The scene occurs across different administrations. A public body presents projects, programmes and indicators. Then comes the professional's question · «show me how you measure the results of what you are doing». The response lists activities but does not allow the result to be reconstructed. Without a prior criterion, a source and traceability, the data communicated are not sufficient to evaluate the policy.
This criterion applies the framework of Criterion 02 to the state — actor, date, criterion, scope and validity — and adds a condition specific to the public sector · the possibility for third parties to review the traces of a decision. Internal auditing produces learning within the administration. Public verifiability also requires accessible records, explicit caveats and a chain that does not depend on the explanation of whoever produced the result.
The eight-link chain
As an audit map, a public decision can be read as eight links · decision → budget → procurement → implementation → result → oversight → correction → public memory. Not all programmes follow the chain in the same way, nor can all information be published without limits. The map helps locate where the relationship between what was decided, what was implemented and what was reported was lost.
Three recurring pathologies
Pathology 01 · the indicator built backwards. The result is communicated first and the indicator appears afterwards. Those data may illustrate an activity, but do not in themselves demonstrate the policy's effect. A defensible evaluation identifies the criterion, baseline, source, target and period beforehand; where any of these is absent, it states the limitation.
Pathology 02 · the compliant form over a broken operation. Bodies with every form signed and every file in order · and a service that does not work. The paperwork complies. The service fails. The formal system reports conformity while the citizen reports the opposite — and the two records coexist for years without intersecting.
Pathology 03 · broken traceability between levels. The minister signs a policy. The director translates it into a directive, the coordinator into a procedure, the operator into daily practice. Something is lost in each translation · sometimes the critical element. When an incident occurs, no one can trace the level at which the original intent was lost — the eight-link chain broke internally, without a single document going unsigned.
Transparency and verifiability are two different things
This is where the costliest misunderstanding in the open government agenda lies. Transparency publishes · verifiability enables reconstruction. A portal can display millions of records and still not allow a single concrete decision to be verified — who made it, with what budget, against what prior target. Verifiability also opens a third path between applause and denunciation · evidence-based public conversation. Where that foundation does not exist, technology merely disguises disorder.
Unverifiable official data also have external consequences. In 2013, the FMI issued a declaration of censure against Argentina for failures to comply with obligations relating to statistical data; it withdrew it in 2016 after assessing corrective measures. The record shows that the quality and traceability of official statistics can affect the state's relationship with international organisations.
The state that makes decisions with algorithms
The chain also includes algorithmic systems that allocate appointments, prioritise inspections, detect signs of fraud or support decisions on benefits. This support does not remove the obligation to identify purpose, responsibility, data, criteria and avenues for review. The Gobierno del Reino Unido publishes a register and a specific standard for documenting these systems. That design does not prove that every decision is correct; it creates a trace that can be examined.
The criterion test · trace a policy
The Criterion 02 test — the five elements applied to a specific statement — remains available as a quick check. The public sector requires more · tracing the entire chain. Choose a concrete policy announced more than a year ago and reconstruct it in five steps.
One · the decision. Find the legal provision or act that formalised the policy. Record the date, authority, basis and objective; if measurement was defined in another document, preserve the link between the two.
Two · the budget. Identify the budget line, programme and implementing unit. If the data are not public or are legally restricted, document that limitation rather than filling the gap by inference.
Three · implementation. Connect contracts, transfers or other instruments to the decision and the budget. Check the amount, timeframe, successful bidder or recipient where applicable.
Four · the result. Identify the indicator, source, baseline, target and period. Check whether they were defined before the result was known; if not, limit the conclusion that can be drawn.
Five · the response. Review what the administration did in response to deviations, adverse results or new evidence. The response may be to correct, maintain with justification, redesign or close; what is auditable is the existence of an identifiable decision.
As an operational reference, try to reconstruct the chain in one working day using public sources. The timeframe is not a regulatory requirement: it serves to measure friction. Access requests, legitimate restrictions and documentary gaps must be kept separate; they do not mean the same thing.
A public system with integrity does not promise an absence of error. It leaves evidence of how it detects, records and addresses its deviations. Where a sanction is warranted, it also allows reconstruction of who decided it and under which rule.