Selection of Criteria to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Community Councils

Abstract

we studied how to evaluate the performance of community councils when no standard effectiveness criteria exist. We note that the lack of clear assessment tools makes it difficult to compare municipalities and hinders efficient resource planning. We developed a set of scientifically grounded evaluation criteria using an expert-based approach. We surveyed nine specialists, including university lecturers, community council chairs, and city administration representatives. We asked the experts to rate seven proposed criteria on a five-point importance scale. We applied a statistical method to measure agreement among the experts and found a high level of consensus. We identified four key priority areas: organizational effectiveness, community engagement, territorial improvement, and economic efficiency. We found that the least significant criteria were related to public order and business involvement. We show that these findings can be used to create an integrated community council effectiveness index, improving transparency in local governance and increasing public trust in democratic institutions.