[open-government] Last Chance - Municipal transparency help

[James McKinney]

On the other hand, governments are much more likely to disclose tender data than transactional data. There are still enough big problems in tenders that we don't need to worry about a civil servant spending too much at Tim Hortons or similar (though, that does make for news stories). The UK parliamentary expenses scandal, for example, didn't really have that much of a financial impact - a few million pounds worth of fraud can be accomplished in a single fraudulent tender. It did have an impact in terms of MPs leaving politics and the public losing faith - and hopefully the long-term result of that is more responsible MPs or at least long-lasting reforms for better oversight.


On 2013-05-28, at 11:44 PM, Anders Pedersen wrote:

> Hi Jonathan, 
> 
> I've added a comment in your questionnaire arguing that there will likely be a difference between requesting tender data, which you have suggested and asking for transactional spending data:
> 
> Two examples (which might, might not be relevant in your case):
> 1) Civil servants pay multiple visits to Tim Horton purchasing coffee below the amount threshold for tenders 
> 
> 2) Department of education experiences hikes in rental costs from the Department of Municipal Property, which owns the buildings. 
> 
> In both cases you could be considerably better off from having access to full transactional spending data, than merely having access to tender data.
> 
> Best,
> Anders 
> 
> On 28 May 2013 23:05, Jonathan Brun <jbrun at jonathanbrun.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> We are wrapping up a proposed questionnaire for municipal office candidates, any comments or tips would be appreciated!
> 
> https://docs.google.com/a/jonathanbrun.com/document/d/1zn4KehQOv6IIRlJBi4kGjtHOdbYpS5nh4tcu7rffx4o/edit
> 
> Date to complete it: May 31st
> 
> JB
> QuebecOuvert.org - MontrealOuvert.net
> jonathanbrun.com - @jonathanbrun
> 
> 
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> Anders Pedersen
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