The Executive Committee of the AOC Consortium has agreed to promote the service We decide Catalonia to ensure that all local governments in Catalonia have the tools to develop citizen participation processes to comply with the Law of Transparency of Catalonia, with a shared, collaborative and free service for users, with special emphasis on reality of small municipalities.
The agreement is conditional on the approval of the financing, for a period of 4 years, by the Generalitat de Catalunya which will be specified by means of a Government agreement which is expected to be taken in July of this year. Following the confirmation of the funding, the AOC Consortium will start the tender procedures to provide this new service. If there are no delays at the end of 2021, the first pilot tests will be carried out.
These actions are derived from theagreement of the Plenary of the Network of Transparent Governments of Catalonia in July 2020, to promote the Decidim Catalunya platform in the local world and the decision of the Secretariat for Transparency and Open Government of the Generalitat de Catalunya to commission the AOC Consortium to provide this service to local governments.
We decided on Catalonia, a collaborative project
The aim is to offer the local world through a comprehensive "turnkey" service, which includes technological aspects, as well as support in the management of participatory processes. The role of the AOC is to provide the technological service of Decidim Catalunya, make it available to local bodies that wish to do so, offer technical support and carry out developments that guarantee its evolution according to needs.
The tasks of advice, training and support in the participation processes for the administrations with fewer resources will be carried out through the Provincial Councils, the Generalitat itself and Localret, with a governance model that is yet to be specified. These tasks are fundamental to the success of citizen participation initiatives.
The service will be offered during the pilot phase, primarily in the demarcations of Tarragona and Lleida, where the respective councils do not currently offer the Decidim service. The city councils of the provinces of Barcelona and Girona should contact their respective Provincial Councils if they are interested in using the Decidim service, as they are currently already offering this service.
The Network of Governments of Catalonia wants to replicate the success achieved in the field of Transparency, where 99,8% of local administrations have a portal with its own solution or with the common solution that facilitates the 'AOC which has become a standard used by 1.200 local bodies.
Improvements to the Decide
The report associated with the agreement highlights a set of application improvements that are to be developed over the next 4 years. These should serve to evolve the platform to a multi-administration model, implement demanded improvements and consolidate the integration of the Decidim Catalunya service with other widely used digital services. These are:
Additionally, public bodies and citizens can send us their ideas and proposals through the platform of “We improve the AOC".
The commitment to "Decidim" in Catalonia
Decidim is a digital citizen participation platform developed with free software, born and promoted by Barcelona City Council in 2016, and which is currently used in more than 100 cities and 20 countries around the world.
The Decidim Catalunya service takes as a starting point the success of the initiatives promoted by Barcelona City Council, Barcelona Provincial Council, Girona Provincial Council, the Localret Consortium and the General Directorate of Citizen Participation and Electoral Processes, and which already has many successful territory implementation experiences and a very active community.
