Transcript Web-based tools for policy evaluation

Web-based tools for policy
evaluation
Lasse Berntzen
Faculty of Social Science, Vestfold University College,
[email protected]
Marte Winsvold
Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research,
[email protected]
Motivation for this research
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E-democracy research has so far focused on early
stages of political decision making: How to include
citizens in the process.
Issue
emergence
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Agenda setting
Alternative
selection
Enactment
Implementation
Evaluation
Our focus was to look at how ICT can be used to
evaluate policy decisions (later stages)
Also to discuss what impact ICT has on the political
decision making process itself.
Main ideas
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We present a conceptual model for policy
evaluation from local politicians point of view.
We then show practical (Norwegian) “state of
the art” examples of tools
No existing tools was really useful to get input
from citizens on the shortcomings of political
decisions.
We therefore present one possible tool: The
e-Ombudsman
Redefined decision making model
• ICT provides for faster and even continuous
evaluation of the results of decisions.
• This opens up for a reformulation of the
model presented earlier:
Implementation
Issue
emergence
Agenda setting
Alternative
selection
Enactment
ICT
Evaluation
Model: Tools for web-based evaluation
E-ombudsman
benchmarking
Database
Database
Citizens
User
surveys
Local politician
Database
Benchmarking
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Technique to measure the performance and
quality of one municipality compared to other
municipalities.
What is the current status?
Some simple examples to show how
benchmarking can be used
Real use (real story)
Current benchmarking tools
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Criteria: Available to the public / local politicians
(through web interface)
Examples
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KOSTRA
Skoleporten.no (school portal)
 National Information System for Primary Education
 National Grade Database
 Results from national test
Problems
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Reporting errors
Lack of granularity
Benchmarking
Employees with degree in kindergarten
education (percent)
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All municipalities are
required to report statistical
information.
KOSTRA is a database and
a tool that makes data
available on the Internet.
KOSTRA can be for
benchmarking.
2003
2002
2001
0701 Horten
40.0
39.9
38.7
0702 Holmestrand
33.3
27.9
30.7
0713 Sande
28.3
37.8
37.5
0714 Hof
30.8
31.4
33.3
Percent of total municipal expenses
spent on public schools
2003
2002
0701 Horten
27.2
26.2
0702 Holmestrand
28.0
27.4
0713 Sande
33.4
35.0
0714 Hof
31.7
31.6
Net. expenses public
library / citizen (NOK)
Average loans /
citizen
2003
2002
2001
2003
2002
2001
0701 Horten
262
279
268
6.1
6.1
5.9
0702 Holmestrand
308
382
370
3.9
3.7
4.0
Benchmarking
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These examples are real, but very simple, and
shows how benchmarking can be used in practice.
KOSTRA is a very complex database, and often a
lot of data analysis must be done to draw
conclusions.
Example (recent case, Holmestrand municipality)
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Background: Administration proposed to reduce the
number of schools by one.
Local city council voted against, but established a
committee to evaluate school expenditures and school
structure.
Committee is relying on KOSTRA and Skoleportalen.no as
tools for evaluation (hundreds of pages)
User satisfaction surveys
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Why web-based surveys?
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Less expensive
More frequent
Limited use, problem of digital divide
Examples:
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Efficiency network (bedrekommuner.no)
Pupil investigators
User satisfaction surveys
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A lot is happening this year:
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User satisfaction surveys for parents with children
in primary schools: Paper based form includes
password to use web-based form as an
alternative.
Local user satisfaction surveys among parents
with children in kindergarten.
Limited use within health care and social sector
(Internet is not the right medium for such groups)
E-ombudsman
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Tool to capture citizens alerts
E-ombudsman
Politician A
Translation
Distribution
Translation
Citizen
Politician B
Politician C
Discussion
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Presented a model
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Practical examples of use
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Would like comments on this..
Current “state of the art” in Norway”
Introduce E-ombudsman as a tool to capture
alerts from citizens being concerned about
the effects of policy decisions.