Transparency and Accessibility in Municipalities: The Case of Social Services in Spain

Abstract

This paper aims to design and propose a new measurement model for social services transparency in municipalities. The model includes an empirical study of 38 municipalities in Spain. The information published on these municipalities’ websites is evaluated through experimental quantitative methods using multivariate analysis. The municipalities chosen were those with the highest population that also disclosed the largest amount of information and provided the easiest access to their websites. The paper’s conceptual framework was constructed by combining the Spanish legal context with a bibliographic review based on the latest transparency models. The research proposes a new Transparency Evaluation Model for Social Services to measure transparency in municipalities using the social services information published on the websites. Factors considered include degree of ease and amount of time spent by citizens in accessing the website. Some conclusions indicate that transparency remains difficult to achieve, information is less accessible to citizens than it should be, and transparency differs among the municipalities due to the legal changes implemented in recent years, as well as to other economic and social variables.