Informação pública como instrumento de controle social: o nível de qualidade da informação disponível nos portais da transparência dos municípios paraibanos

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the transparency portals of cities in Paraiba regarding the level of information s quality about public management available to society, and highlights its importance as a tool for social control. Therefore , it sought to evaluate the official websites of all 223 municipalities, from the definition of Governmental Transparency Index (ITG), obtained through the application of a data collect instrument, built by issues classified in a two-dimensional model with three characteristics (Content, Usability and Interoperability) and two aspects (General and Legal). This indicator consolidates attributes that should be present in a transparency portal facing social control. From the survey, it was observed that the level of information s quality and transparency are relatively low, according to the research model proposed. Regarding the first dimension, it is observed that governments provide, in general, little content to citizens, with poor interoperability. The best result was accomplished by Usability characteristic, which indicates that most of portals have satisfactory technological resources, with appropriate navigation conditions and search information. On the other hand, with respect to another dimension, the legal aspect of the ITG indicated that no municipality was fully complying with the transparency s laws. The study also pointed that the result of cities with a population over one hundred thousand inhabitants was far superior to others, due to the different periods defined by law to release the information. These results demonstrate that several adjustments are needed in municipal Transparency Portals so that information has sufficient quality to be used in the service of social control. After all, access to good quality information contributes to social problems discussion, integrating social participation into public administration.