TO REPORT OR NOT TO REPORT? ANALYSIS OF THE REPORTS OF LOCAL COUNCIL DEPUTIES FOR 2019

According to the Article 16 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Status of Deputies of Local Councils”, a deputy of a local council is obliged to report on his/her work to the voters of the respective constituency and associations of citizens periodically, but at least once a year.

In order to provide conditions for reporting, in accordance with parts one and five of the Article 16 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Status of Deputies of Local Councils”, the local council determines the approximate deadlines for reports of local council deputies to voters, and the decisions on the organization of these reports (meetings) are made at a meeting of the local council.

By February every year, the local council develops and approves a reporting schedule, which is posted on the official website. Reporting lasts a month and must be completed by March 31 of the year following the reporting year. The schedule indicates: date, time, and place (address) of the reporting meeting of each deputy.

Written reports of deputies, reporting schedules, information on oral reporting, including audio or video recording, transcripts are posted on the official website of the council in a separate section “Reports of deputies”.

In order to make sure that the deputies submit reports on their work, the reports of the deputies of local councils are annually monitored by the NGO “All-Ukrainian Organization “Institute Respublica”. In 2020, deputies will report on their activities in 2019. The year 2020 is special because it is the last year of the elected term. For those deputies who will decide to continue their parliamentary activities and will run for local councils in the autumn, this is a great opportunity to show their transparency and accountability to voters, to demonstrate their interest in the district’s problems and their ability to solve them.

During May-June 2020, the team of the “Institute Respublica” was analyzing the reports of deputies of 28 local councils, representing 1287 deputies. The source of data for the study was the official websites of city councils and responses to requests for information on reports of deputies from local councils.

Cities of both regional and district significance from different regions of Ukraine were included in the monitoring.

According to the results of processing the reports of 793 deputies of cities of regional significance and the reports of 374 deputies of district significance, there is almost no difference in the number of submitted reports.

According to the words of Oleksandra Hlizhynska, an executive director of the “Institute Respublica” and a co-founder of the All-Ukrainian initiative “Active Community” “in the reports of only a small percentage of deputies we can see what they have done, as well as plans and program for the next year. That is very rare”

“Voters need to initiate some processes and clearly understand what is important for them in their community. Basically, deputies focus on their voters and report on what is important for them. It is good, if they report at all,” said Oleksandra Hlizhynska on “Hromadske Radio”.

As you can see in the graph below, among the cities with the highest reporting rate of deputies there are cities of regional and district importance: Kramatorsk, Yuzhne, Uzhgorod, Ivano-Frankivsk, Rivne. The same trend is among the cities with the lowest reporting rate: Sumy, Chernivtsi, Bakhmut, Vugledar, Zhmerynka, Zinkiv.

Only 532 deputies of 1,287 (41.3%) have reported.

These deputies represent 39 political parties and 2 separate factions.

Unfortunately, deputies rarely mention their party affiliation in their reports, and such information is not listed on local councils’ websites. Therefore, in the study the number of parties’ members includes those deputies who represent the interests of different political parties in one way or another.

The graph below shows which political parties’ interests are most represented in the local councils, which were studied.

It should be noted that all deputies report only in those political parties that are very small (up to 10 people) and are represented in only one city council. Representatives of political parties, who are widely represented in many councils, identify themselves with the local council rather than the political party. Sometimes it may happen so, that all deputies of a certain party can report in one city, but none of the deputies of this political party report in the other council. This shows a lack of party discipline. The deputy often uses the party only as a brand that will help to get into the council or to defend certain interests within the faction.

The low level of party discipline is also confirmed by the fact that the representatives of the political parties that were (or are) members of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the VIII and IX convocations haven`t reported well.

Representatives of the political parties “Sluha narodu”, “Holos” and “Narodnii Front” were not elected to the councils which are studied.

Content analysis of the reports of local councils’ deputies

Despite the clear requirements of the legislation on the information to be contained in the deputy’s report, as in previous years, the deputies reports at their own discretion.

Sometimes the content of reports is absurd:

“I consider it as a sacred duty to support people of respectable age.”

“I always find opportunities to organize holiday events in the district, with gifts and concerts to make the holiday really a holiday.”

“I dedicate 100-120% of my working time to this cause. In addition, I devote another 50% of my time to protect the interests of the residents of my constituency, whom I represent in the city council as a deputy.”

By analyzing the reports of deputies of local councils, analysts singled out the TOP-5 activities that are most often mentioned in the reports of activities in the district.

In conclusion, we would like to note that in comparison with previous years, in the last year of their term, deputies of local councils reported at least: as an average for the study, in terms of 13 cities, which have participated in this survey for 4 years, and also in terms of the political parties.

But we should not forget that reporting is the duty of deputies, which they must perform annually or even more often if voters or public self-organizations demand it. Moreover, the deputy’s failure to report is the basis for his recall, in accordance with the provisions of Art. 37 of the Law “On the status of deputies of local councils”. The Law on Access to Public Information provides the opportunity to read the deputy’s report, if it is not published on the website.

About the study. The study is supported by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) with funding from the United States Agency for International Development.

Note. The mission of the “Active Community” is to achieve prosperity through the democratic development of Ukrainian communities. The goal for 2025 is to activate and involve at least 1% of citizens in decision-making and promotion of reforms in Ukraine on a systemic basis for the well-being of Ukrainian communities. The initiative was created through the activities of the “Institute Respublica”. We are working to increase the civil activity of citizens.

Author: the head of the press service of the Institute “Respublica” and

the All-Ukrainian initiative “Active Community” Tetiana Kavunenko