Municipal reforms in the Nordic countries - motivation and outcomes

Transcription

1 Municipal reforms in the Nordic countries - motivation and outcomes Lisbeth Harbo

2 Why restructuring of the administrative levels? Thinning of regions and urbanisation/centralisation Expectations for equality in service provision New technologies and new processes Increased mobility; changed infrastructure Increased need for cross-sectoral cooperation and strategic planning Needs/desire to restructure tasks and responsibilities Economy (fewer units and/or levels; economies of scale) Critical mass for providing certain services (population, tax base as well as within the local administrations) New public management... A top-down demand or a bottom-up solution?

3 A Nordic municipality? Strong local autonomy and local democracy (Neubauer et al. 2007) Differences in the core competences across the countries -> Optimal size debate is context bound No cohesive administrative reform has occured without a new structure for the division of tasks and responsibilities

4 Nordic municipalities in numbers No. of units > s SE DK ? GL ? NO FI FO IS Åland

5 Trickle processes

6 Scope of municipal differences in terms of population (2009 figures) SE DK GL NO FI FO IS Average population Smallest municipality Largest municipality

7 Main arguments in the Nordic reform debates Efficiency Economy Professionalism/ Specialist Democracy For larger units More experience in task performance; Less valuable with regard to staff; Higher quality in task solutions Fewer units are cheaper; Economies of scale More experience and capacity; Colleagues Makes it possible to transfer tasks closer to the citizen; Less need for municipal cooperation (diminishes democratic accountability) Development Strategic planning ; Attraction of investments Against larger units More bureaucracy; Less coordination needed in small units Small units are efficient/cheap; Restructuring is expensive Risk of column thinking; Less variety in the job Move decisions further away; Risk of decreasing local engagement Administrative reform doesn t develop anything in itself

8 Structural reforms (DK 2007 and GL 2009)

9 Arguments for the reforms in GL and DK Both argued for moving tasks closer to the citizen; for professionalisation and skill development in the local administrations, and in particular, adressed the issue of small units: In DK, only municipalities with less than inhabitants participated. A target for the new municipalities with minimum inhabitants and ideally (critical mass argument). In GL, a main concern was to achieve municiplities that were much more similar in size, enabling transfer of tasks (demand and democracy argument).

10 Main arguments in Greenland: Lower costs (two-fold reduction: fewer administrative units and transfer of tasks); Democracy (less distance from citizens to deciding authority); Competence-building within the administrations; Critical mass of employees for undertaking more complex tasks (including decreasing vulnerability), and Attraction of skilled employees

11 Experiences from GL Paradox of distance: what does closer to the citizen imply in distance? national vs. local in small societies local knowledge? Still small units

12 Experiences from DK Formal merging vs. inter-municipal cooperation? In DK, the inter-municipal cooperation has actually increased since the reform (Sørensen and Torfing 2015) But also: The optimal sized municipality is not ideal for all tasks. Regional thinking when regional planning concerns were transfered to the new municipalities (loss of regional level) Larger municipalities has stronger administrations that can increase the strategic work Intermunicipal cooperation may lead to new mergers.

13 Current issues in DK and GL Greenland: Splitting one municipality? Referendum in the North municipality in favour of division; government not supportive Fullfilment of the task transfer? VERY unsuccessful until now Denmark: New mergers? Referendum in December regarding merging of two municipalities (Struer and Holstebro) Complete abolishment of the regional level? Up-coming decentralisation of state agencies.

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