As in the previous ranking in 2019, the City of Vienna once once more took the top spot in the ranking of the most transparent municipalities. This was announced by Transparency International Austria (TI) on Tuesday. The index is a measuring tool for what data and information is published by municipalities. Wels, a newcomer, took second place this year on the podium.
In general, the CEO of TI-Austria, Eva Geiblinger, and TI CEO Alexander Picker appeared in a joint press conference with the mayors of the cities of Vienna (Michael Ludwig, SPÖ), Wels (Andreas Rabl, FPÖ), Linz (Klaus Luger, SPÖ ) and the Vienna Deputy Mayor Christoph Wiederkehr (NEOS) are satisfied with the evaluation. Two-thirds of the 80 most populous communities have improved, only a third remained largely the same, it said. Vienna achieved 87.45 percent of the possible points, Wels came up with 78.14.
It is followed by Linz (77.90 percent) and Graz (77.32 percent). Newcomer Wels improved by 19.44 percentage points. “It’s nice that there are also surprises,” commented TI boss Geiblinger on the growth. The Upper Austrian city has improved in many individual points, it was emphasized. Mayor Rabl reported that Transperency International was contacted to discuss what action should be taken to increase the value.
A total of 50 criteria are examined for the index. Categories include budget and finance. According to the ranking, the corresponding figures are already clearly visible in most municipalities. Information from areas such as personnel selection or spatial planning is also published to a large extent – although there are also legal requirements in some cases. On the other hand, the categories of municipal companies and procurement are below average. According to TI, the latter is considered a problem area prone to corruption. Here “air up” was stated.
The level of transparency correlates well with the size of the locations. In other words, larger communities or cities usually do better. According to TI-Austria, however, smaller municipalities can also be found in the front field. Current examples are Perchtoldsdorf (tenth place) and Hornstein (15th place). (apa)
