Grants |
3,9 |
| Social Services |
3,1 |
| Transport Policy |
2,1 |
RANKING AND GRADES
Overall ranking of a municipality ranges from 0 % (worst) to 100 % (best). Rankings for individual policy areas are included along the total score. For a quicker comparison, municipalities have been graded as in school, according to the following scale:
| GRADE |
% |
| A+ | 80-100 |
| A | 75-79 |
| A- | 70-74 |
| B+ | 65-69 |
| B | 60-64 |
| B- | 55-59 |
| C+ | 50-54 |
| C | 45-49 |
| C- | 40-44 |
| D+ | 35-39 |
| D | 30-34 |
| D- | 25-29 |
| E+ | 20-24 |
| E | 15-19 |
| E- | 10-14 |
| F | 0-9 |
Open Self Government: Regions 2015 is just an indicator of municipal openness. Although the ranking does not measure corruption, Transparency holds that higher score in the ranking and more transparent towns and cities provide fewer opportunities for corrupt behaviour. However, it cannot be ruled out that municipalities high up in the ranking are not corrupt and vice versa. Municipalities interested in obtaining more specific data and a more complete picture of their administration should consider Transparency’s Transparent town audit in a way cities of Martin, Prievidza, Žiar nad Hronom, Banská Bystrica and Bratislava-Ružinov did.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHORS
Local governments, their elected and appointed representatives and employees should see the Open Local Government 2015 ranking both as an appreciation of good work as well as motivation to improve their efforts to act in transparent manner and provide quality information. These efforts should be seen as a significant contribution to local economic development and quality of life improvement of their citizens.
Transparency plans to update survey bi-annually.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Open Self-Government is a project of Transparency International Slovakia. Open Self Government: Regions 2015 is sponsored by Datalan, a.s. to whom we express our gratitude. The evaluation is part of the project Campaign for preserving a strong Information Act, which was supported by Fund for non-governmental organizations financed by the Financial mechanism EHP 2009-2014. Administrator of the Fund is Ekopolis Foundation.
We would also like to thank our colleagues Samuel Spáč, Katarína Klingová and Martin Turček for their help with collection and evaluation of the data.
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AUTHORS OF THE APPLICATION
Data processes, modification of the design and content management system for 2015 was provided by MJCH.
CONTACT
Michal Piško pisko@transparency.sk
Martin Kollárik kollarik@transparency.sk
Gabriel Šípoš sipos@transparency.sk