Transparency and Accountability Portal (TAP) into Municipal Government Affairs
In the current election for a new CKL Mayor and 8 Ward Councillors, the topics of transparency and accountability have come up often.
Transparency and Accountability in government are topics that arise often during elections. There are many reasons for this but the main one is that public trust in our government decision-makers has been in short supply for some time.
This is a solvable problem. We have the means to build that trust in our rapidly advancing technological age, but only if the political will exists to support it.
Here is an idea to regain that trust. I have presented it in a SWOT+ Analysis format to flesh out some of the factors that must be considered to determine if the political will can be raised to see it through to reality. I hope, with this report, to generate public discussions concerning this idea with the goal to have it taken into serious consideration by all concerned residents of the City of Kawartha Lakes.
THE ISSUE:
Few citizens know how and why City Council makes its decisions regarding public policies and investments. Without this understanding, uncertainty and skepticism can emerge regarding the quality of decisions being made of behalf of City residents.
Some residents have alleged that City staff are driving Council’s agenda with an overpowering influence on the expected outcomes. This influence can sway the votes of our Councillors who are generally not sufficiently informed on the problems/issues/solutions presented to understand them well. Consequently, they may vote on “gut feel” rather than act on “informed consent” when making their voting decisions.
Others claim that some Councillors are weak members of the City’s ‘executive decision-making team’. With little to offer of value to policy discussions, these members are considered “free riders” on Council - those who invest a minimum of effort towards reaching information decisions.
The bottom line? It takes 5 of 9 votes to pass a motion in Council. If any of these votes are made with poor knowledge of the issue, then motions can and will be passed when insufficient scrutiny of the facts resulting in poor decisions. This erodes public trust and confidence in our elected representatives.,
PROPOSAL - a Transparency and Accountability Portal (TAP)
Preamble: In the past, professional news reporters were “investigative” journalists that could be relied upon to determine the facts of an event or public concern and then report them to the public without political bias or ideological “spin”. It was generally understood that “the media” played a vital role in holding public and private institutions accountable to the public they served. Those professionals were not afraid to uncover the mistakes, crimes, scandals and other unfortunate consequences of high profile people who’s avarice or errors in judgement were revealed.
Today, public concerns about ‘transparency and accountability’ in our institutions are running at an all time high. Contemporary corporate journalists are known to read from teleprompters on the evening news delivering content prepared by unknown and unseen ‘others’. Gone is the “investigative” part of the job done by journalists of the pre-Internet past.
Let’s create a Transparency & Accountability Portal (TAP) to offer a specific and more robust look into the decision-making processes, influences and activities that take place within City Council. What would this TAP look like?
Like most modern businesses, a TAP startup would initially require a small team of people who possess compatible and synergistic domains of expertise specific to the organization’s purpose. The founding employees of TAP will be essential to provide the core capabilities and expertise needed to competently lead and drive the human and capital assets of the enterprise to achieve its goals. In the case of TAP, investigative journalism and software design & engineering skills will be among the necessary core capabilities. In addition, someone who possesses strong knowledge of City Council and its workflow would be another import player - perhaps a former City Councillor who genuinely cares about establishing a “watchdog” service for the public?
Ideally, TAP’s leader would be a former investigative journalist who possesses the essential experience of gaining access to, collecting and reporting on the facts of the decision-making activities of public institutions. The “facts” would likely be found in Council’s meeting minutes which would reveal agenda content, topics considered, motions proposed and passed by whom, links to supporting documentation, authors & sponsors of the motions proposed and their rationale for bringing their agenda items to Council, etc).
Key to the success of a robust TAP service would be to introduce new methods and disciplines to Council that will more thoroughly reveal the type and extent of the efforts made by each and every City Council member to arrive as decisions. A good place to start may be the use of written SWOT+ Analysis Reports for each agenda item expected to undergo a Council vote. To best serve the public in a transparent and accountable manner, no significant Council decision should be of be allowed to pass unless each Councillor come prepared to every Council meeting with previously prepared and documented SWOT+ Report. They must become part of all meeting minutes and made accessible to the public via TAP. Failure to come prepared to vote would result in the Ward Councillor being excluded from the vote due to insufficient preparation and inadequate knowledge. Repeated failures to come prepared to vote would become part of his or her voting record on Council. This will serve to inform electors in future elections regarding which Councillors were most diligent in carrying out their duties as elected Ward representatives. The track records of all members of Council - the Mayor and all 8 Councillors - would be laid bare for all electors to consider if a Council member were to run for re-election.
TAP must not hire anyone who is employed by any level of government, agency, board, commission, corporate media organization or registered charity. This will be necessary to prevent potentially corrupting influences from people whose participation may prove to be a conflict of interest from the taxpayers’ perspective.
The “Portal” will report to the public as a basic online information service accessible to everyone with internet access at no charge (free). A paid subscription option would entitle a subscriber to receive weekly bulletins/newsletters, and more. Like most podcasts today, a donation option will also be present. Other revenue generating ideas can also be considered.
If Portal advertising becomes part of the TAP business model, it should only be available to politicians and City Departments heads. This could serve our citizens well if it provides timely information on election platforms, candidate backgrounds (a professional resume is preferred) and scheduled events. Articles and commentaries written by senior City officials could also be featured, especially by those who could credibly address topics of interest within their domains of responsibility and authority.
The SWOT+ ANALYSIS
STRENGTHS.
The following is a list of the potential benefits and advantages of the TAP proposal as currently conceived. Future iterations of TAP amend this list as more people contribute their ideas to the concept.
TAP will provide:
Better information for voters, interested residents and news reporters about the workings of City Council and the operations if they various departments within the City of Kawartha Lakes. As an information service that it independent of the government itself, the choice of and reporting of topics can be expected to be free of the self-serving political or partisan interests of elected representatives and City officials.
A reliable record of performance of City Council members. This record will reveal how consistently each member could provide quality inputs into Council decisions. It will apply to all 9 members of Council.
A credible source of information concerning the degree to which City staff (ie the CAO’s office) drives Council’s agenda and the decisions it makes.
As an independent entity that is only accountable to CKL residents and NOT to any government authority ( except possibly to some legislative constraints), TAP could serve to minimize unsubstantiated rumours, conspiracy theories and other forms of ‘misinformation’ that often circulates in our communities.
Our younger voters are the most “tech savvy” in our communities. As an online service, ideally with a TAP app, it will enable convenient access to its contents from a smart phone or computer. This format will likely attract more of or our young citizens to engage in public affairs than we have seen in the past. While our retirement communities are large and currently more engaged than our working age citizens, they can continue to be served (if needed) by traditional methods and modalities of communication for the foreseeable future. It has always been a challenge to engage young voters in local public affairs and the web has much more potential to do so than traditional methods.
WEAKNESS
City staff and City Council members will be unlikely to welcome public scrutiny from an external organization that they cannot control or manage. In this regard, it may not be easy to get access to, or compliance with, the level and type of information sought by TAP. It will require City Council to authorize the level of access to information that will be sufficient to regain much of the public trust lost in recent years for all levels of government. This trust will only come in time after the public witnesses the benefits of unadulterated transparency and accountability that TAP has the potential to provide.
City Councillors are paid about $50,000 per year which, for the level of responsibility expected by the public of an elected official - an “executive” decision-maker- is much too low to expect their involvement to be more that part time (15 hours per week?). To perform this job well, it requires a full time, dedicated commitment by a skilled and knowledgeable professional. The current compensation is also not enough to attract younger, high-quality candidates who are in the prime of their working careers and who can bring more to Council than we often see in our current selection of candidates (usually less “tech-savvy”
retirees). “You get what you pay for” may be a timely topic for Councillor compensation discussions with the public. Times have changed in lockstep with the rapidly evolving digital economy. The abilities to address modern challenges would be better served by people on Council who possess the up-to-date knowledge, skills and capabilities to function at a high level.
The Mayor’s salary is $116,000. It too should be re-evaluated to determine if this level of compensation is enough to attract the best candidates. Also, consider this: the Mayor’s single vote counts the same as every other vote at City Council. If this is the case, I wonder why such a large gap exists between Councillor and Mayor compensation packages?
People don’t like change. The idea of employing TAP to provide greater public oversight into the inner workings of City Council and senior City government leaders may not be popular with many citizens. However, change and progress are unavoidable in our modern technological age. If our City residents want government transparency and accountability, they must embrace change or else stop complaining about the status quo.
OPPORTUNITY
An external “watchdog” organization like TAP has the potential to serve as a long overdue means to build a stronger relationship between our elected officials, government employees and the citizens they serve. In the private sector, competition between suppliers to win customer purchasing decisions has always been the prime driver to improve customer service, product selection, convenience, pricing and more. In the absence of market competition, government institutions face little to none of those “market” pressures. Politicians vie only for citizen acceptance as measured by votes during elections. A municipal government oversight organization such as TAP can provide the missing ingredient to ensure that our elected officials are doing the job that we expect of them.
If an enterprising Software Engineer is reading this proposal, he of she may wish to consider creating an online system/app to implement this TAP proposal. It may have the potential to build a business model that can be sold and replicated across all of Canada’s municipalities. A word of caution is necessary, however: DO NOT accept funding from any government or other organization that will “attach strings” to that funding if you wish TAP to be a truly independent and non-corruptible service to the public. A not-for-profit model may be your best option to avoid the inevitable suspicions that will surely be expressed by partisan special interest groups that will place landmines on your path forward.
THREATS
Various groups will oppose this idea, especially public sector labour unions that are known to exert influences in the workplace that are not always aligned with public interest.
It is always challenging to start a new business and a TAP information service will be no different. Some of the impediments to success can be anticipated and preparations made to address them can begin early. Other challenges are often difficult to predict and can discourage people from moving ahead. For this reason, the entrepreneur(s) who wish to make TAP “a thriving concern” will need to be highly motivated, creative, and resourceful.
Raising financial capital without the help from government subsidies is generally daunting. However, if the Truckers For Freedom convoy and its multi-week rally in Ottawa proved anything, $millions can be raises from public donations for a cause that will safeguard the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in a way that will protect us from harm and aggression. The public’s interest in government transparency and accountability should be of interest to many Canadians that cherish their liberties. Our rights and freedoms must be defended especially against government actors who seem to have forgotten that we pay their salaries and fund all programs and services that we have entrusted to public institutions on our behalf.
WHO PAYS?
If TAP is to effectively serve the residents of CKL, then the residents should pay for it but not through coerced taxation. Voluntary donations are the only way to keep TAP out of the hands and influences of others who may try to corrupt its purpose for their own ends. We have seen this often in the past and one only needs to look at the history and evolution of Greenpeace in order to see evidence of this potential for corruptibility.
WHO BENEFITS?
If implemented as envisioned, TAP has the potential to begin to restore the mutual trust between citizens and public servants. This trust has eroded in recent years and especially during the pandemic. Fairness and mutual respect can only be achieved by understanding each other - our needs, priorities, responsibilities and limitations. Put simply, by facilitating effective and timely communications and information-sharing between stakeholders and decision-makers, this trust and understanding can begin to build.
Ideally, TAP can get its start right here in CKL if we staff it locally. In particulate, the computer science knowledge and skills needed to create a viable software and information services business could have its home office here and build TAP so that it could serve clients nationwide who also wish more transparency and accountability from their local government. A modern business like this could very well keep a few of our sons or daughters gainfully employed right here at home.
VOLUNTEERS
If you know anyone within the CKL who is a Software Engineer or former investigative reporter that possesses entrepreneurial aspirations, please ask him or her to contact me.
