Methodological approach to analysis of transparency of local authorities[Методический Подход К Оценке Транспарентности Деятельности Органов Местного Самоуправления]

The relevance of research. The transparency of local self-government bodies is one of the characteristics of communication between local authorities and the stakeholders of the territory. Currently, domestic studies lack methods for assessing transparency in the aspect of analyzing the satisfaction of the population with the activities of local self-government bodies and the involvement of the population in self-government. The purpose of the study is to analyze the existing methodological approaches to assessing the transparency of local governments and to develop an assessment methodology based on a customer-oriented approach. Methods and methodology. The methodology for assessing transparency is based on the integration of a client-centered approach to municipal governance with the principles of community involvement in the implementation of democracy. On the basis of this, the integral indicator of transparency is determined on the basis of calculating four groups of indicators: 1) indicators of the implementation of forms of direct democracy in the municipality; 2) indicators of interaction of local governments with the population through the media and social networks; 3) indicators of information technology security; 4) indicators of the quality of the provision of municipal services and customer focus. Results. The author has developed a methodology for assessing the transparency of local self-govern\-ment bodies, which makes it possible to identify problematic areas in the interaction of the authorities with the population and to assess the effectiveness of the administrations of municipalities. The approbation of the methodology was carried out on the example of the activities of the administrations of nine urban districts of the Republic of Bashkortostan. As a result, it was determined that in these urban districts there is a high level of interaction of local governments with the media and with citizens in social networks. However, provision of municipal services and customer focus is still of low quality.