CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND TRANSPARENCY IN SPANISH CENTRAL

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

Full Prof. Dr. Vicente Pina, Dept. Accounting and Finance University of Zaragoza, (Zaragoza, Spain), vpina@unizar.es

Full Prof. Dr. Lourdes Torres (University of Zaragoza, Spain), ltorres@unizar.es

Workshop 2: Responsabilidad social corporative y Sector public

Acknowledgments

This study has been carried out with the financial support of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness ECO2015-66240-P and the Regional Government of Aragón and the European Social Fund through Research Project S05.

Abstract

This research focuses on the contribution of Corporate Governance (CG) to the transparency of public agencies. For this purpose, the different types of CG of Spanish Central Government Agencies (SCGA) are analysed. The information has been mainly obtained through the websites of the governmental agencies studied. The sample is made up of 177 SCGA. The composition of the boards of directors is revealed in this study as the key issue for explaining the transparency of the agencies studied. The variety of origins of the outsiders provides technical and ideological independence and background diversity, encouraging the display of information. Key words: Corporate Governance, Transparency, Statutory Agencies Word Count 8941

158w3

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND TRANSPARENCY IN STATUTORY AGENCIES 1.- Introduction Corporate Governance (CG) refers to the set of mechanisms that influence the decisions made by managers when there is a separation of ownership and control (Larcker et al., 2007). During the last two decades, there has been a great deal of research on CG in the private sector. A major reason for this research interest is the demand for greater managerial accountability and responsibility after a number of accounting scandals in the private sector (Agrawal et al., 2005). Most empirical research has shown the positive effect of CG codes on transparency, financial performance, financial reporting and holding managers accountable (Bhagat and Black, 2002 and Borisova et al., 2012). Assumptions about the importance of governance are shaping the current regulatory climate for the design of governance structures. Behind the concept of CG, there is a renewed interest among academics in agency theory. As Jensen and Meckling (1976) stated, there is a logical relationship between principals, boards of directors and managers and, when the interests of shareholders (principal) and managers (agents) are unmatched, they need to be realigned. The process of realignment has costs, known as agency costs, attached to it. Many of these costs were deemed attributable to the control and monitoring activities of managers. Because of this, most of the research about CG mechanisms has focused on the features of the boards of directors, which are the most outstanding governance mechanism of the internal control systems (Jensen, 1993). For De Pablo et al. (2005), the literature on boards of directors focuses on three main questions: the size of the board, its composition and independence, and its internal structure and functioning.

CG mechanisms are relatively new in the public sector, but they are becoming very popular as a result of the financial crisis and recent scandals affecting public sector management (Christopher, 2010). In 1995, a document issued by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) concluded that the issues raised in the Cadbury Report on governance in corporations were also relevant to public sector organizations and urged them to adopt the Cadbury principles. According to Hodges (1996), the Cadbury Report has influenced a number of recommendations from the UK accounting bodies (for example CIMA, ICAEW, ICAS, CIPFA) while discussion papers and codes of conduct have been issued relating to public service activities (Nolan, 1995).

According to Tricker (1984) and ANAO (2003), there are two aspects of CG: conformance and performance. Conformance deals with monitoring and supervising executive performance and maintaining accountability. Performance deals with strategy and policy-making. In the public sector, conformance places the board of directors between governments and citizens and other stakeholders, transparency being a key piece to hold governments accountable. For Hood and Heald (2006), and Grimmelikhuijsen and Meijer (2014), transparency should primarily be viewed as a tool for external stakeholders to monitor the internal workings of an organization, prevent corruption, and ensure due process. The enactment of access to information laws in most EU countries shows a growing interest in political institutions and public administrations about the enhancement of transparency in the public sector as a tool for engaging citizens in public affairs

and improving citizen trust in government. Cucciniello et alt (2017) identified more than 3,300 studies that refer to

transparency in the public sector. The most outstanding features of transparency, its determinants and environmental and institutional factors that could contribute to explaining the speed and scope with which transparency initiatives are implemented in the public sector have been studied in the last decade (Cucciniello and Nasi, 2014 and Grimmelikhuijsen et al. 2013). The underlying assumption in empirical research is that government transparency grows under some conditions but not under others. It is interesting to highlight the large growth of research about the determinants of transparency.

At the moment, there are no studies about the relationship between the features of CG and the level of transparency of public entities. Most academic studies about each of these two fields are based on the agency theory, which provides theoretical consistency. Both transparency and CG are closely linked in the public sector to the asymmetry of information between governments (agents) and citizens and other stakeholders (principals). For Laswad et al. (2005), transparency would reduce the information asymmetries and agency conflicts. For Filgueiras (2015), accountability is improved by allowing the reduction of information asymmetry between governments and citizens. In the public sector, accountability relationships between principals and agents have been shown to be more complex than in the private sector, open-ended or not explicitly defined and, thus, not easily monitored (Pina et al. 2012).

The objective of this paper is to study the contribution of the CG features that enhance government transparency. For this purpose, the characteristics of the different types of CG of Spanish Central Government Agencies1 (SCGA) and their effects on the transparency of these agencies are analysed. This topic is important due to the considerable growth of agencies in Western countries under the New Public Management (NPM) doctrine. In some OECD countries, these arm’s length bodies in central government account for more than 50% of public expenditure and public employment (OECD, 2005). NPM reforms encouraged the creation of independent organizations for the delivery of public services, but the control of top managers becomes crucial in holding them accountable. The relation between CG and transparency is important to practitioners, academics, and policy makers.

The remainder of the paper is divided into five sections. Section II describes the features of the Spanish agencies to be included in the study. Section III describes the methodology, the sample selection of CG and the indicators used in the study. Section IV explains the results. Section V provides the discussion. The conclusions are presented in Section VI. 2.- The Spanish Central Government Agencies Devolution is used in PUMA-OECD reports as an umbrella term covering all forms of transfer of responsibility. This term includes: the transfer of responsibility to democratically-independent lower tiers of government, giving them more managerial freedom, but not necessarily more financial independence (decentralisation); the transfer of responsibility from central ministries to field 1 The term “agency” includes all kinds of independent public bodies created by, and accountable for, the Spanish Central Government to deliver specific public services.

offices or more autonomous agencies, bringing them into closer contact with citizens while remaining part of central government (deconcentration); and the process of transforming a public body into a company that continues to be the property of the government but operates in accordance with commercial law (corporatisation).

Deconcentration is related to the creation of agencies responsible for the implementation of public programs (Peters, 1997). These initiatives aim to give organisations and managers greater freedom in operational decisions and to remove unnecessary constraints on resource management. In exchange, organisations and managers are more directly accountable for the results. In the NPM doctrine, 'agencification' seeks to separate policy from execution (see Torres et al. 2004).

In Spain, the Act 6/1997 on the Organisation and Operation of General State Administration was the latest attempt to reorganise the central government public administration. At the moment, there are 177 agencies -11 executive agencies, 62 administrative agencies, 30 consortiums, 14 business-like agencies working under business law and 60 other agencies. Companies owned by the state, public sector foundations and Social Security entities have been excluded. Altogether, they represent more than 27 per cent of national civil servants and manage 30 per cent of central government expenditure. Like the UK agencies (NAO, 2003), Spanish agencies operate at arm’s length from their parent ministries and have considerable autonomy and freedom of action. This freedom is accompanied by obligations to meet annual specific financial and operational targets agreed with the Minister. These targets are directed at achieving specific outcomes, financial management and the quality of service delivered.

Even though, variations in the CG profile can be found between and within the five types of SCGA listed in Section 2, according to their specific creation statute, the CG profile of SCGA is made up of a President, a Board of Directors and, in some agencies, an Advisory Council and some committees. The President is appointed by the parent ministry. The Board of Directors is made up of the President, the CEO and members appointed by the parent ministry and, when applicable, by other ministries, regions, municipalities, the private sector and trade unions. The Board of Directors may appoint a Permanent Committee and a Control Commission together with other commissions or committees for the development of specific activities.

Spanish agencies produce goods or deliver services to external customers or to other public entities, offer research services and carry out monitoring or regulatory activities. Agencies are headed by CEOs, who are appointed by ministers for a fixed term and there is usually an element of performance-related pay in their remuneration. CEOs are personally responsible for day-to-day operations, and they are normally directly accountable to the responsible minister who, in turn, is accountable to Parliament. The accountability process for all Spanish agencies is established in the Act 40/2015. It is a framework document, which sets out the general features of the Spanish Public administration. In addition, there is specific regulation which sets out, for each agency, its aims and objectives. It also describes the features of its governing bodies, its monitoring, accountability and reporting patterns, and its financial and personnel management flexibilities.

3.- Methodology Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis is applied, taking transparency as the dependent variable and the most outstanding CG characteristics as independent variables. To build the transparency index, the items included in the websites are given ‘1’ if they appeared in the website and ‘0’ if not. This methodology has been applied by most academic papers for gauging the informational contents of the websites. Six partial scores have been obtained for each agency, one per dimension (institutional, political, financial, citizen dialogue, usability and accessibility). These partial scores are obtained by using an equal weighting method. A total transparency score has also been calculated adding up the scores of the 108 items and dividing by the maximum possible score, which is 108, in order to summarize the information in just one figure. The results obtained have also been grouped by type of agency.

Seven different regressions have been run, one per each of the transparency indices elaborated: institutional, political, financial, citizen dialogue, usability, accessibility and the total score. This will allow us to investigate the overall influence of the CG features on transparency, as well as to differentiate whether certain CG characteristics influence some transparency dimensions but not others.

Finally, discriminant analysis is carried out in order to determine to what extent the legal constitution framework of each agency affects its CG features and its level of transparency. 3.1- Sample selection The information has been collected from the websites of the entities studied2 -the internet being the main tool used by governments for the display of information (Meijer, 2009)- and from the creation statutes and activity reports of the agencies included in the sample. The sample is made up of the 177 SCGA.

A scoping literature review was carried out to choose the independent variables and the characteristics of the dependent variable. This type of review is appropriate when the object of analysis is wide-ranging and it is difficult to define the boundaries of the review itself (Arksey and O’Malley 2005). A scoping review allows the development of a measurement framework through the identification of the CG and transparency characteristics that most frequently explain the factors under analysis in the private and public sectors. According to Agostino and Arnaboldi (2016), a scoping approach is useful when it is necessary to map the key concepts underpinning a research area. CG Indicators Most research about CG mechanisms is focused on the features of the boards of directors, which are the most outstanding governance mechanisms of the internal control systems (Jensen, 1993). For De Pablo et al., (2005), literature on private sector boards is basically empirical and focuses on three main questions: the size of the board, its composition and independence, and its internal structure and functioning. Independent Variables

2The websites were accessed between July, 2016 and February, 2017.

The academic literature identifies the following CG characteristics as relevant for explaining the conformance and performance of entities. Almost all CG empirical evidence is focused on the private sector. Very few papers analyse CG features in public entities. -Size of the Board The empirical evidence supports that the number of directors is a relevant factor that could condition the activities of monitoring and control of the board. De Pablo et al. (2005) hypothesized that oversized boards lead to worse performance. By contrast, Goodstein, Gautam, and Boeker (1994) and Reddy et al. (2011) argued that larger boards tend to provide an increased pool of expertise and diversity. Yermack (1996) and Eisenberg, Sundgren, and Wells (1998) reported an inverse relationship between board size and firm financial performance. Although the previous literature is not conclusive about the role played by board size in the conformance and performance of entities, a positive relationship is assumed for the public sector.

Hypothesis 1: Board size is positively associated with the transparency of the agencies.

-Number of meetings The number of meetings may be considered an indicator of the control of the board of directors. Consistent with prior research (e.g., Bhagat, 2004 and Ashbaugh-Skaife et al. 2006), the typical board meets seven times a year.

Hypothesis 2: The number of meeting is positively associated with the transparency of the agencies.

-Board Committees The appointment of board committees is expected to have a positive effect on agencies. Empirical research about board committees has been associated with better performance (McMullen 1996). However, empirical research is again not conclusive (Reddy et al, 2011).

Hypothesis 3: The number of board committees is positively associated with the transparency of the agencies.

-Composition of the Board Most academic papers about CG distinguish between inside and outside directors. The former are, in the private sector, those who are directors and managers at the same time and the latter are non-manager directors. In the opinion of most authors, non-manager directors provide superior performance (Baysinger and Butler, 1985). Notwithstanding, inside directors have a better knowledge of the entity. This paper considers insiders to be directors appointed by the parent Ministry while outsiders come from entities or institutions other than the parent Ministry. Among the latter, there are directors appointed by other Ministries, by other tiers of the public administration, such as regional and local governments, and directors who do not come from the public administration but from trade unions, NGOs, civil associations and industries. Although the empirical literature is not conclusive, Bhagat and Black (1998) found the presence of outsiders to be positive and Hermalin and Weisbach (1991) found no relationship. Some authors, such as De Pablo et al. (2005) consider the percentage of outsiders as a proxy of the independence of the board.

A positive relationship between outsiders and the conformance aspect of CG (transparency and accountability) is hypothesized. Board outsiders promote global relationships and board independence because people with different backgrounds, representing different stakeholders, provide new insights and perspectives (Coffey and Wang 1998), increase discussion, promote the exchange of ideas (Knippenberg et al. 2004) and improve organizational value (Carter et al. 2003).

Hypothesis 4: A high percentage of outsiders from the parent Ministry encourages governmental entities conformance and, therefore, is positively associated with the transparency of the agencies.

-Board diversity According to Arfken et al. (2004), diversity in gender, age, ethnicity, and

viewpoints can offer corporations a number of benefits including additional knowledge, fresh ideas and insights to aid problem-solving, better product positioning, enhanced strategic planning, new knowledge or opinions, and even additional accountability. In Spain, ethnicity is not a relevant issue because there is strong homogeneity in the population.

Hypothesis 5: The percentage of women is positively associated with the transparency of the agencies.

-Board Independence The results of the empirical research into the effect of board independence on firm conformance and financial performance is not conclusive. Rosenstein and Wyatt (1997) and Denis and Sarin (1999) find a positive relationship between board composition and financial performance while Agrawal and Knoeber (1996), Yermack (1996) and Bhagat and Black (1998), find a negative one. Other studies (Mace, 1986, Byrd and Hickman, 1992, Daily and Dalton, 1992 and Chin, Vos, and Casey, 2003) find no relationship between them. The independence of the directors is defined as a dummy variable that takes a value of 1 if the board is controlled by a majority of independent outsiders and zero otherwise. Due to the interrelationship between “board independence” and “the percentage of outsiders”, the second considered a proxy of the first by some authors, two OLS models will be defined introducing only one of the variables into each model.

Hypothesis 6: Board independence is positively associated with the transparency of the agencies.

TABLE 1. CG profile of Spanish Central Government Agencies (SCGA)

Executive-Agencies

(11) Administrative-Agencies (62) Consortiums (30)

Business-like agencies (14) Other agencies (60)

Min Max

Mean SD Min

Max

Mean SD Min

Max

Mean SD Min

Max

Mean SD Min

Max

Mean SD

Size of the board 8.0 20 13.

7 4.2 8.0 48 21.3 10 4.0 89 19.

1 17.

6 6.0 21 13.0 4.2 5.0 61 17.

5 10.

5 #Meetings 2.0 6.0 3.8 1.3 1.0 10.

0 1.9 2.0 1.0 4.0 1.8 0.6 2.0 12.0 9.3 4.2 1.0 30.

0 8.5 8.4

#Committees 3.0 13 4.0 3.2 0.0 7.0 0.8 1.3 0.0 22.

0 2.0 3.9 0.0 6.0 1.0 1.6 0.0 4.0 0.6 0.9

%Woman 0.0 0.5 0.2 0.2 0.0 0.4 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.6 0.2 0.2 0.0 0.5 0.2 0.2 0.0 0.5 0.2 0.1

Board Independ. 0 1 0.1

8 0,4 0 1 0.38

0.49 0 1 0.3

2 0.5 0 1 0.14

0.37 0 1 0.5

5 0.5

0 % Outsiders 0.0 0.7 0.3 0.3 0.0 0.9 0.3 0.3 0.0 0.9 0.4 0.3 0.0 0.8 0.2 0.3 0.0 0.9 0.4 0.3

Table 1 shows descriptive statistics about the CG characteristics of the 177 agencies studied. As can be seen, the composition of the boards of directors varies strongly between entities, because of their size and the activities they carry out. The size of the board of directors ranges between 4 and 89 members with an average of between 13 in the case of business-like agencies and 21.3 in the case of administrative agencies, with high standard deviation in some cases. These results illustrate the heterogeneity of the agencies. Notwithstanding, the mean of the percentages of outsiders and diversity (% of women) are quite similar.

- The executive agencies were created under the Act 28/2006 representing the most recent type of independent public body set up by the central government, with a management system closer to private sector CG and the NPM doctrines. According to this law, all executive agencies should be managed through a board of directors and, at least, an executive committee, a control committee and an advisory council. Executive agencies show one of the lowest percentages of independent boards in the sample.

- The administrative agencies were created on the basis of a legal framework prior to the Act 28/2006. They present quite different goals and missions. The size of the board of directors is, on average, larger than in the executive agencies but the standard deviation is also higher, showing more heterogeneity. The percentage of independent boards is one of the highest of the sample.

- The consortiums are public joint venture entities created by central, regional and/or local governments to manage or develop common interest specific activities. Because of this, the boards of directors and the percentage of outsiders tend to be bigger than in the other types of public bodies.

- Business-like agencies are public entities which work under commercial law requirements and adopt business-like governing bodies and management systems. They present figures similar to those of executive agencies, with a higher number of board of directors’ meetings and a lower number of committees. They present the lowest percentage of independent boards of the sample.

- Finally, under the label of “Other agencies”, there are public bodies with very different goals and missions, ranging from regulatory entities, harbour authorities, language and literature institutes, museums and academic institutions. Most of them were created before 2006. Their CG profile is similar to the administrative agencies. They show the highest percentage of independent boards of the sample. Transparency indicators Transparency is a broad term that can be used to describe the information disclosed about different aspects related to governments. Various authors have proposed different but consistent definitions of transparency. Wong and Welch (2004) define the concept of transparency as the extent to which public organizations reveal information about their operations, procedures, and decision-making processes. Armstrong (2005) describes transparency as free

public access to timely and reliable information on decisions and performance in the public sector. For Grimmelikhuijsen & Meijer (2014), transparency is the availability of information about an organization or actor allowing external actors to monitor the internal workings or value of that organization. All transparency definitions focus on the availability and disclosure of information for different purposes useful to stakeholders for monitoring and decision-making.

Because of the diversity of information that can contribute to the transparency of public entities, diverse approaches have been proposed to select and classify the items to be used to measure the transparency. These approaches group the information disclosed in different ways. For instance, Pina et al. (2007) measure website displays based on four dimensions: transparency, interactivity, usability and maturity. Piotrowski and Bertelli (2010) identify three dimensions: openness and online availability, minutes, and upcoming meetings; document request processing; and proactive dissemination of documents. Cucciniello et alt (2015) distinguish four dimensions: institutional, political, financial and service-delivery transparency. Meijer et al. (2015) distinguish between political and administrative dimensions of transparency. Douglas and Meijer (2016) group transparency items using three dimensions: operational capacity, public value proposition and authorizing environment. Cucciniello et al. (2017) summarise the items of transparency in two groups by object (administrative, political and budgetary) and by activity (decision-making, policy and policy outcome).

Based on a scoping literature review, the measurement of the transparency of SCGA is based on the analysis of the contents of 108 items included in the websites grouped around the following six dimensions: institutional (34 items), political (27 items), financial (10 items), citizen dialogue (12 items), usability (12 items) and accessibility (13 items) [See Annex A]. The institutional dimension describes the degree of transparency with regard to the government’s mission and operations, its institutional activities, and other information about the entity. The political dimension describes the degree of accessibility of information about the board of directors, CEO and executive managers, their background and activities. The financial dimension assesses the degree of transparency with regard to the use of financial resources, financial position, performance and audit reports. Citizen dialogue includes information about interaction and participation tools with citizens. Usability of information deals with whether the information is made available in an accessible format, easily understandable for a layperson, or is presented in such a way that only experts can understand it. Accessibility focuses on the development of tools for making the website contents accessible to disabled people. TABLE 2. Transparency Dimensions a

Executive-Agencies (11)

Administrative-Agencies (62) Consortiums (30)

Business-like agencies (14) Other agencies (60)

Min

Max

Mean SD

Min Max

Mean SD

Min Max

Mean SD

Min Max

Mean SD

Min Max

Mean SD

Institutional

0.51

0.89

0.75

0.14

0.00

0.89

0.62

0.18

0.31

0.83

0.64

0.18

0.14

0.83

0.51

0.15

0.00

0.89

0.64

0.25

Political 0.07

0.67

0.39

0.21

0.00

0.63

0.29

0.19

0.00

0.52

0.28

0.17

0.00

0.37

0.22

0.10

0.00

0.78

0.37

0.16

Financial 0.50

0.80

0.67

0.13

0.00

1.00

0.57

0.24

0.30

0.90

0.61

0.23

0.00

0.70

0.42

0.20

0.00

0.90

0.60

0.27

Citizen Dialogue

0.25

0.88

0.67

0.19

0.00

0.88

0.59

0.18

0.31

0.81

0.61

0.18

0.19

0.75

0.50

0.16

0.00

0.94

0.61

0.25

Usability 0.38

0.81

0.61

0.16

0.00

0.88

0.51

0.22

0.25

0.81

0.54

0.22

0.13

0.81

0.38

0.19

0.00

0.81

0.55

0.23

Accessibility

0.69

0.92

0.82

0.09

0.00

1.00

0.76

0.18

0.38

0.92

0.69

0.19

0.15

0.92

0.70

0.22

0.00

1.00

0.75

0.24

TOTAL 0.49

0.81

0.64

0.14

0.01

0.79

0.54

0.17

0.28

0.75

0.55

0.18

0.11

0.71

0.44

0.13

0.00

0.81

0.57

0.22

a (in percentages) Table 2 includes descriptive statistics about the components of transparency. As can be seen, the differences between the minimum and maximum values show a great diversity of website contents, due to the freedom public entities have for designing their own websites and deciding the information to be included. The level of information displayed through the websites of the entities studied ranges between 44% and 64% of the information listed in the Annex A. The group of executive agencies presents the highest level, with a low standard deviation, and the lowest is shown by the business-like agencies. By groups, the political dimension contents are displayed to a lesser extent than the other dimensions of the websites. This group deals with information related to the CVs of the board of directors, agenda, schedule of meetings, minutes and how to contact them through their emails, postal address or telephone. The highest values are presented by the accessibility dimension. This is a technical dimension focused on making the transparency effective through the improvement of the website access to a wider range of population. The financial dimension also presents high values because the central government allows the access to the financial and audit reports of all central government public entities in its website.

4.- Analysis of Results Table 3 includes the Pearson correlation matrix. As can be seen, the size of the board is positively related to the number of committees, to the percentage of outsider directors and to the independence of the boards. This is because, depending on the activities of the agencies, their creation statutes include representatives from other tiers of the public administration, other ministries than the parent ministry and from the private sector on the board of directors. In these cases, the number of outsiders, who are not directly involved in the management of the agency, tends to grow. The transparency variables show high correlations with the size of the boards and the percentage of outsiders, which is consistent with the hypotheses proposed in the previous section. TABLE 3. Pearson Correlation Matrix for the Independent and Dependent Variables

Size of the Board

#Meetings

#Committees

Woman Board Indep

Outsiders

Institutional

a

Political a

Financial a

Citizen

Dialoguea

Usability

Accessibili

tya

Totala

Size of the Board

1

-.121 (.139)

.376** (.000)

-.054 (.507)

.327** (.000)

.353** (.000)

.225** (.006)

.251** (.002)

.256** (.002)

.259** (.002)

.224** (.007)

.231** (.005)

.260** (.002)

N 151 150 144 151 151 141 146 146 146 146 146 146 146 #Meetings -.121

(.139) 1

.061

(.438) .166*

(.043)

-.240** (.003)

-.234** (.005)

-.190* (.013)

-.056 (.467)

-.135 (.081)

-.138 (.073)

-.196* .011)

-.096 (.215)

-.151 (.050)

N 150 175 165 150 150 140 169 169 169 169 169 169 169 #Committee

.376** (.000)

.061 (.438)

1

-.001 (.990)

-.114 (.175)

-.074 (.391)

.043 (.590)

.093 (.239)

.064 (.422)

.037 (.641)

034 (.666)

.012 (.879)

.053 (.499)

N 144 165 166 144 144 135 162 162 162 162 162 162 162 Woman)

-.054 (.507)

.166* (.043)

-.001 (.990)

1

-.003 (.973)

.005 (.950)

.102 (.218)

.189* (.022)

.118 (.156)

.121 (.145)

.177* .((032)

.057 (.498)

.136 (.101)

N 151 150 144 151 151 141 146 146 146 146 146 146 146 Board Indep

.327** (.000)

-.240** (.003)

-.114 (.175)

-.003 (.973)

1

.849** (.000)

.586** (.000)

.527** (.000)

.597** (.000)

.583** (.000)

.419** ((.000)

.584** (.000)

.607** (.000)

N 151 150 144 151 151 141 146 146 146 146 146 146 146 Outsiders

.353** (.000)

-.234** (.005)

-.074 (.391)

.005 (.950)

.849** (.000)

1

.659** (.000)

.634** (.000)

.674** (.000)

.663** (.000)

.439** (.000)

.660** (.000)

.697** (.000)

N 141 140 135 141 141 141 136 136 136 136 136 136 136 Institutional

.225** (.006)

-.190* .(013)

.043 (.590)

.102 (.218)

.586** (.000)

.659** (.000)

1

.762** (.000)

.849** (.000)

.877** (.000)

.773** (.000)

.877** (.000)

.965** (.000)

N 146 169 162 146 146 136 170 170 170 170 170 170 170 Political

.251** (.002)

-.056 .(467)

.093 (.239)

.189* (.022)

.527** (.000)

.634** (.000)

.762** (.000)

1

.699** (.000)

.686** (.000)

.607** (.000)

.763** (.000)

.854** (.000)

N 146 169 162 146 146 136 170 170 170 170 170 170 170 Financial

.256** (.002)

-.135 .(081)

.064 (.422)

.118 (.156)

.597** (.000)

.674** (.000)

.849** (.000)

.699** (.000)

1

.824** (.000)

.698** (.000)

.822** (.000)

.891** (.000)

N 146 169 162 146 146 136 170 170 170 170 170 170 170 Citizen Diala

.259** (.002)

-.138 .(073)

.037 (.641)

.121 (.145)

.583** (.000)

.663** (.000)

.877** (.000)

.686** (.000)

.824** (.000)

1

.789** (.000)

.858** (.000)

.922** (.000)

N 146 169 162 146 146 136 170 170 170 170 170 170 170 Usability

.231** (.005)

-.096 .(215)

.012 (.879)

.057 (.498)

.584** (.000)

.660** (.000)

.877** (.000)

.763** (.000)

.822** (.000)

.858** (.000)

.713** (.000)

1

.931** (.000)

N 146 169 162 146 146 136 170 170 170 170 170 170 170 Accessibilit

.224** (.007)

-.196* .(011)

.034 (.666)

.177* (.032)

.419** (.000)

.439** (.000)

.773** (.000)

.607** (.000)

.698** (.000)

.789** (.000)

1

.713** (.000)

.825** (.000)

N 146 169 162 146 146 136 170 170 170 170 170 170 170 Total .260**

(.002) -.151

.(050) .053

(.499) .136

(.101) .607** (.000)

.697** (.000)

.965** (.000)

.854** (.000)

.891** (.000)

.922** (.000)

.825** (.000)

.931** (.000)

1

N 146 169 162 146 146 136 170 170 170 170 170 170 170 **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed test). *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed test).

Tables 4 and 5 collect the multivariate OLS results about the relationship between transparency and CG issues. Table 4 shows the results about the relationship between the total transparency level and the six CG factors used as independent variables established in Section 3.1. Hypotheses 4 and 6 state the positive relationship between the transparency of the agencies and, respectively, the percentage of outsider members of the board of directors and the independence of the boards. Due to the interrelationship between “board independence” and “outsiders”, the second considered a proxy of the first by some authors, two OLS models have been defined introducing only one of the variables into each model. The size of board, the number of meetings and the number of committees are not significant in either model. The independence of the boards and the percentage of outsiders are significant and the percentage of women is only significant in the model 1. The overall consideration of the results of both models shows that the level of transparency has a significant relationship with the concepts of political and background diversity and the independence of boards. Therefore, these factors encourage the display of information useful for monitoring and accountability purposes. TABLE 4. Relation between the Total Transparency and the Corporate Governance Factors

Dependent Variable Total Transp index (%)

Board Independence (Model 1)

Outsiders (Model 2)

Coef. Est. (t-statistic)

Coef. Est. (t-statistic)

Intercept .444 (14.681)

.416 (15.110)

Size of the Board .001 (.475)

-.002 (-1.387)

#Meetings -.004 (-1.211)

.005 (1.456)

#Committees .007 (1.092)

.007 (1.441)

%Woman 0.195* (2.437)

.065 (.921)

Board Independence 0.227** (7.801)

Outsider - .470** (6.510)

N 139 130 F: 18.237**; R2 Adj: .384 F: 25.786**; R2 Adj: .486

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed test). *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed test).

Table 5 collects the multivariate OLS results taking each of the six transparency dimensions as the dependent variable. Two OLS models have been defined for each transparency dimension: they include all the independent variables except for the percentage of outsiders in model 3 and the board independence in model 4.

The multivariate analysis for the six transparency dimensions presents a high degree of consistency and similarities with models 1 and 2. In model 3, the independence of the boards is significant in all the regressions. Other variables

only show significant with some dimensions of transparency. This is the case of the number of meetings which is significant when accessibility dimension is the dependent variables, and the percentage of women that is significant when the political, financial, citizen dialogue and accessibility dimensions are the dependent variable. The number of meetings is a variable which represents control while the percentage of women and the independence of the boards represent diversity. In the six OLS regressions included in model 3, the size of the board and the number of committees are still non-significant. In model 4, the percentage of outsiders is still significant, together with the size of the board s when the accessibility dimension is the dependent variable. TABLE 5. Relation between Transparency Dimensions a and Corporate Governance Factors Dependent

Indepen- dent

Institutional

Political Financial

Citizen Usability

Accessibility

Institutional

Political Financial

Dimension

Citizen Dialogu

e

Usability

Accessibility

Board Independence (Model 3) Coef. (T-statistics)

%Outsiders (Model 4) Coef. (T-statistics)

Intercept .539 (15.838)

.213 (7.323)

.433 (11.020)

.469 (13.745)

.422 (11.435)

.635 (17.405)

.516 (16.443)

.176 (6.260)

.400 (10.635)

.438 (13.664)

.387 (11.357)

.636 (17.527)

Size of the Board .005

(-.039) .001 (.807)

.000 (.222)

.001 (.731)

.000 (.269)

.001 (.909)

-.002 (-1.988)

-.001 (-.644)

-.002 (-1.174)

-.001 (-.924)

-.002 (-1.519)

0.005* (-.036)

#Meetings -.006 (-1.821)

.000 (-.092)

-.003 (-.769)

-.003 (-.884)

-.001 (-.242)

-0.009* (-2.268)

.003 (.764)

.006 (1.854)

.004 (.809)

.006 (1.550)

0.009 (2.134)

.001 (.301)

#Committees .007 (1.037)

.006 (1.118)

.012 (1.496)

.006 (.852)

.004 (.532)

.005 (.731

.008 (1.454)

.008 (1.558)

.010 (1.497)

.006 (1.061)

.006 (.875)

.003 (.511)

Womana .169 1(.879*)

.208** (2.693)

0.206* (1.979)

0.209* (2.314)

.098 (1.005)

0.317** (3.273)

.039 (.483)

.100 (1.396)

.076 (.790)

.085 (1.045)

-.047 (-.544)

.160 (1.731)

Board Indep .243 (7.446**)

.181** (6.463)

0.299** (7.910)

0.234** (7.146)

0.264** (7.442)

0.147** (4.201)

Outsidersa 0.492** (9.801)

0.407** (9.046)

0.591** (9.803)

0.490** (9.548)

0.554** (10.152)

0.280** (4.832)

N 139 139 139 139 139 139 130 130 130 130 130 130

F: 16.428**R2-Adj .359

F: 13.041**; R2-Adj .304

F: 17.419** R2-Adj: .373

F: 15.577** R2-Adj.346

F: 14.442**; R2-Adj.328

F: 9.346**; R2-Adj .2329

F: 20.842*

* R2-Adj

.435

F: 19.414*

*; R2-Adj

.416

F: 21.892*

*; R2-Adj

.447

F: 20.851*

*; R2-Adj

.435

F: 22.113*

*; R2-Adj

.4501

F: 6.446 ; R2-Adj:

.1745

a (in percentages) **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed test). *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed test).

Tables 6a and 6b show the discriminant analysis results taking the type of agency as the grouping variable and both the CG factors and the transparency dimensions, respectively, as independent variables. The purpose of this discriminant analysis is to test the consistency between the CG factors of each agency and the type of SCGA.

As can be seen in Table 6a, the average of correct classifications is 62%. Executive, administrative and other agencies, are the groups with the highest percentage of correct classifications, 80%, 69.4% and 70%, respectively. Despite the variations shown in Table 1 regarding the minimum and maximum values and the standard deviation of the CG factors within each group, the discriminant analysis reveals a certain consistency within each group. Executive and

administrative agencies are quite similar. The main difference between them is the number and type of committees that, in the case of the executive agencies, should be at least three (permanent, control and advisory committees).

Table 6b shows the results of the discriminant analysis taking the total transparency and the six transparency dimensions as independent variables. As can be seen, on average, only 31% of cases have been correctly grouped. These figures evidence a low relationship between the type of agency and the level of transparency. The highest percentage of correct classifications is shown by other agencies (69.2%) and the lowest by administrative agencies (11.5%) together with consortiums (25.4%). These results show that transparency is related to the specific CG features of each agency rather than to the type of agency to which it belongs. TABLE 6a. Discriminant Analysis by Type of Central Government Agency

Size of the board; #Meetings; #Committees; %Women; % Outsiders; Board Independence

Exec-Agencies

Adm.-Agencies

Consortiums

Business-like

agencies

Other agencies

Executive-Agencies 80.0 20.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0 Administrative-Agencies 5.6 69.4 16.7 8.3 0.0 100.0

Consortiums 4.0 14.0 56.0 14.0 12.0 100.0 Business-like Public Entities 3.6 17.9 25.0 53.6 0.0 100.0

Other Public Entities 0.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 70.0 100.0 61.90% of cases correctly grouped

TABLE 6b. Discriminant Analysis by Type of Central government Agency Institutional; Political ; Financial ;Citizen Dialogue; Usability; Accessibility; Total

Exec-Agencies

Adm.-Agencies

Consortiums

Business-like

agencies

Other agencie

s

Executive-Agencies 54.5 9.1 18.2 18.2 0.0 100% Administrative-Agencies 16.4 11.5 23.0 23.0 26.2 100%

Consortiums 37.3 0.0 25.4 16.9 20.3 100% Business-like Agencies 11.1 0.0 18.5 59.3 11.1 100%

Other Agencies 0.0 0.0 7.7 23.1 69.2 100% 31.0% of cases correctly grouped

5.- Discussion The present academic debate about the search for new public governance mechanisms aims to overcome the reduction of trust in governments resulting from the introduction of the NPM postulates in Western countries. Deconcentration through agencies seeks to separate policy from execution and has given organisations and managers greater freedom. In exchange, organisations and managers need to be controlled and directly accountable for their results. One such initiative is to explore the usefulness of introducing business governance structures into the public sector. After the statements of the

CIPFA, ANAO, CIMA, ICAEW and other institutions in favour of the applicability of the Cadbury report CG postulates to the improvement of the conformance and performance of public sector entities, very few empirical studies have been carried out to analyse how these CG structures work in the public sector. In these CG proposals, the board of directors plays a critical role in the control of CEOs and managerial actions. As most literature from the private sector suggests, this study analyses the effects of the size, composition and internal structures of the board of directors on the transparency of the agencies studied as a critical conformance aspect of CG for the effective monitoring and accountability of the managerial action.

Together with the CG postulates, transparency is considered a guiding principle of good governance and it has become a tool to increase legitimacy and the trust in governments which was lost after financial cuts and public sector reforms. Citizens are not able to hold their government accountable if they do not know what the latter are doing and have no channels for interacting with them. During recent decades, governments have greatly expanded their presence on the Internet, helping citizens to download official information, to communicate with public officials through email and to carry out online transactions with central government agencies and public entities. At present, most transparency indices are based on the information displayed through the Internet.

The results of our analysis show a great diversity due to the freedom that central government agencies have for designing their own websites and deciding the information to be included. The average information displayed through the websites is less than 65% of the information considered as relevant in previous literature, listed in Annex A. The highest values are presented in the accessibility dimension, which is the most technical dimension focused on making the transparency effective through greater website access to a wider range of population. The financial dimension also presents high values because the central government allows access to the financial and audit reports of all central government public entities. By contrast, the political dimension contents are displayed to a lesser extent than the other dimensions of the websites. This dimension deals with information related to the CVs of the board of directors, agenda, schedule of meetings, minutes and how to contact them through email, official postal address or telephone. The development of this kind of information is still a pending issue.

The legal requirements, which establish the basic features of each type of agency, influence the specific CG factors of agencies, since 62% of agencies were correctly classified by the discriminant analysis test. However, the level of information displayed does not depend on the type of agency, but on the specific CG factors of each agency: based on the transparency dimensions defined in the paper, discriminant analysis only correctly groups 31% of agencies into the five types defined by the regulation. The group of executive agencies presents the highest level of information displayed through their websites, with a low standard deviation. Executive agencies are the most recent kind of independent public entity set up in the central government administration and, because of this, they may show a higher degree of sensitiveness to ICTs and new public governance postulates as tools to bring governmental activity closer to citizens.

Results also show that the level of transparency has a significant relationship with the concepts of political and background diversity represented by the

percentage of outsiders, gender and the independence of the boards. The multivariate analysis for each of the six transparency dimensions presents a high degree of consistency and similarities with the multivariate analysis carried out for the total level of transparency. Our findings show the robustness of the CG explanatory factors of transparency, which do not vary in substance over the different transparency dimensions under consideration. The percentage of outsiders and the independence of the boards (in almost all cases) are significant and the size of the boards and the number of committees (in almost of cases) are not. Outsiders are representatives of other public administrations governed, sometimes, by different political parties and private sector stakeholders related to the activities and/or goals of the agency. Therefore, transparency seems to be encouraged by the members not appointed by the parent ministry and not involved in the direct management of the agency, rather than by the control tools established through committees or the number of meetings. With regard to the size of the boards of directors, the empirical research in the private sector is not conclusive and, even contradictory. In this study it is not significant. Finally, the percentage of women, which, together with the percentage of outsiders, represents the contribution of diversity to the conformance of the organization, is significant when the political, citizen dialogue and accessibility dimensions are the dependent variables. 6.- Conclusions Assumptions about both the importance of transparency in the public sector and the search for new governance styles are shaping current regulatory initiatives for the design of public governance structures.

The most important explanatory factor of transparency is the CG diversity, that is to say, the independence of outsiders from parent ministries and to lesser extent the presence of women on the boards of directors. The variety of origins of the outsiders provides technical and ideological independence and background diversity. Therefore, outsiders will be more likely to encourage the display of information about the entity in order to hold agencies accountable. Outsiders are typically representatives of other tiers of the public administration, which may be governed by different political parties, or of NGOs or business organizations related to the activities and/or goals of the agency. The conformance aspect of CG seems to be encouraged by board members not involved in the direct management of the public entity rather than by the control tools established through committees, which may be controlled by internal members or the number of meetings which, when the boards are big, might be less effective for controlling purposes. The results of our study also show that size is not significant. Ethnic diversity is not relevant in Spain.

One limitation of this study is the absence of clear theories about CG, other than the agency theory, which could contribute to selecting the CG factors. Because of this, we have included the variables from prior research that have shown higher explanatory capacity. Another limitation is that transparency indices are at an initial stage in the process of developing reliable and valid indicators for the complex construct of transparency. The set of transparency indices used in this study is based on those most frequently used in academic studies.

Future research in this field could extend this study to other public sector

entities, other than agencies, in order to analyse the relationship between their CG structure and composition and their level of transparency.

References Agostino, D. and Arnaboldi, M. 2016. “A Measurement Framework for Assessing the Contribution

of Social Media to Public Engagement. An empirical analysis on Facebook.” Public Management Review, 18(9), 1289–1307.

Agrawal, A. and Knoeber, C. R. 1996. “Firm Performance and Mechanisms to Control Agency Problems Between Managers and Shareholders.” Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 31, 377–397

Agrawal,A., Chadha,S., 2005. “Corporate governance and accounting scandals.” Journal of Law and Economics 48(2), 371–406

Agrawal, A. and Knoeber, C. 1996. “Firm Performance and Mechanisms to Control Agency Problems between Managers and Shareholders.” Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 31, 377–397.

Arfken, Deborah E., Stephanie Bellar, and Marilyn M. Helms. 2004. “The Ultimate Glass Ceiling Revisited: The Presence of Women on Corporate Boards.” Journal of Business Ethics 50, 177–186.

Arksey, H., and L. O’Malley. 2005. “Scoping Studies: Towards a Methodological Framework.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 8 (1), 19–32.

Armstrong, E., 2005. Integrity, transparency and accountability in public administration: Recent trends, regional and international developments and emerging issues. New York: United Nations

Ashbaugh-Skaife, H., D. Collins, and R. LaFond. 2006. “The effects of corporate governance on firms’ credit ratings.” Journal of Accounting and Economics 42 (1–2), 203–243.

Australian National Audit Office (ANAO). 2003. Better Practice Public Sector Governance. National Institute for Governance, Canberra.

Baysinger, R. D. and Butler, H. N. 1985. “Corporate Governance and the Board of Directors: Performance Effects of Changes in Board Composition.” Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, 1, 101– 124.

Bhagat, S. and Black, B. 1998. Board Independence and Long-term Performance, Columbia Law School, Center for Law and Economics Studies, WP No. 143.

Bhagat, S., and B. Black. 2002. “The non-correlation between board independence and long-term firm performance.” Journal of Corporation Law 27(2), 231–273.

———. 2004. Governance and performance. Working paper, University of Colorado.

Borisova, G., Brockman, P.; Salas, J.; and Zagorchev, 2012. “Government ownership and corporate governance: Evidence from the EU.” Journal of Banking & Finance, 36, 2917–2934

Byrd, J., and K. Hickman. 1992. “Do outside directors monitor managers? Evidence from tender offer bids.” Journal of Financial Economics 32, 195–207.

Carter, David A., Betty J. Simkins, and W. Gary Simpson. 2003. “Corporate Governance, Board Diversity, and Firm Value.” Financial Review 38, 33–53.

Chin, Trevor, Ed Vos, and Quinn Casey. 2003. “Levels of Ownership Structure, Board Composition and Board Size Seem Unimportants in New Zealand.” Ownership and Control 2(1), 119–128.

Christopher, J. 2010. “Corporate governance—A multi-theoretical approach to recognizing the wider influencing forces impacting on organizations.” Critical Perspectives on Accounting 21, 683–695.

Coffey, Betty S., and Jia Wang. 1998. “Board Diversity and Managerial Control as Predictors of Corporate Social Performance.” Journal of Business Ethics 17, 1595– 1603.

Cucciniello, M.; Porumbescu, G. and Grimmelikhuijsen, S. 2017. “25 Years of Transparency Research: Evidence and Future Directions.” Public Administration Review, 77(1), 32–44.

Cucciniello , Maria , and Greta Nasi . 2014 . “Transparency for Trust in Government: How Effective Is Formal Transparency?” International Journal of Public Administration 37(13), 911 – 921.

Cucciniello, M.; Bellè, N.; Nasi, G. and Valotti, G. 2015. Assessing Public Preferences and the Level of Transparency in Government Using an Exploratory Approach Social Science Computer Review 33(5), 571-586.

Daily, Catherine M., and Dan R. Dalton. 1992. The Relationship between Governance Structure and Corporate Performance in Entrepreneurship Firms. Journal of Business Venturing 7, 375–386.

Denis, Diane, and Atylya Sarin. 1999. Ownership and Board Structures in Publicly Traded Corporations. Journal of Financial Economics 52, 187–224.

Douglas, S. and Meijer, A. 2016 Transparency and Public Value—Analyzing the Transparency Practices and Value Creation of Public Utilities International Journal of Public Administration, 39(12), 940-951.

Eisenberg, T., Sundgren, S. and Wells, M. T. (1998) Larger Board Size and Decreasing Firm Value in Small Firms Journal of Financial Economics 48, 35–54.

Filgueiras F. (2015) “Transparency and accountability: principles and rules for the construction of publicity” Journal of Public Affairs 16(2), 192–202

Goodstein, Jerry, Kanak Gautam, and Warren Boeker. 1994. The Effects of Board Size and Diversity on Strategic Change Strategic Management Journal 15, 241–250.

Grimmelikhuijsen, S. G., Porumbescu, G., Hong, B., & Im, T. 2013. The effect of transparency on trust in government: A cross-national comparative experiment. Public Administration Review 73, 575-586.

Grimmelikhuijsen, S. G., & Meijer, A. J. 2014. Effects of transparency on the perceived trustworthiness of a government organization: Evidence from an online experiment Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 24 (1), 137–157.

Hermalin, B., and M. Weisbach. 1998. Endogenously chosen boards of directors and their monitoring the CEO. American Economic Review 88, 96–118.

Hodges, R.; Wright, M.; and Keasey, K. 1996. Corporate Governance in the Public Services: Concepts and Issues Public Money & Management April-June, 7-13.

Hood, C., and Heald, D. (Eds.). 2006. Transparency: The key to better governance? New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Jensen MC, Meckling WH. 1976. Theory of the firm: managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure Journal of Financial Economics 3, 305–360.

Jensen, M. C. 1993. The Modern Industrial Revolution, Exit, and the Failure of Internal Control Systems, Journal of Finance 48(3), pp. 831–880.

Knippenberg, D. Van, Carsten De Dreu, and Astrid C. Homan. 2004. Work Group Diversity and Group Performance: An Integrative Model and Research Agenda Journal of Applied Psychology 89, 1008–1022.

Larcker, D., Richardson, S., Tuna, I. 2007. Corporate governance, accounting out comes and organizational performance The Accounting Review 82(4), 963–1008.

Mace, Myles. 1986. Director, Myth, and Realty Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

McMullen, Dorothy A. 1996. Audit Committee Performance: An Investigation of the Consequences Associated with Audit Committees Auditing 15, 87–103.

Meijer, A. J. 2009. Understanding computer-mediated transparency International Review of Administrative Sciences 75, 255–269.

Meijer , Albert J. , Paul ‘t Hart, and Benjamin Worthy. 2015 . Assessing Government Transparency: An Interpretive Framework. Administration & Society. Published electronically on August 19.

NAO 2003. Improving Service Delivery: The Role of Executive Agencies, HC 525 (London).

Nolan 1995. First Report of the Committee on Standards of Public Life Cmnd 2850(1), (HMSO, London).

OECD. 2005. Modernising Government: The Way Forward. Paris: OECD.

Pablo de Andres, Valentin Azofra and Felix Lopez 2005. Corporate Boards in OECD Countries: size, composition, functioning and effectiveness Corporate Governance 13(2), 197-210.

Peters, G. 1997. A North American Perspective on Administrative Modernization in Europe Included in Public Management and Administrative reform in Western Europe Kickert, W. (eds.) Edward Elgar UK.

Pina, V., Torres, L., and Royo, S. 2007. Are ICTs Improving Transparency and Accountability in the EU Regional and Local Governments? An Empirical Study Public Administration 85, 449–472.

Pina, V.; Arcas, MJ and Martí, C. 2012. Accruals and Accounting Numbers Management in the UK Executive Agencies Public Money and Management 32(4), 273–280.

Piotrowski, S. J., and Bertelli, A., 2010. Measuring Municipal Transparency. 14th IRSPM Conference, Bern, Switzerland, April.

Reddy, K.; Locke, S.; Scrimgeour, F. 2011. Improving Performance in New Zealand’s Public Corporations: The Effect of Governance Practices Governance An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions 24(3) 517–556.

Rosenstein, S. and Wyatt, J. G. 1990. Outside Directors, Board Independence, and Shareholder Wealth, Journal of Financial Economics 26, 175–191.

Torres, L.; Pina, V. 2004. Reshaping the Public Administration: the Spanish Experience Compared to the UK. Public Administration 82(2), 445-464.

Tricker, R. (1984), Corporate Governance (Gower, Aldershot).

Wong, W. and Welch, E., 2004. Does E-Government Promote Accountability? A Comparative Analysis of Website Openness and Government Accountability Governance 17(2), 275–297.

Yermack, D. 1996. Higher market valuation of companies with a small board of directors. Journal of Financial Economics 40, 185–211.

ANNEX A Transparency Dimensions

INSTITUTIONAL DIMENSION

Ownership

Ownership of site content

Last updated

Contacts/Reachability

Postal address

Employees' phone numbers Email address of person responsible for content & technical support

Email of person responsible for tech. support

Email of person responsible for content Person responsible for technical support appears not to be a commercial firm

Organizational Information

Details of senior officials

Mission statement/activities

Organization chart

Issue Information

Content arranged in topics

Issue-related addresses

Non-issue-related addresses

Addresses for non gov. institutions

Reports in easily readable format

Index for reports, publications, laws.

Publications for free

Link or text to FOIA

Consequences for citizens

Explanations of requirements

Instructions

Index for forms

Instructions on how to appeal

Security and Privacy

Privacy policy

Security policy

Service charters

Quality systems

General information about competences

POLITICAL DIMENSION

CV Director

CV members

President

Biographical information

Speeches

e-mail

Telephone

Photos

Addresses

Executive board members

e-mail

Telephone

Photos

Addresses

Meetings

Agenda

Minutes

Updates

Press news

Official event photos

Videos

Committees

Structure and functions Information for political parties, media and stakeholders

Schedule of meetings Minutes of meetings from the past one, two, three... years

List of decisions/resolutions

FINANCIAL DIMENSION

Financial information

Non financial information

Performance indicators

Audit report

Sustainability report

Report on service standards and complaints

Strategic plan

Information on the QMS of services

Complaints Management System

Financial ratios

CITIZEN DIALOGUE DIMENSION

Complaint system

Suggestion box

Forum

Citizen participation

Languages

Strategies and projects

Publications

Links with governmental Webs

e-initiatives vs. digital debate

e-mail available for citizens

E-Administration

Webs 2.0

USABILITY DIMENSION

Identification of errors

Languages

Total translation

Partial translation

Sitemap

A-Z index

Help section

Online comment form

Area for citizens to post comments

Issue-related forum

Sound files

Video files - live broadcast speeches/events

ACCESIBILITY DIMENSION Text only or accessible version

Audio access for visually impaired

Compliance with accessibility standards

WAI or other icon

Main page passes Bobby scan Priority 1

What's New section

FAQ

Statistics

Newsletter/alerts

Specific e-mail address

Specific phone number or postal address

No broken links

Search engine