ITU‐T's Technical Reports And Specifications 187 4 Stakeholders' roles in SSC This section explores in further detail each of the SSC stakeholders, including a brief definition of, and an outline of the roles they are meant to take. 4.1 Municipalities, city council and city administration Municipalities are the basis for SSC management, and are at the core of the SSC framework. Municipalities and its departments must be the body that coordinate all the system within an integrated technological platform. Municipalities are constantly involved in development strategies and will hence play a pivotal role in SSC initiatives. They would also serve as a convenient contact point for the inhabitants regarding SSC establishment. Municipalities have to deal with the everyday problems and demands of citizens and the challenges of city management. Shrinking municipal budgets on one side, and the need to reach national and international targets of reduction of emissions on the other, are pushing municipalities to become more sustainable, both environmentally and economically. Additionally, the growing demand of the voters for transparency and citizen participation in municipal issues triggers the development of more socially sustainable cities. As the main promoters on the idea of becoming a SSC27, municipalities have the responsibility to decide which path to follow, from the long‐term roadmap to the specific solutions to implement. There is not a unique path, so each city can choose theirs depending on the qualities of the city, its state of affairs, strengths and opportunities available. It is important that they do so thinking on the long run, with a holistic approach, transparency and the citizen interests at its core. One way to increase efficiency in city services is to evaluate them through objective indicators agreed between the municipality and the service provider. To achieve this there has to be a change from the tendering model that is currently based on assets to a model based on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). As the main consumers of solutions, municipalities are ideally placed to lead this change to KPIs‐based public tender offers. For the model to work, municipalities should act as the examiner on the performance of the services, starting by choosing what KPIs will apply, what values have to be achieved and under what conditions and continuing with periodical evaluations. Otherwise, the city service companies would be acting as judge and judged on their own evaluation. Another important responsibility this stakeholder has is to engage public participation and include the citizen on any SSC initiative. As it will be seen later, citizen engagement is pertinent to many urban projects and even more importantly, the final objective of SSC is to enhance the satisfaction and the quality of life of the citizenry. Most SSC projects entail benefits for the population at several levels, but often these benefits are not perceived by the citizens. Consequently, it is recommended that municipalities conduct efforts to communicate the decisions taken, as well as the advantages and consequences these entail. Regarding public participation, the city administration has to ensure that all the population is informed and has the means needed to take part on the programs and initiatives being carried out. Another important aspect in this area is the accessibility to public data by the citizenry. An \"Open Data\" platform where the citizen can access all public data, except confidential or critical, is ____________________ 27 Informe Anual Smart Cities Telefonica.