Web-based tools for policy evaluation Lasse Berntzen Faculty of Social Science, Vestfold University College, Marte Winsvold Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research,

Motivation for this research E-democracy research has so far focused on early stages of political decision making: How to include citizens in the process. Our focus was to look at how ICT can be used to evaluate policy decisions (later stages) Also to discuss what impact ICT has on the political decision making process itself.

Main ideas We present a conceptual model for policy evaluation from local politicians point of view. We then show practical (Norwegian) “state of the art” examples of tools No existing tools was really useful to get input from citizens on the shortcomings of political decisions. We therefore present one possible tool: The e-Ombudsman

Redefined decision making model ICT provides for faster and even continuous evaluation of the results of decisions. This opens up for a reformulation of the model presented earlier:

Model: Tools for web-based evaluation benchmarking

Benchmarking Technique to measure the performance and quality of one municipality compared to other municipalities. What is the current status? Some simple examples to show how benchmarking can be used Real use (real story)

Current benchmarking tools Criteria: Available to the public / local politicians (through web interface) Examples  KOSTRA  Skoleporten.no (school portal) National Information System for Primary Education National Grade Database Results from national test Problems  Reporting errors  Lack of granularity

Benchmarking All municipalities are required to report statistical information. KOSTRA is a database and a tool that makes data available on the Internet. KOSTRA can be for benchmarking. Employees with degree in kindergarten education (percent) Horten Holmestrand Sande Hof Percent of total municipal expenses spent on public schools Horten Holmestrand Sande Hof Net. expenses public library / citizen (NOK) Average loans / citizen Horten Holmestrand

Benchmarking These examples are real, but very simple, and shows how benchmarking can be used in practice. KOSTRA is a very complex database, and often a lot of data analysis must be done to draw conclusions. Example (recent case, Holmestrand municipality)  Background: Administration proposed to reduce the number of schools by one.  Local city council voted against, but established a committee to evaluate school expenditures and school structure.  Committee is relying on KOSTRA and Skoleportalen.no as tools for evaluation (hundreds of pages)

User satisfaction surveys Why web-based surveys?  Less expensive  More frequent Limited use, problem of digital divide Examples:  Efficiency network (bedrekommuner.no)  Pupil investigators

User satisfaction surveys A lot is happening this year:  User satisfaction surveys for parents with children in primary schools: Paper based form includes password to use web-based form as an alternative.  Local user satisfaction surveys among parents with children in kindergarten.  Limited use within health care and social sector (Internet is not the right medium for such groups)

E-ombudsman Tool to capture citizens alerts

Discussion Presented a model  Would like comments on this.. Practical examples of use  Current “state of the art” in Norway” Introduce E-ombudsman as a tool to capture alerts from citizens being concerned about the effects of policy decisions.