In three years of our assessment, the average transparency rate of city councils has increased by 53%.
In 2017, only 6 cities crossed the 50-point mark, in 2019, there were already 36 cities. Thus, the city council websites are becoming more open and filled with information.
Why is this good?
- Residents received more information the work of public officials in their city.
- There are more levers to influence the government.
- The number of electronic services which make the lives of citizens easier is growing rapidly.
- Due to information disclosure you can get answers to a number of questions without leaving your house, which is quite important in the modern world.
In the year 2017, the average transparency rate was 29.9 points. At that time Lviv became the leader of the Ranking (59.7 points), and the least transparent was the council of Novomoskovsk (8 points). Over the next year, the cities implemented so many recommendations that the Ranking changed dramatically. Drohobych scored the first place with 85.5 points, and Stryi with 17.7 points was in the 100th place. The average score rose to 41.4 points. The 2019 survey showed a high degree of competition, although the average score rose only slightly up to 45.7 points. For the first time, there were already two Ranking leaders: Drohobych and Pokrov, but Novomoskovsk again became the biggest outsider, so to speak.
Now, we are looking forward to our 2020 evaluation. Many cities have already announced their ambitious plans so the Ranking promises to be unpredictable!