Information transparency and open data of municipal governments from Metropolitan Region of Recife

It presents the diagnosis of transparency level of municipalities in the Metropolitan Region of Recife, as determined by the current legislation on the subject. Methodologically, it uses descriptive study in transparency portals of the 15 cities in the Metropolitan Region of Recife, and applies an evaluation protocol containing 60 items, divided into three categories: evaluation of portals' content, evaluation of the website, and evaluation of the principles of open data. The results show that, in relation to the content of the items, there is a greater compliance with the availability of data on revenue expenses, with 79.6% being the average of compliance within the items; regarding the evaluation of electronic sites, the general average level of transparency was 75.8%; as for the basic principles of open data, the overall average of conformity was 82%. The municipality best placed in the transparency ranking was Recife, and the worst placed was Sao Lourenco da Mata. The overall average level of transparency in the municipalities of the Metropolitan Region of Recife was 79.1%, considering the assessment of the 60 items in the three categories. It concludes that the partial fulfillment of the items demonstrates that the municipalities need to improve the publication of government data, and that there are possibilities for action by information managers to enhance the portals in terms of usability and availability of information to provide more transparency about public actions.