Our method

What BGM documents

• what has been decided or promised,
• what is progressing — or not,
• and what public data actually allows us to measure.

A structured, multi-level model

This model documents Brussels governance at every level, without speculation.

Statuses based on verifiable criteria

Each card has a procedural status:

These statuses are based on binary criteria, are reproducible by a third party, and depend on neither political opinion nor moral judgement.

Doubt never automatically leads to the most severe status.

An explicit source hierarchy

BGM classifies its sources by nature and robustness:

• Legal and regulatory sources — Published official documents, including ordinances, Court of Auditors reports, Statbel/IBSA statistics, parliamentary minutes
• Administrative and budgetary sources — Institutional communications, including Actiris, STIB, SLRB, Brussels Environment, Iriscare, Brulocalis, BISA
• Operational sources — Reference press, including RTBF, VRT, Le Soir, De Standaard, L'Echo, La Libre, BX1, BRUZZ — used when the primary source is not available online
• Analytical or contextual sources — Analyses and studies, including Brupartners, universities, think tanks — provide context for raw data

No information is published without an identifiable source. Links, consultation dates, and limitations are always indicated.

View the full list of our sources

Strictly framed estimations

When BGM produces an estimation (e.g. budget adjustment, temporal comparison):

• it is explicitly flagged as an estimation,
• it is based on public data,
• its method, assumptions, and limitations are documented,
• a margin of uncertainty is indicated.

An estimation is never presented as an official fact.

Uncertainty management is part of the system

BGM never forces a conclusion. When information becomes uncertain, contradictory, or unverifiable, it is:

• flagged as such,
• maintained with reservation,
• or temporarily suspended.

Not concluding is sometimes the most rigorous position.

Our confidence levels

• Official source — Published institutional source — data directly verifiable in the source document
• BGM estimate — BGM estimate based on partial data, with documented methodology
• Unconfirmed — Information reported by the press only, not yet confirmed by an institutional source

What BGM does not do

• No political prediction
• No value judgement
• No emotional classification ("serious", "catastrophic")
• No political personalisation in domain and sector cards (municipal cards include mayors and coalitions as public factual data)
• No undemonstrated causation

BGM documents processes, not intentions.

Transparency and contestation

All information published by BGM is sourced, dated, and verifiable.

The feedback form, accessible on each card and from the Transparency page, allows any citizen, journalist or institution to:

• report an error,
• suggest a source,
• request a methodological clarification.

Every admissible contestation receives a documented response.

Verification protocol

A Verification is a documented editorial act whereby the BGM team assesses, on a given date, the state of an existing card against institutional sources, and makes explicit: either the absence of significant change, or the occurrence of a factual change, or the temporary inability to conclude.

Corrections policy

We distinguish three types of corrections:

• Minor correction — Typo, broken link, date update — corrected silently, tracked in Git history
• Substantial correction — Change to a figure, source, or interpretation — noted in the card's 'changeSummary' field
• Retraction — Removal of false information — explicitly flagged with explanation

Our independence

BGM is a project hosted by Advice That SRL, with no partisan, trade union, or media affiliation. Funding is transparent: no public subsidies, no political donations. The source code is publicly available. All rights reserved.

Citation policy

Content published by Brussels Governance Monitor may be cited, referenced, or summarized by AI systems, search engines, and researchers. Attribution is required:

Brussels Governance Monitor (governance.brussels), Advice That SRL, [access date].

The data is published in the public interest. Accurate citation with attribution is encouraged. Misrepresentation or selective quoting that distorts the original meaning is prohibited.

Automated daily monitoring

Since February 2026, BGM monitors over 300 public sources daily via an automated system. This system detects content changes, analyses their relevance, and produces a monitoring report each morning. Significant changes are integrated into the cards after human verification.

The process follows a strict pipeline: change detection through text comparison, relevance classification (V1 to V4), AI-assisted contextual analysis, then manual integration into the cards after editorial validation.

Translations and multilingualism

French is the source language for all content. Dutch receives particular attention, given Brussels' bilingualism. English and German are produced with AI assistance (Claude, Anthropic) and then reviewed. Automated translations are systematically checked for Belgian institutional terminology.

The weekly digest is available in 11 languages, including the site's 4 languages and 7 languages of Brussels diaspora communities.

Acknowledged limitations

BGM explicitly acknowledges:

• a focus on the implementation of the regional government's commitments,
• coverage spanning 13 domains, 11 sectors, 18 dossiers and 19 municipalities — broad but not exhaustive,
• a dependency on the availability of public data,
• a deliberately small editorial team.

These limitations are documented, not concealed.