Budget transparency and accountability tool (ESPV0002)

Commitment ID

ESPV0002

Commitment Title

Budget transparency and accountability tool

Problem

One of the most common criticisms by citizens is the difficulty of understanding the management of public budgets and as a consequence of this lack of understanding, many times, from ignorance, their management itself is questioned. This effect is aggravated in critical situations such as the current financial crisis, COVID-19 crisis, etc., which increase mistrust and the distance between citizens and public institutions. Basque public institutions publish their budgets and account for their budgetary exercises in accordance with well-established legal standards that, however, are not understood by the majority of citizens. In addition, the Basque institutional infrastructure, in which there are several levels of Public Administrations with distributed and delegated powers, makes it even more complex for citizens to understand how public resources financed by their taxes are managed. The challenge is to create a tool for transparency and accountability through which citizens will be able to understand the public budgets and, consequently, will adequately assess public management and participate in public policies more actively.

Status quo

At present, each public institution has its budgets published in a different way; although the internal structure of budgets is perfectly standardized by law, there are no standards when it comes to displaying budgets and therefore they can be found in different formats and channels depending on the organization. Transparency information is published in a dispersed way: budget web pages, transparency portals, open budgets, etc. In addition, the budgets of the institutions and their dependent entities are often not consolidated, which is why citizens often have problems understanding the management of public resources as a whole. On the other hand, the standardized structure of budgets is very technical and not easy for a non-expert to understand. For this reason, citizens often cannot find the information they are looking for or do not understand the budget as a whole. For an easy understanding of the budgets, new formats or schemes are needed, and also in a unified way, that will allow an integrated explanation of the budgets of different public institutions.

Action

The aim is to develop a tool for consultation and understanding of public budgets by citizens:

• That will be visual and easy to use
• That will show the budgets of different institutions through a single tool
• That will explain what the different programs and budget items are for
• That will show income and expenses per inhabitant

In short, a tool that will allow publishing accessible budgets.

The tool will be made available on a common web platform and on the web portals of different public institutions. Its use will be free and it will require no software to be installed. The budgets will be increased annually and a history of the budgets from previous years will be kept. The tool will use an easy-to-read language and its design will consider the perspective of linguistic equality and the compliance with the Basque language promotion policies of the participating public entities.

How will the commitment contribute to solving the public problem described above?

Basque administrations (the Autonomous Government, Provincial Councils, local administrations, Parliament, etc.) will have a link to the accountability platform on their web pages so that citizens can consult their budgets. At the end of the financial year, the degree of execution of the budgets will also be reported. In this way, citizens will have a simple tool that will allow them to jointly consult and understand the budgets of Basque public institutions.

What long-term goal as identified in your Open Government Strategy does this commitment relate to?

This initiative will empower citizens and harness the power of new technologies to make budgets more understandable by citizens. It is an initiative that promotes collaboration with organized and unorganized citizens with a view to achieving greater prosperity, well-being and human dignity in our own countries and in an increasingly interconnected world. It is an initiative that facilitates the interoperability of government information systems at the state, regional, provincial and local level. It is an initiative that encourages citizen listening, and facilitates equitable and affordable access to technology, promoting connectivity for political participation. It is a unique and reusable tool for all Basque administrations and citizens, based on the principles of simple language, usability and accessibility. It is a measurable, impactful commitment that will be co-designed with civil society (organized and unorganized).

Primary Policy Area

Civic Space, Digital Governance, Open Data

Primary Sector

Cross-sectoral, Public Services (general)

What OGP value is this commitment relevant to?