Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis presided over an interministerial meeting where the new Local Government Performance Monitoring hub was presented, through which, for the first time, consolidated statistical data on critical services provided by first-level local authorities (municipalities) are made accessible to all citizens.

During the presentation, delivered by Minister of Interior Thodoris Livanios, it was noted that the new portal deiktesota.gov.gr provides nine main indicators: financial operation of municipalities, social protection, early childhood education and child services, culture, sustainable mobility, waste management, civil protection, management of stray animals, and digital maturity.

Each category includes a series of sub-indicators, resulting in the creation, for the first time, of a nationwide database that serves both transparency and policy-making, based on the real, now recorded needs of each local community.

The data initially reflect the situation for the year 2024, which serves as the baseline for comparison with future years.

The information was collected via questionnaires sent to municipalities and by drawing from relevant state registries, such as the National Pet Registry and the Electronic Waste Registry. The project is part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0.”

The meeting was also attended by Minister of Digital Governance Dimitris Papastergiou, Minister of State Akis Skertsos, Deputy Minister of Interior Vasilis Spanakis, and the Prime Minister’s Secretary-General Stelios Koutnatzis.

At the end of the meeting, the Prime Minister stated:

“I can say that I am very impressed with this tool and I want to congratulate the Ministry services for the painstaking, I imagine, collection of all the relevant data.

And I would say that this tool is useful on multiple levels. First, it is a tool for citizens, for transparency and accountability, allowing them to know the real performance of their municipality and, consequently, to judge the effectiveness of mayors based on objective indicators.

It is certainly a tool for the mayors themselves, allowing them to perform self-assessment and, by comparing with other municipalities, to see where they lag and where they excel.

It is certainly a tool for the Ministry, so that it can use funding mechanisms to reward specific behaviors, set targets, and then measure the effectiveness of municipalities in achieving these targets.

And I think it is generally a tool for public policy, because I imagine that if these data are processed using artificial intelligence, for example feeding all this into ChatGPT, it would provide us with very useful insights that we might not see with the naked eye.

But the value of time series is very important here. We start with a baseline year so that we can measure progress or potential regression.

And I think that by the time we reach the 2028 municipal elections, it will be a very useful tool for citizens to objectively evaluate and compare the performance of their elected officials, and of course also for those who wish to participate in local governance, to develop a program that can then be evaluated based on measurable targets.

So, truly, a very impressive effort, and I think another indication of how public administration data can be used in an open and accessible way, both as a tool for citizens’ accountability and information, and for administration, as a key instrument for shaping more targeted public policy.”