End of Commitment Report – Improve the usability and content of the Transparency Portal of the Municipality of Contagem

Name of Evaluator

Isabella Lígia Moraes

Email

[email protected]; [email protected]

Member Name

Contagem, Brazil

Action PlanAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... Title

Action plan – Contagem, Brazil, 2022 – 2024

CommitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action...

Improve the usability and content of the TransparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More Portal of the Municipality of Contagem

Title

Improve the usability and content of the Transparency Portal of the Municipality of Contagem

Action

Develop a portal that more efficiently meets the legislationCreating and passing legislation is one of the most effective ways of ensuring open government reforms have long-lasting effects on government practices. Technical specifications: Act of creating or r... and the population, improving the search mechanisms, improving usability, presentation, and delivery of data, using a clear and easy-to-interpret language, with more graphic resources and a better offer of open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici..., making the content more accessible to citizens and strengthening the Transparency Portal as an important instrument of social control.

Problem

Currently, the Transparency Portal satisfies the requirements of the legislation, but presents the information in a very complex way, making it difficult to access and understand the content that is presented. The search fields do not work well, much information is not made available in an open format, requiring improvements in the organization, presentation of information, and integration with the systems used internally to improve the updating of content, in addition to the adequacy of the layout to improve its usability and make it more accessible. In light of this, the commitment seeks to study and implement improvements in the Portal so that it can effectively perform its function as a space for transparency of information and public management.

1.1 What was the overall level of progress in the commitment implementation at the time of this assessment?

Complete

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The Transparency Portal of the municipality of Contagem received improvements in usability and content by an upgrade in the presentation and delivery of data through search engines, the adaptation of the language used to facilitate interpretation, and the offer of graphic resources, making navigation more intuitive for citizens. In this sense, two main lines of work were carried out: the insertion of information manually by the Transparency Center and the responsible Secretariats, and the development of the new layout of the Transparency Portal by the Information Technology Secretariat. Although some infrastructure problems caused a delay in the delivery of the new portal layout, an alternative was implemented to improve the way data on public resources are displayed to citizens: the “CitizenPanel”, available in the “Open Government” link, which has intuitive dashboards, with descriptions and important information on the topic.

Provide evidence that supports and justifies your answer:

1.1 Transparency Portal Prototype
1.1 Manually entered information
1.1 Current Transparency Portal website

1.2 Describe the main external or internal factors that impacted implementation of this commitment and how they were addressed (or not).

The implementation of this commitment was impacted mainly by two factors, one external and the other internal to the responsible Secretariat. The first one refers to the web development of the Transparency Portal, because the bidding process for contracting the company that would carry out the work was at the Concept Proving phase, but was then paused. Thus, the Information Technology Secretariat(STI) has endorsed and provided an alternative to a better layout and display of two dice. This new proposal, together with an outline of how the portal would be implemented, was presented to the work group, approved, and scheduled for delivery in November/2024. However, due to infrastructure limitations, the completionImplementers must follow through on their commitments for them to achieve impact. For each commitment, OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) evaluates the degree to which the activities outlin... More of this development process is paused, awaiting the availability of storage, recently acquired by the Information Technology Secretariat, which has not yet been released for use. However, a large part of the development of the new layout was completed and will be delivered as soon as possible.

In general, various advantages implemented in the portal considerably enhance the quality of information and the availability of data in open format, making it possible for citizens to access financial information in a manner that is easy to understand and interpret. An example is the availability of the “Citizen Panel” in the Transparency Portal, which allows access to a tool of the State Accounting Court in which various organizational and financial information of the municipalities of the State of Minas Gerais is available.

1.3 Was the commitment implemented as originally planned?

Most of the commitment milestones were implemented as planned

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

All six milestones proposed for this commitment have been satisfactorily completed. The last one has not been delivered as initially planned, but rather an alternative solution that meets the proposed requirements of the milestone. In view of the fact that it was not possible to make the new layout of the Transparency Portal available, another solution was proposed through the use of the platform “Supervising with TCE”, whose objective was to make available to society a channel with information presented in an educational manner and easy to interpret, aiming at active participation of citizens in oversight and combating irregularities in the use of public resources. The Information Technology Secretariat continues to work on the delivery of the new layout of the Transparency Portal, which will soon be updated and made available. It is worth emphasizing the reconfirmation achieved by the Municipal Portal at the national level in the National Public Transparency Program.

Provide evidence for your answer:

1.3 Transparency Radar Comparisons
1.3 Suspension of the bidding process transparency portal
1.3 Samples of the web development of the new Contagem Transparency Portal

2.1.1. – Did the government disclose more information; improve the quality of the information (new or existing); improve the value of the information; improve the channels to disclose or request information or improve accessibility to information?

Yes

Degree of result:

Major

Explanation: In narrative form, what has been the impact on people or practice.

The implementation of new functionalities and improvements in the Transparency Portal allows citizens to interact in a more effective way with government actions, making it possible to supervise the application of public resources and favor the transparency of data. The assessment carried out by the Accounting Tribunal Association of the National Public Transparency Program (PNTP) corroborates this considerable progress in the transparency of information achieved through commitment. Furthermore, mention is made of the positive impact of the availability of files in open format, as the user has the possibility of generating reports in the export types of CSV, TXT and PDF files, guaranteeing access to most of the information available on the Portal, such as “Bidding Processes”, “Travel allowance”, “Demonstrative of Monthly Execution of Expenses”, “Extrabudgetary Receipt”, among others. It is worth highlighting that the “Personal Remuneration” page was reformulated, opening a historical content of information from previous periods, due to the development of an API for the availability of data in open format, since it is one of the most accessed items on the Transparency Portal.

Provide evidence for your answer:

2.1.1 Other formats open for export

2.1.1 Open format for export

2.1.2. – Did the government create new opportunities to seek feedback from citizens/enable participation inform or influence decisions; improve existing channels or spaces to seek feedback from citizens/enable participation/ inform or influence decisions; create or improve capabilities in the government or the public aimed to improve how the government seeks feedback from citizens/enables participation/ or allows for the public to inform or influence decisions?

Yes

Degree of result:

Major

Explanation: In narrative form, what has been the impact on people or practice.

The commitment, through the improvements already made to the Transparency Portal throughout the current Action Plan, has worked to improve the existing channels in the government to allow more effective citizen participationAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, citizen participation occurs when “governments seek to mobilize citizens to engage in public debate, provide input, and make contributions that lead to m... More, open access to information, and, consequently, the influence of civil society in government decisions. The evolution of the content and quality of information on the Municipal Transparency Portal is proven by the annual assessment carried out by the National Public Transparency Program (PNTP), according to which the level of transparency was considered intermediate in the year 2022, with a percentage of 72 .12%; in the following year, 2023, the “silver” transparency level was reached, with a percentage of 77.78%; and, finally, in 2024 it has reached the “gold” level of transparency, with a percentage of 85.59%. This proves the impact on access to information and active transparency, which makes it possible for the population to consult and monitor government actions, making the Transparency Portal a tool for public control and management, giving more autonomy and ensuring the rights of citizens.

Provide evidence for your answer:

2.1.2 Public Transparency Radar 2024
2.1.2 Public Transparency Radar 2023
2.1.2 Public Transparency Radar 2022

2.1.3 Did the government create or improve channels, opportunities or capabilities to hold officials answerable to their actions?

Not Applicable

2.1.4 Other Results

Not Applicable

2.2 Did the commitment address the public policy problem that it intended to address as described in the action plan?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The public policy problem addressed in this commitment refers to the need for adjustments on the Transparency Portal to better meet the requirements of the legislation and to make it easier for citizens to access and understand the content. The difficulties identified were mainly related to the poor functioning of the search fields, the unavailability of data in an open format, the presentation of information in a non-intuitive way, and the lack of integration with the systems internally used, which made it difficult to update the content. In view of this, the Transparency Portal underwent adjustments in the provision of data in an open format, the reformulation of items, and the updating of information, in addition to the provision of a panel with simplified financial and budget information. It is emphasized that the redesign of the layout and the integration of systems are ongoing processes that will still be improved by the Information Technology Department.

Provide evidence for your answer:

2.2 Status of layout preparation (Letter sent by the Information Technology Secretariat)

3. Provide at least one lesson or reflection relating to the implementation of this commitment. It can be the identification of key barriers to implementation, an unexpected help/hindrance, recommendations for future commitments, or if the commitment should be taken forward to the next action plan.

The implementation of this commitment faced some obstacles that impacted the time expected for its implementation. The bidding process for a company to develop the Transparency Portal was paused, which required an adaptation by the Information Technology Secretariat to absorb this demand and make improvements to the existing Portal. However, the need to expand the infrastructure of the Information Technology Secretariat and the limitations of the portal currently used resulted in the need to postpone its delivery. The fact that much information is characterized by analog input also impacted the development of this commitment, both due to the time required for the work and the demand for employees to carry it out, which emphasizes the contribution of systems integration planned for this task. Considering the advances achieved and the recognition at the national level of an effective improvement in the availability of data, after completing the delivery of the new layout, no major improvements are planned, but only adjustments that are already continuous and routine for the team, making it unnecessary the include in the next Action Plan. However, it is recommended that the work that has been developed continue, especially concerning data presentation and integration with internal systems.