Methodology

The project usually consists of three phases and primarily concentrates on 17  municipal policies which were identified as key municipal policies:

1. public property sales and leasing policy
2. recruitment policy/staffing
3. policy of civic participation in municipal decision-making
4. access to information policy: accessing vs. disclosing
5. communication/media policy
6. ethical infrastructure and conflict of interest of elected representatives
7. ethical infrastructure and conflict of interest of the City Hall employees
8. ethical infrastructure and conflict of interest of employees of municipal companies
9. land use planning and construction policy
10. grant-giving policy
11. policy of transparency of legal entities constituted and established by municipality
12. public procurement policy
13. policy of public-private partnerships
14. housing policy
15. policy of allocation of places in municipal social care facilities
16. policy of budgeting and informing public about it
17. policy of public order

I.phase of the project

• Aim: identification of the most vulnerable areas to corruption
• Precondition: establishment of the team consisting of the TI Slovakia experts and the City Hall employees and deputies
• Activities: audit of the current state of the 17 policies stated before: gathering data about particular policies from the City Hall employess through questionnaires; meetings and consultations with the city deputies; own research on the city rules and procedures and webchecking; analysis of the data and documents – assessment of the questionnaires

The basic concept through which TI Slovakia evaluate the policies is the following corruption formula:

Corruption = Monopoly + Discretionary power – Transparency[1]

• Output: audit report

II. phase of the project

• Aim: development of anti-corruption recommendations and particular rules for each of the 17 policies. Based on good practices and are built for the particular conditions of given local government.
• Precondition: local government can choose priority areas (policies) for which it would consider adoption of anti-corruption measurements
• Activity: this phase consists of meetings with local government and development of anti-corruption recommendations for the local government conditions. The methodology of this phase is also based on Klitgaard’s formula, so the recommendations are focused on the process of transparency increasing and decreasing of discretionary power in particular policies in local government. Inspiration also comes from the best practises abroad.
• Examples of best practices: many recommendations concern active disclosure of information through the city web page and introduction of electronic register for various kinds of applications; strengthening protection and rules for potential whistleblowers – as a protection for employees who report inappropriate behaviour in their office/department; method of the random selection when deciding on allocation of local government social flats; recommendation to conduct auction when deciding about renting or selling flats; using e-auctions in public procurement; draft of the Code of Conduct; introduction of Ethics Commissioner
• Output: report: anti-corruption recommendations

III. phase of the project

• Aim: assistance (training, discussions, workshops ) in the process of adopting of anti-corruption recommendation
• Precondition: the will of local government to change situation and to be more transparent
• Activity: discussions between TI and local government about the anti-corruption recommendations and drafts of new  by-laws and regulations adapted to municipal conditions; TI assistance with implementation of these regulations; training/workshops of the elected representatives and relevant employees of the City Hall organized by TI
• Output: adoption of new regulations  into municipal legislative

Summary

The project has impact on everyone who is a part of the public life. After successful implementation of anti-corruption recommendation the public can monitor, judge and react on the local administration more efficient. The added value of this is that the local administration can win back the public trust in the processes of execution of local government administration. This, subsequently, is reflected on the public participation in public affairs. From the point of view of the employees and elected representatives of local government, the project sets clear rules in decision-making processes. As the result, this limits the space for corruption behaviour.

[1] Klitgaard, R. Controlling Corruption. Berkeley and los Angeles, university of California Press, 1998.