China's Guizhou province has reported the completion of a government transparency assessment, on Feb 24, which showed its capital city, Guiyang, outperforming nine of its prefectures and cities as part of its Effort to make government more transparent with disclosures of finances and budgets, resource distribution, public services and environment protection.
The assessment started back in October and involved at least 35 provincial departments, nine prefectures and 20 county governments.
Guiyang says it has used the Internet to solicit opinions and get quicker responses on social issues and in 2015, its official website received almost 200 requests for information and publications, all of which have been given a response.
When asked about this, one official commented, "Guiyang has seen a huge improvement in its government transparency and big data will be used to improve it," while the head of the assessment team, Tang Zhengfan, has noted that the overall performance of the governments examined is simply not good enough, and that the problems uncovered in the report are expected to be corrected.
