Understanding Fairness: A Handbook for Municipal Leaders
Revised 2013
Municipalities today operate in an era of accountability. Governing is becoming increasingly complex, and government is subject to ever increasing scrutiny. Citizens have the right to expect that their governments – federal, provincial and municipal – will act in a fair, open and transparent manner.
Municipalities govern under the authority of The Municipal Act and have autonomy and flexibility to manage their own affairs and to make decisions they think will best meet the needs of their communities. Municipalities have an obligation to govern fairly and equitably.
Council Members
Municipal council members act primarily in a law-making or policy-making capacity. Because, however, they wear many different hats when performing the duties that fall within council’s jurisdiction, some of the actions they take and decisions they make are subject to the requirements of administrative fairness. It is important to understand which actions and decisions have fairness requirements attached, what those requirements are, and how to best meet them while ensuring that municipal business proceeds in the normal course.
Council members are also responsible for ensuring that all municipal policies and procedures are fair and fairly applied by staff. Fairness starts at the top. Every time a municipal council makes a decision, some person or group of people is affected by that decision. Someone may disagree with the decision, and complain about it.
There is a range of options available to citizens unhappy with the actions and decisions of their municipal government including internal complaint mechanisms, statutory appeal or review processes, legal challenges, and external review mechanisms such as the Office of the Auditor General in respect of certain financial matters, and the Manitoba Ombudsman’s office in respect of matters of administration.
Complaints and Investigations
Manitoba Ombudsman receives and can investigate complaints from people who believe they have not been treated fairly by government, including municipal government. When we investigate complaints, it is our job to assess the fairness of municipal actions and decisions. A description of how we do that, and how municipalities can work with us through that process can be found in the handbook under Appendix E. It is important therefore, for us to explain our understanding of fairness, and our investigative process, so that we will be operating from a common understanding when complaints are made and investigated. That is one of the reasons we produced this guide, Understanding Fairness, specifically for municipal government. Understanding Fairness is intended to assist municipal leaders and administrative staff in achieving fairness in their important and challenging work, and to provide municipal leaders with the tools to help promote fairness and make it the standard of practice.
The tools in the Understanding Fairness Handbook include:
- information on how we investigate and analyze complaints about municipalities (Appendix E
- a fairness framework that recognizes three aspects of fairness: procedural, substantive, and relational
- standard definitions of some commonly used fairness terms
- a guide to meeting the requirements of fairness in municipal decision making
- helpful hints for conducting public hearings and meetings
- tips for analyzing your own decision-making process
- fairness checklists for council members (Appendix A) and municipalities (Appendix B)
- case examples of actions and decisions that are considered unfair
- a decision-making checklist (Appendix C), and
- information on how we investigate and analyze complaints about municipalities (Appendix E)