The Mayor’s Task Force on Transparency, Access, and Accountability, created by Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath, recently released their top findings and recommendations as part of a consultation report.
The report recently made headlines for finding that 80 per cent of survey respondents have low or very low trust in the City of Hamilton.
The Task Force also made a number of other observations and recommendations that are informing the city.
The Task Force was started in early 2024 and Horwath appointed Joanne Santucci, the Founder and former CEO of Hamilton Food Share, and Mark John Stewart, the Managing Director of Wentworth Strategy and Industry Professor at McMaster University as Co-Chairs of the group.
The Co-Chairs then chose three others to join the Task Force – Madeleine Verhovsek (Professor of Medicine and Pathology and Molecular Medicine at McMaster University and Chief of Medicine at St. Joseph’s Healthcare), Tinashe Wingfield (Found and Managing Director of Cadence Foresight Communications), and the late Bill Custers (Former Senior Manager of Broadcast and Strategy at Cable 14).
The Task Force comes after a number of issues and scandals where the city has been blamed for incompetence and a lack of transparency, including the Chedoke Creek sewage leak, the Red Hill Valley Parkway Inquiry, the cybersecurity incident, and Barton-Tiffany tiny shelter project.
The Task Force conducted one-on-one interviews, focus groups, and an online survey to hear from Hamilton’s municipal government and the public.
They concluded that there are three primary areas of focus to make the City of Hamilton more transparent, accessible, and accountable: communications, reporting and strategic management, and improving the organizational culture within the city.
The report says that communications from the city “were cited as being inconsistent, not timely, not comprehensive, not sufficiently transparent, and not effectively managed.”
When it comes to reporting and strategic management, the report says that there is a “notable gap” between the city’s high-level priorities and “having defined enterprise-level annual objectives that can be measured and observed.”
From there, the Task Force came up with five recommendations for the city to “kickstart” their efforts to increase transparency, access, and accountability.
Those five recommendations are undertaking a digital transformation, restructuring communications, focusing on “equity”, improving professional development, and taking action on accountability.
Getting into specifics, the Task Force recommends that a digital transformation include “an overhaul of the city’s website and a concerted effort to digitize historical records” as well as the creation of an open data portal.
For restructuring communications, the Task Force says that “pieces need to be put in place to facilitate coordinated communications across departments and offices,” that staff reports should be in “plain language,” and that all city communications should “ideally also have translation services available.”
When it comes to equity, the report says that “engagements with equity-deserving communities should be a priority” and that the city should prioritize “equitable hiring and leadership development.”
In terms of professional development, the Task Force says that political leaders and staff should be better trained “on processes, procedures, and equity.”
Finally, for action on accountability, the Task Force recommends an enterprise-level scorecard with clear accountability frameworks and the consideration of an Ombudsperson’s office to manage city complaints and concerns.
It is unclear at this time which recommendations the city will be moving forward on and how much each individual action would cost.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
