SPANISH PARLIAMENTS SHOW A SATISFACTORY LEVEL OF TRANSPARENCY IN THE FIRST EDITION OF IPAR
Transparency International Spain has recently launched a new Index, the Transparency Index of Parliaments (IPAR), which has a twofold purpose: First, to evaluate the level of transparency in the nineteen Parliaments in Spain (Deputy Congress, Senate, and seventeen Autonomous Community Parliaments), and secondly, to encourage and foster the development of information that these institutions provide citizens and society. The evaluation procedure is based on testing whether these public institutions publish information on an integrated set of 80 indicators from six areas of transparency.
These six areas of transparency are: a) Information on Parliament, b) Information on the operation and parliamentary activity, c) Relations with citizens and society, d) Economic and financial transparency, e) Transparency in the procurement of services, works and supplies, f) Indicators of new Transparency Law. With the application of this index every Parliament obtained an individual score. Thus, reaching a ranking or classification level of transparency of the 19 parliaments. The indicators used try to assess and cover the most important aspects that information is deemed to offer citizens a parliamentary institution.
TI-Spain through IPAR seeks ultimately to bring parliaments closer to Spanish society by promoting the increase of information that citizens receive from them their various activities.
The results of this index were published on March 31st. The Parliament that had the highest score was Cantabria, followed by Navarre, and the Senate of Spain. These three parliaments scored more than 80 out of 100.
In terms of overall score, there are 16 parliaments that have exceeded 50 points out of 100, leaving only three parliamentary institutions below the threshold Approved. In addition, six parliaments have reached a rating of Notable, and one, the Cantabrian, Outstanding. Moreover, the range between the final scores has been high, with a difference of 56 percentage points between the highest and lowest score.
With regard to the six areas of transparency evaluated, only one of them, the Economic-Financial Transparency, has an average Failing score (49,2), while in three areas the average score is Approved (50 to 69), reaching an average score of 70 to 90 in the other two areas.
It is important to point out the high level of collaboration that the Parliaments provided to TI- Spain in the evaluation process, reviewing in detail the initial questionnaires sent by this organization, and providing plenty of additional information for the preparation of this transparency index.
Finally, the results obtained in this first edition of IPAR are clearly higher than achieved in the first editions of the Transparency Index of the Municipalities (ITA): 52,1 of 100, and the Transparency Index on Water Management (INTRAG): 51,2, and also Transparency Index of Councils (INDIP): 48,6. Only for the Transparency Index of the Autonomous Communities (INCAU), a higher average score 71,5 was initially reached. In any case, it is expected that, as is happening in the other four indexes of Transparency done before by TI-Spain, Parliaments also follow a trend of continued improvement in future editions of this Index of Transparency.
For any press enquiries please contact
Jesús Lizcano Alvarez, TI-Spain Chairman
E: [email protected]
T:+34 91 700 4105
W: http://www.transparencia.org.es/
