We talk about transparency as if it is self-explanatory. Under the Community Safety and Policing Act, boards must publish agendas, minutes, and reports. But here is the uncomfortable truth. Checking the compliance box does not make a board transparent, and transparency does not automatically build trust. A document buried three clicks deep in a website is not transparency. It is a performance.
True transparency is not about posting. It is about connection. Connection between what is decided and what is experienced by the community. Between what is promised and what is delivered. Between the board table and the front line.
The Toronto Example
The recent consultation report from the Toronto Police Services Board reveals the lowest public trust in modern memory. People say they feel disconnected from both leadership and front-line officers. Even those within the service express declining confidence in internal culture and fairness.
Toronto has not been silent. It has an extensive reform agenda, data portals, and public dashboards. Yet the findings show that information alone does not equal understanding. The message is clear. Transparency without accessibility or meaning does not create trust.
The parallels to any large organization are obvious. The bigger the system, the greater the distance between values and action. Corporate boards face the same issue. A statement of principles at the top does not guarantee behaviour that reflects those principles at every level. For police boards, that gap becomes visible every day in how communities experience policing.
Transparency therefore becomes not just a communications function but a governance responsibility. In the Ontario context, this means ensuring that every act of publication, engagement, and decision-making reflects the intent of the CSPA; not simply to comply with legislation, but to strengthen public confidence and institutional integrity across the system.
What Transparency Really Means
The OECD defines transparency as the accessibility of information to the public about government decision-making and performance, ensuring that the public can understand and evaluate the actions of public officials. Building on that idea, police boards can take transparency further by ensuring that what they publish is not only visible but understandable, traceable, and connected to outcomes.
Transparency is the timely disclosure of understandable information about decisions, performance, and risks, with clear links between public input, board direction, and measurable outcomes.
The emphasis is on clarity and connection. Not on volume. The goal is to help people understand what decisions were made, why they were made, and what happened as a result.
Transparency is not just a moral virtue. It is a practical advantage. Boards that communicate clearly tend to make faster, better-supported decisions. Transparency disciplines thinking, reduces internal conflict, and builds confidence among partners and the community. When people know what to expect and can see evidence of accountability, trust grows naturally.
The Factors That Shape Trust
From the Toronto example and similar reviews across Canada, several consistent themes emerge.
Legacy harms and equity gaps: History matters. Carding and profiling created deep wounds, but so did the historic and ongoing trauma experienced by First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities in their interactions with policing systems. Rebuilding trust in these communities requires transparency that is culturally grounded and co-developed, not imposed.
Leadership and front-line disconnect: Large services often mirror large corporations. The vision is strong at the top but weak in translation. The larger the system, the harder it is to maintain alignment with purpose and values.
Information overload without accessibility: Posting documents is not enough. The public must be able to find, read, and understand them. Accessibility and usability are now central parts of governance, not optional design features.
Internal culture and morale: If members do not trust leadership, the community will not trust the organization. Boards should pay attention to what employee surveys, retention data, and grievance patterns reveal about leadership culture.
Accountability that can be seen: Complaints and audits must lead to visible, understandable outcomes. When boards explain what actions were taken and why, they demonstrate integrity rather than defensiveness.
Results that can be felt: When response times improve, when officers show up in the same neighbourhoods, when the tone of engagement changes, that is when trust begins to shift. Transparency is proven in outcomes that people can experience.
These themes highlight that transparency is not a single behaviour but a collection of habits. Boards that consistently apply these habits create a reputation for credibility, which is ultimately the most durable form of governance capital.
The Three Levels of Transparency Practice
Boards at every level of experience can locate themselves in this spectrum.
1. The Basics: Compliance
These are the legal minimums under the CSPA. They keep the board legitimate but not necessarily trusted.
- Open public meetings except where privacy law requires otherwise
- Agendas and minutes published on time
- By-laws, policies, and required reports available online, with transparency obligations clearly stated within the policies themselves
- A way for the public to contact or address the board
If any of these are missing, the board is not yet meeting baseline expectations.
2. Beyond the Basics: Governance Maturity
Here transparency becomes meaningful.
- Plain-language summaries of decisions and rationale
- Public consultation reports showing what was heard and what was changed
- Regular publication of key performance metrics
- Accessible website structure and searchable archives
- Integration of community and internal trust measures
This level moves a board from performing transparency to practising it.
3. Advanced: Strategic Transparency
At this level, transparency is not a task. It is a system.
- Public performance dashboards with neighbourhood-level data and trend lines
- Explanation of definitions, data limits, and how metrics will be used
- Publication of both achievements and shortfalls with next steps
- Disclosure of internal culture metrics alongside service outcomes
- Public explanation of how community feedback influences board direction
Advanced boards use transparency as an accountability engine. They move beyond information toward interpretation, learning, and adaptation.
Transparency as Oversight in Practice
Transparency begins long before a report is posted online. It starts inside the boardroom. How questions are asked, how dissent is recorded, and how decisions are documented all signal to the public what kind of culture exists behind the scenes. Oversight and transparency are inseparable. When a board operates with clarity internally, it naturally produces clarity externally.
Effective oversight means asking for evidence, not anecdotes. It means ensuring that reports are data driven, not narrative heavy. It also means that every decision connects back to the board’s stated goals and community priorities. This is how transparency becomes an operational practice rather than a communications exercise.
The Compliance Trap
Compliance can become its own comfort zone. When a government measure says “Boards shall publish” it risks creating a false finish line. A PDF posted once a year may technically satisfy the regulation, but it does nothing to strengthen legitimacy.
True compliance should be impact led and data driven. If no one can find or understand the information, the requirement has failed its purpose. Boards should measure not only what they disclose, but whether that disclosure changes anything. Are people better informed? Are decisions better understood? Are trust scores improving?
Some simple indicators can help measure this impact. Boards can monitor website analytics to see what pages are being read. They can track engagement metrics from consultations, media feedback, or public submissions. They can include short trust and satisfaction questions in community surveys. These data points move compliance from static reporting to dynamic accountability.
This is where the next generation of police governance must go. We must stop treating compliance as the end of the process. It is the starting line for impact.
What This Means for Boards
Whether the board governs a large urban service or a small rural detachment, the principles are the same.
- Be clear and human. Explain decisions in everyday language.
- Be consistent. Publish regularly, not reactively.
- Be visible. Make information easy to find in two clicks or less.
- Be honest. Report on what is working and what is not.
- Be engaged. Close the feedback loop with the community and with staff.
For larger services, this may involve public dashboards, performance portals, and open data strategies. For smaller boards, it may mean a single well-maintained web page with quarterly summaries and contact points. Scale does not excuse silence.
As Ontario transitions into the full implementation of the CSPA, boards have an opportunity to redefine what compliance looks like. Instead of reporting activity, they can start reporting impact. Instead of publishing information, they can publish insight. This is the next chapter of police governance in Ontario — and it starts with a single, honest look through the window.
The New Standard
Transparency must evolve from a compliance task to a culture. The next question for every board is simple.
Are we transparent for compliance or are we transparent for trust
When the answer becomes trust, compliance will take care of itself. Impact will become measurable. And governance will finally do what it was meant to do. Not simply to watch over policing, but to bring the community and the service together in plain sight.
Reference
OECD, Principles of Open and Transparent Governance, 2017Top of Form