Citizen oversight

Citizen oversight is the act of an assembly of citizens, a form of citizen participation, who review government activities. Activities may be deemed as government misconduct. Members of the group are civilians and are external to the government entity. These groups are tasked with direct involvement in the citizen complaints process and develop solutions to improve government accountability. Responsibilities of citizen oversight groups can vary significantly depending on the jurisdiction and their ability to become influential. Oversight should not criticize but improve government through citizen support for government responsiveness, accountability, transparency, and overall efficiency.

Proactive citizen oversight improves transparency and demands accountability at all levels of government. Reporting and monitoring (financial records, performance measures, and open records,... etc.) are now regarded as fundamental governance responsibilities. Citizen Advisory Boards are a way for citizens to be involved in government oversight. Other forms of government oversight include citizen committees, citizen panels, citizen juries, citizen initiatives, negotiated rulemaking, and mediation Citizen oversight shares similar aspects with Demarchy and the Jury system.

An effective citizen oversight committee is structured to take on the following responsibilities: create processes for risk governance, monitoring and reporting; create clear defined duties to improve effectiveness and avoid overlapping work; recruit/retain members that are knowledgeable and engaged about policy; develop critiques that result in improved service outcomes; assign oversight responsibilities to designated individuals or groups for specific government functions; and reviews rolls regularly.

Citizen oversight committees brainstorm ideas to improve transparency and create policy proposals. Most proposals regarding citizen oversight have been with respects to police activities, healthcare, non-profit and private sector. Proposals since the 1970s about police misconduct or government corruption have universally been met with resistance from authorities and did not gained much traction.

Citizen oversight is the result of a profound change in public attitudes toward government particularly related to trust. There is a lack of trust between citizens and government/business because of historical misconduct. Misconduct included racial discrimination during the civil rights era, illegal activities during the Watergate scandal, and more recently citizen disagreement with government bailouts and financial fraud like Enron scandal. All these actions have caused an increased demand in accountability. Trust is a measured by gauging how effective citizens feel local policies and authorities are in their duties as official. A series of laws have been created indicating the growing public concern about the need for oversight of government agencies.

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Wikipedia