Chernihiv City Council is still one of the most accustomed in Ukraine – the results of measuring the publicity index of local councils

Representatives of the Polissya Fund of International and Regional Research within the framework of the OPORA Civic Network project conducted a press conference and the results of measuring the Index of Local Self-Government Publicity. The event took place on September 30 at the Expert Thought Discussion Club.

During a press conference, representatives of the Polissya Fund told about which city councils became the most and least public this year on the results of monitoring and presented the rating of municipalities. Experts briefly stopped on the main indicators of publicity of the Chernihiv city council, in particular – they evaluated how open this year the mayor, executive bodies and CMR deputy corps worked.
The presentation referred to the methodology under which the study was conducted.“Measurement indicators are unchanged all three years, which allows you to track the dynamics of publicity of the municipality”, – notedYevgeny Romanenko, Vice President of the Polissya Fund of International and Regional Research.

He stressed:“The objectivity of the openness of the Chernihiv City Council is guaranteed by the fact that the experience of Chernihiv analysts is used in their work and their colleagues from other cities.”
Commented on monitoring results andMaxim Grzenko, Manager of the Polissya Fund of International and Regional Research.

According to him, the last year of the Chernihiv City Council has increased its index of publicity by only 3%, which did not help officials to cross the boundaries of its lowest level. According to the total rating, the city is almost the lowest positions, accordingly, the Chernihiv publicity index is 47% (in 2014 this figure was 44%).
The activity of the chairman of the city councilResearchers characterize as non -public. According to the results of this measurement, the mayor did not improve last year’s indicators (43%). At the same time, regression, by some indicators, failure to comply with the recommendations provided under previous campaigns, led to the fact that against the background of heads of other regional center the Chernihiv mayor won third place from the end (20 out of 22). Despite the fact that in 2014, in this context of publicity, a certain jerk was made in the field, this year’s trends were offset by any other possible breakthroughs. Thus, in 2014, a section “Patronage Service”, biographical certificates of members of the Executive Committee and other important information appeared on the website of the Chernihiv City Council. However, there is still no master plan and information about most assistants and advisers of the mayor on the official web portal. Also, according to official data, the mayor conducted only two receptions with citizens and reported on the work of local self -government in violation of legislation. Moreover, using social networks to communicate with the locals, the official began only under the election.
Stillexecutive bodiesin the context of the city on the background of other subjects of the study are the highest, andDeputy CorpsChernihiv City Council again became the least public subject of research at the city level of Chernihiv. However, as Maxim Grzenko noted, there is a shift in the publicity of the latter. To rise in the overall rating of the deputies helped the implementation of the electronic voting system and accordingly the publication of the results of roll -call voting, as well as the complete publication of the projects and the decisions of the council themselves.
At the same time, there are no biographical information about deputies, typical forms of declarations of all representatives of the deputy corps and up -to -date information about the reception of citizens on the website of the Chernihiv City Council. The composition of deputy factions and its changes, the boundaries of majority districts, from which deputies were elected, reports on the use of deputy funds – all this information is also impossible to find in open access. Accordingly, such cases of closure of the representative power could not but affect the general index of publicity of the municipality.

We will remind, the publicity index is a joint project of support and a network of partners, which has been implemented for the third year in a row and aims to assess how publicly the decisions are made publicly and the policy of municipalities, and what is the contribution of the main entities of local self -government – the mayor, deputies. Every year, the presentation of the measurement results is dedicated to the International Day of the right to know what is celebrated on September 28.