Web-based tools for policy evaluation

1. Web-based tools for policy evaluation Lasse Berntzen Faculty of Social Science, Vestfold University College, lasse.berntzen@hive.no Marte Winsvold Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, marte.winsvold@nibr.no

2. 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.

3. 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

4. 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:

5. Model: Tools for web-based evaluation benchmarking

6. 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)

7. 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

8. 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.

9. 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)

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

11. 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)

12. E-ombudsman • Tool to capture citizens alerts

13. 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.