Governance Analytics: Your Council in Data
Good governance starts with good data.
Our governance analytics reports examine local governance in practice. We examine the public council and/or committee meetings, and all public decisions (yes, all of them), over an entire council term. This includes analysis of all publicly available data about your council meetings: agendas, minutes, reports, and video footage. We use this analysis to bring you a more objective assessment of the mechanics and dynamics of council decision making in your community.
MEETING MECHANICS
This report analyzes the mechanics of decision-making in your municipality. How efficiently are decisions made across different services and policy areas? How often are recommendations referred back, and what patterns emerge when examining those that do not? How much time was spent on procedural issues, and what were the most common points of confusion?
This report identifies decision-making patterns, helping municipalities shift into a higher gear.
Discussion Dynamics
This report analyzes the dynamics of discussion during meetings. How does the general tone and sentiment on various policy topics change over time? What policy areas hold broad consensus, and which yield the strongest diverging opinions? How much repetition is there between discussions at committee and council tables?
This report tracks how discussion dynamics change over a term of council, and what can be learned to help inform better relations between council and administration.
THE CIVILITY REPORT
Council meetings are often described as a fishbowl, and there is plenty of evidence that the temperature is turning up. This report analyzes the dynamics of discussion during public meetings, including council, administration and the public. What was the general tone, sentiment and level of civility by topic? How, when and why did it change over the council term?
This report provides an objective way to monitor the tone and civility of meetings, including early indicators and patterns over time, offering key insights for earlier interventions.