Addressees

Councilors of Katowice, town's president, Katowice Municipal Office's employees and residents of Katowice
 

Aims

Project's aim is to increase the quality and transparency of public life at local self-government level. Furthermore, the project is expected to develop and strengthen civil participation in decision-making process that refers to residents themselves and to the budget's creation.

On the basis of the gathered information and its analysis project's authors wanted to assess Katowice municipal authorities' openness to cooperate with town's residents. They also tend to encourage the authorities to active participation in public actions and in making common decisions concerning town's future.
 

Methodology

Actions taken up by the Bona Fides Association were based on the tool prepared by the Association of Leaders of Local Civic Groups. It is accessible on our portal

(http://www/watchdog.org.pl/16,90,lmb.html).

 
The project described the situation back in 2006. As a part of this research the Bona Fides Association's members talked to the workers of Municipal Office's and Social Welfare Center's 11 organizational units, to 10 councilors of the Town's Council and to the representatives of the four local non-governmental organizations. Besides, people managing the monitoring system contacted all the Town's Council's counselors with e-mail. They also checked the content of the official website and of the Public Information Bulletin of the Municipal Office in Katowice. They familiarized with the numerous local legal acts that determine monitored areas, as well.

 
Project's coordinators checked how and if the social consultations had been conducted during the examined period.

 
Bona Fides' members observed the obligatory consultations – for example carrying out the public consultations with residents of one of the supporting units concerning statute conferring. It was also crucial to find out if the consultations were held in the other domains that are important for the town (i.e. preparing the project of the town and non-governmental organizations' collaboration).

 
Thanks to applying documents' analysis – among others reports from session's meeting – they were compared to declarations applied by the office workers during interviews. This complex attitude let fully diagnose the system of the public consultations and the information transmission to residents. The regulations concerning the access to public information offered by offices were carefully analyzed. It was compared to its real reflection by demanding the public information by the people participating in the project.


The need of the flexible attitude to the tool was the problem that Bona Fides' members had to face. The tool was prepared in a way that was supposed to guarantee the possibility of comparing the monitoring results from the different towns. While monitoring process it turned out that examined subject for each town is peculiar enough to adapt the tool to the Katowice reality.

 
Project's results

Monitoring showed that only obligatory consultations were carried out. The town has not taken up any additional initiatives encouraging its residents to express their opinions on the significant for Katowice's citizens issues. In addition, we observe some irregularities referring to the Law on Access to Public Information as well as to unprofessional office workers' behavior in relation to clients.

 
Report's authors passed on its content to the Municipal Office before publishing it. They asked them for issuing their opinion on its results. Office's response was analyzed and association informed them which of their remarks were taken into consideration and which ones and why were not. After report's publication the office taunted the authors with lack of professionalism that resulted in ignoring their remarks. The authors refuted that proving they had shared with the office the complete information about their opinions along with the final report's version before it was revealed.


The monitoring system was the first global guard action conducted by the organization. Thanks to the effective operations to introduce some changes the majority of the recommendations formulated on the basis of monitoring results were realized. Councilors' passing the residents' opportunity for the legislative initiative and Municipal Office's creation of the Department for the Cooperation with the Non-Governmental Organization are probably considered the most important achievements.


What to take into consideration?

Every tool must be adapted to the local needs. If we use the existing one, we need to predict that some questions can change, which is why some time is required to carry out the legal and the environmental analysis that is going to allow us to define the real situation in a particular place.

 
Document all the authority-related contacts – especially those concerning information flow. This will make it possible to refute potential accusations concerning lack of monitoring objectivity and saying that an investigated subject's point of view is not taken into account.

for more info: http://www.bonafides.pl/

Translated voluntary by Katarzyna Bierzanowska