Online Platforms of the Audit Courts of Brazilian States: An assessment of access to information

Abstract

This article presents the results of a study to understand the empirical reality of the platforms of the Audit Courts of Brazilian states after six years of the Freedom of Information Act. In addition to the courts of the 26 states, the Audit Court of the Federal District was also considered. Descriptive research was used for a documentary study, with a predominantly qualitative approach. Observation protocol was used to collect the data. In the theme of this study, the same information request was sent to all Audit Courts and the data was submitted to descriptive analysis. The online platforms evaluation model was developed based on literature. The theoretical framework discusses topics such as transparency and online platforms. All platforms have indicators that can be improved using the analyzed model. For those who received the highest scores, it is assumed that the effort to reach the "optimal" condition of the model (maximum score) is lower, unlike those that received the lowest scores. Most courts' platforms were evaluated as "optimal". The study shows that there is room for the online platforms to improve in the indicators 'communication', and 'login and receipts', observing that the scores for the indicator 'barriers' are already high.