Popular reporting in Portuguese Municipalities? Hot

Popular Reporting (PR) has been addressed in the literature as a tool to promote transparency and accountability, particularly in the local government context. Following the international financial crisis of the last decade, the levels of trust of citizens in politicians have raised in the former the awareness for the need of further information about public moneys management. Therefore, PR might become the report that Portugal needs to make governmental, financial and non-financial, information more transparent and promote the communication between elected and electorate, mainly at the local level.
This paper analyses the eventual introduction of PR in the context of the Portuguese Local Administration, based on a questionnaire sent to municipalities about the pertinence of this type of report, attempting to understand which are the possible reasons for its adoption, advantages brought by this type of report, if adopted, and the main characteristics to be considered in its elaboration.
The analysis allowed to conclude that, in the perception of municipalities, PR would bring advantages in disclosing municipality’s financial and institutional information, in a more accessible and perceptible way an in an opportune time (per trimester or semester and in online pdf format). As the same time, PR would assure, a priori, improved transparency in the municipality-citizen relationship.