Promote openness and citizen participation at local level (LV0051)

6.1. Implementing openness standards in municipalities, promoting greater awareness and involvement of the population in order to improve life in their municipality

6.2. Regular exchanges of experience of municipal employees, i. sk. on public participation issues

6.3. Strengthening the participation of the municipality through the following measures, integrating it as part of decision-making: a) wider use of the participation budget - establishment of a participation budget information system for use by local governments; (b) quick, simple surveys and consultative activities in municipalities; (c) the establishment and transparent operation of citizens' councils; d) more frequent meetings of associations in the territory of the municipality with the leading employees and deputies of the municipality; e) listening to the recommendations of the population on the achievement of the strategic directions of the municipality and on the problems to be solved in the municipality; (f) inclusive citizen involvement, focusing on the so-called peripheral areas and their inhabitants; (g) Further work to improve the availability of information on local government budgets through the development of guidelines on binding rules for local government budgets and their amendments

Action Plan Review

Commitment 6. Promote openness and citizen involvement and participation in local government

● Verifiable: Yes

● Does it have an open government lens? Yes

● Potential for results: Substantial

State Chancellery, Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development (VARAM), Latvian Association of Large Cities, Civic Alliance, Providus

For a complete description of the commitment see Commitment 6 in Latvia’s 2022-2025 action plan: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/latvia-action-plan-2022-2025/

Context and objectives:

The government reformed Latvia’s territorial organisation and distribution of competences in 2020 (reducing the number of municipalities from 119 to 43). [18] On top of general concerns about the level of public participation in decision-making in Latvia, concerns have persisted that participation and involvement of CSOs in decision-making is weaker locally than nationally. [19]

Civil society have identified factors inhibiting public participation in local government decision-making that include a lack of information about local government meetings (including agendas and minutes), as well as information about elected public officials, committees and others. [20] Furthermore, the action plan states that, to date, Latvian municipalities do not publish comparable data that could be used to compare the costs of municipal functions. The action plan argues that such data would be useful for comparing and evaluating the financial performance of local governments, accountability and for cooperation, promoting efficiency and balanced development.

In response, government institutions and CSOs have been working on separate projects to increase openness at the local level. [21] Latvia also introduced a commitment on openness in local government in its 2019-2021 action plan. [22] Coming in parallel to reforms to the country’s territorial organisation, implementation of the previous commitment sought to pre-empt rules that are due to come into effect (over the course of this 2022-25 action plan) by developing guidelines and encouraging the adoption of actions to increase transparency and participation voluntarily at the local level. Amendments to the Law on municipalities passed the third reading in the Saeima in July 2022 and will make some participatory actions (such as participatory budgeting) mandatory at the local level. During early stages of the action plan co-creation process, citizens and civil society submitted ideas on openness at the local government level. [23]

This commitment seeks to build on the previous action plan commitment, and consolidate other work outside the OGP process, by implementing common openness standards in municipalities (6.1) and holding an annual exchange among municipal employees on public participation issues (6.2). Activities introducing different measures such as participatory budgeting, surveys and residents’ councils which would strengthen public participation (6.3), would consolidate the activities of different civil society projects at the local level and introduce other requirements stemming from the Law on municipalities.

Potential for results: Substantial

The commitment has substantial potential for results. The most impactful changes will come out of the obligations to involve citizens in budget and policy-making processes which is part of the reform of the Law on municipalities. A VARAM representative said that loans could be made available to municipalities to develop participatory projects, which may help with implementation of this commitment. [24]

At the moment, mechanisms like participatory budgeting are ad hoc and limited to a handful of local governments (notably, the capital city, Riga). Milestone 6.2 lists participatory budgeting as one form of participation that is foreseen to be implemented by municipalities. A VARAM representative confirmed that it is developing a common platform to facilitate the implementation of participatory budgeting across local government, as the amendments to the Law on municipalities would require all municipalities to introduce participatory budgeting. [25] Civil society representatives have highlighted the importance of getting citizens and young people involved in participatory budgeting at the local level. [26] If this milestone is fully implemented across all municipalities, the relationship between citizens and local government on developing local budgets and monitoring spending could be transformed.

The commitment would also seek to implement the organisation of residents’ councils in each municipality. Residents would be elected and hold meetings to initiate dialogue between themselves and councils. [27] While not mandated by the new Law, introducing residents’ councils could formalise deeper and ongoing dialogue and engagement between residents and local public administration as part of local government decision-making, beyond local elections and regular consultation processes.

The implementation of openness standards (6.1) could significantly increase transparency across municipalities. This would directly implement the standards that were created as part of Commitment 4 of the 2019-2021 action plan. [28] A civil society representative, involved in developing these standards, stated that it would be a major change in transparency even if implemented in only half of local governments. [29] Milestone 6.3.g would also lead to the development of guidelines and standards for local government on reporting local budgets, which a VARAM representative has said would help standardise how this is reported at the local level. [30] Common transparency standards and practices among local governments would make it easier for citizens to monitor and compare local governments’ levels of openness, which could then enable central government to apply targeted support for those local governments not meeting the minimum standards. A civil society representative stated that monitoring these standards will be important in making sure they are implemented effectively. [31]

Other activities to encourage exchanges of experience between local government employees on implementing these openness measures represent a welcome but more modest aspect of the commitment. This is because the current expectation is that these events will occur once a year, limiting the potential for them to lead to significant changes. Furthermore, a VARAM representative confirmed that the details of what would be part of the support provided by VARAM more generally had not been discussed, but that the expectation was for activities to be mainly related to the provision of information on the existence of openness standards. [32] 

Opportunities, challenges and recommendations during implementation

Some of the milestones under this commitment are dependent on the adoption of the amendments to the Law on municipalities. Any delay could put the brakes on implementation of this commitment, but this is unlikely as the draft passed its third reading in parliament.

This feeds into another challenge to this commitment to ensure that all municipalities implement the requirements of the expected law. Without legal requirements and associated funding, there is no clear expectation for local governments to take up these otherwise voluntary initiatives of their own accord.

At the time of writing this review, there was no clarity yet on the content of the planned exchanges between public officials on implementing openness standards. [33] Greater clarity would strengthen the potential for this milestone to contribute towards good practices and improve public officials’ knowledge about participation.

• Promote and distribute support and guidance for participatory budgeting at the local level and raise awareness about it and other participatory mechanisms. For most municipalities, the concept and implementation of participatory budgeting will require additional institutional support and resources to get off the ground. Guidance could also encourage inclusive participation so that Russian speakers, those with low incomes, or other groups that are not always likely to participate actively in such exercises, are involved. Those municipalities with lower capacity or funding may need extra support to meet the requirements of the Law on municipalities and implementation of openness standards. Both civil society and central government could actively encourage citizen involvement in participatory mechanisms like participatory budgeting through radio, online and other media.
• Publish performance indicators on transparency and participation to encourage municipalities to be more open. While there are activities of this commitment that would become required under the Law on municipalities, there are other activities that are voluntary. Furthermore, until the Law is adopted, there is still a need to encourage greater transparency and participation at the local level. Estonia underwent a similar territorial restructuring, and successfully implemented a comprehensive tool available for all citizens to view and compare the data of their local government categorised by areas. [34] Lithuania successfully published financial data of municipalities in its 2018-2020 action plan, which has also enabled more efficient analysis of public spending and use of state property. [35] Similar approaches in Latvia could also encourage greater take up of transparency and innovative participation measures and enable institutional, civil society and local citizen oversight of local government budgets and performance.