Achieving higher ROI and public trust through transparency: A winning strategy for local governments

Written by Mike Bell

Public trust in local government is eroding. According to data from Polco, in 2022 less than 50 percent of residents surveyed had confidence in their local government. This is part of a larger and worrying trend. The same data shows that overall confidence in local government fell from 56 percent in 2020 to 48 percent in 2022—an eight-point drop.

The most effective way to bolster trust between local governments and their residents is through transparency. Transparency builds public trust, promotes accountability and efficiency, and simultaneously decreases opportunities for misconduct and fraud.

Achieving transparency in local government is challenging. There may be concerns about the time and costs of implementing transparency measures, as well as worries about the risk of opening the organization and its staff to greater scrutiny and criticism. Since prioritizing transparency can provide such significant benefits for a local government, it’s important to understand the potential return on investment of these initiatives.

While transparency is a vital component in improving public trust, here are a few additional benefits:

Attract and retain talent
Early in 2023, we’re still facing major challenges stemming from the labor shortage and the COVID-19 pandemic. Data from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce shows there are more than 10 million job openings in the U.S. currently, but only 5.7 million unemployed workers. Even if every person in the nation found employment, there would still be 4 million open jobs across the country.

While many private sector jobs are on the road to recovery since the peak of COVID, local governments are still lagging behind. In fact, the National League of Cities reports that local governments collectively lost more than 300,000 workers between March 2020 and 2022.

Worker shortages impact local governments’ ability to govern effectively, and it’s essential to consider strategies that will attract skilled talent. On the tail of the “Great Resignation” and “Great Re-Negotiation,” transparency in the workplace is increasingly valued as a key component to attracting workers.

A survey in late 2022 by Glassdoor found that workplace transparency was critical in employee experience—at least a third of today’s workforce wants (and expects) transparency from employers. In some cases, this can specifically mean pay transparency, but in many cases, employees also expect honest and authentic communication from their employers.

With a widespread labor shortage, employee retention is essential. Transparency is proven to boost employee happiness, contribute to lower stress levels, build trust between employees and employers, and increase overall employee engagement—one of the strongest measures for predicting employee turnover.

Case in point: the City of Port Moody, British Columbia’s focus on transparency and accountability increased their employee engagement to 100 percent. The city credits this success in part to ensuring leadership participated in transparent processes. At their first meeting post-implementation of performance management software, they reported 100 percent of their employees participated and offered feedback.

Save time and resources
Access to technology has increased expectations that information should be easy to find with a quick Google search. Not surprisingly, residents today want their local governments to provide on-demand access to forms, applications, meeting agendas and minutes, and other resources.

If these resources aren’t digitized and made easy to access and visualize, local government workers can easily spend hours searching for documents, answering questions, making copies and disseminating information.

Research from Deloitte found that documenting and recording information is the most time-consuming activity for government workers, accounting for 10 percent of all working hours, or around 108 million hours each year. In addition, 4-6 percent of hours are consumed by finding information, and 3 percent—more than 3 million hours—are used for processing information.

Local leaders in Kent County, Mich., made their strategic plan more transparent by shifting away from spreadsheets to a software solution that digitized departmental data for easier dissemination, visualization, and understanding both internally and with their community. This saved time and resources in searching for and reporting progress updates. It also helped identify places where departmental strategies had become siloed, so all departments could collaborate and focus on their responsibilities within the strategic plan.

Improve resident and employee engagement
Trust and transparency in government are strongly linked to resident engagement and satisfaction.

Effective public engagement requires strong two-way communication, supported by data, between residents and their government. Governments can promote transparency through effective communication channels and shared data but must also listen to their constituents through public meetings, polls, surveys, simulations and other tools.

Effective, fact-based communication is supported by digital tools that convey a city’s strategic plans and operational progress, while collecting input and preferences from residents. Well-supported processes help increase transparency and foster resident engagement, building a culture of trust.

When government processes and procedures are transparent and accessible, residents become more informed and engaged on local issues, policies and procedures. We have seen it time and time again: engaged communities are strong communities. They experience a multitude of benefits that include better governance, improved allocation of resources and provision of public goods, better relationships between the public and their government, and more overall trust in both directions.

We know that public trust is a crucial component for ethical and effective government. Indeed, trust is the very fabric that binds our communities together. While transparency is essential in building trust, there are many additional reasons governments should prioritize transparent procedures, tools, and culture. It may initially be challenging to implement but we’ve seen first-hand how leaders quickly realize the true benefits and powerful return on investment when recognizing transparency as a fundamental component of good governance.

Mike Bell is founder and CEO of Envisio, the leading strategy and performance management software solution for local government. Bell founded Envisio with a vision to build trusted, transparent, and high-performing public agencies. Learn more at envisio.com.