How digitalization helped to measure the level of involvement of people’s deputies

At the end of last year, at the scientific and practical conference “Social Innovations in the Context of Reformational Changes”, which took place at the National University “Chernihiv Polytechnic” (Chernihiv), we had the opportunity to present the first steps to identify corruption using digital technologies. But it should be noted that the possibilities of digitalization, in this aspect, are not limited to this. What do we mean? Digitalization allows you to study the level of involvement by analyzing the emotional component.

To conduct the experiment, a special appeal was drawn up, which would evoke the most emotional reaction from the people’s deputy and motivate him to give an answer. On the other hand, in the same appeal, several opportunities were left that would allow us to direct this appeal in a positive way and demonstrate competence in matters of law and state administration. Literally speaking, the message made up a very strong emotional context with multimodal approaches to solving the problems covered.

To track responses, an email tracking system and the SendGrid email tracker were integrated. In total, more than 400 personalized appeals were sent out – one for each people’s deputy.

The stats turned out to be:

  • Only 1 (one!) deputy was able to build communication in a positive direction

Thus, digitalization has clearly shown that the level of involvement of people’s deputies of the Verkhovna Rada is extremely low.

It should be noted that the appeals were sent bypassing the standard procedure described on the official web portal https://itd.rada.gov.ua/services/appeal-of-citizens/

The portal itself is extremely poorly executed both in terms of user interface and functionality. When sending an appeal in a regular way, we only receive a notification from the Office of the Verkhovna Rada about the delivery of the appeal, but it is not provided to track its further fate using the regular means of the web portal. However, in general, people’s deputies respond more favorably to the standard procedure.

Also, it should be noted that many MPs respond with traditional paper letters, often including a printed copy of the electronic appeal, which indicates an insufficient level of digital literacy, additional budget costs and an increase in the carbon footprint.

In general, the standard procedure needs to be finalized to a minimum adequate level, so that each message sent shows the status in the online account, the ability to correspond with a people’s deputy or his assistant electronically, monitor the implementation of regulations and take into account the KPI of people’s deputies.