Decentralization reforms and their relations to local democracy and efficiency: CEE lessons

The paper discusses the implementation of decentralization in Central and Eastern Europe Countries after the signature and ratification of the European Charter of Local Self-Government. Decentralization as one of the reform approaches has several positive impacts on governance, but might have negative consequences, too. There are issues concerning allocation of financial resources, optimal territorial structure, weak local democracy. Local government units, especially the smaller ones, are not cost effective neither in administration nor in managing quality and expenditure of public services. For the reforms to realise the necessary democracy and efficiency, the author proposes to respect some principles of implementing decentralization

New Public Management and its Implementation in the CEE Region: What do we know and where do we go?

The paper presents a short literature review on New Public Management (NPM) and public sector reforms in CEE. It also includes selected practical  experiences in CEE countries with the implementation of NPM, data collected for most cases by the author and his team. On this base the conclusions about very limited success of NPM in Central and Eastern Europe are suggested, including explanations of some region specific factors, determining the level of success of NPM strategies. Our findings argue in simplified way that: “Adieu NPM” should mean that managing by contracts, objectives, competition, etc. as the goal, is a forgotten story (not only for CEE, but generally). But governing by predictable, reliable and coherent, open and transparent, accountable and responsible bureaucracy, using evidence and consultation based policy making and simultaneously properly managing efficiency, economy and effectiveness of any government operation is the future target

Local Self-Government in Slovakia

The goal of this chapter is to summarize the developments of the local self-government system in Slovakia and evaluate the conformity of its current status with the principles of the European Charter of Local Self-Government

Mid-term evaluation of the support to strengthened bilateral relations under the EEA and Norway Grants

Through the EEA Grants and Norway Grants, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein aim to reduce economic and social disparities and strengthen cooperation with 16 countries in Central and Southern Europe. A mid-term evaluation of the current EEA and Norway Grants 2009-14 was conducted by COWI during the second half of 2015 and early 2016 at the request of the Financial Mechanism Office, EEA and Norway Grants. The aim of the mid-term evaluation is to assess to what extent and in which way the EEA and Norway Grants contribute towards strengthening bilateral relations between donor and beneficiary states. The evaluation covers four out of the ten priority sectors of the EEA and Norway Grants and five of the 16 beneficiary countries (Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia), representing 19.4% of the allocated total of EUR 1.8 billion

Selected Factors Determining the Adoption and Use of Participatory Budgeting in Central and Eastern Europe

This is a summary article of the SJPS thematic issue on participatory budgeting in the Central and Eastern European region. Its authors provide an overview of the diffusion of participatory budgeting, and they classify relevant countries in terms of the pace of this diffusion into four different groups: frontrunners, early majority, later majority, and lagging adopters. In addition, they uncover various diffusion mechanisms that have been used. Since the research articles included in this thematic issue unpack various factors that influence the diffusion of the innovative practice of participatory budgeting in the specific settings of Central and Eastern Europe, the main goal of this article is to sum up their crucial findings and formulate several conclusions, including a few avenues for further research. A clear majority of countries in the region have already collected a relevant amount of experience with the adoption and further use of participatory budgeting. An analysis of the individual experiences reveals that the position and characteristics of mayors, organizational resources, and available capacities, as well as the quality of public trust, are likely to be important factors that determine the adoption and use of participatory budgeting in the region

Over-bureaucratisation in public procurement: purposes and results

Most countries spend large sums of money (10 to 15% of their GDP) to procure goods, services and other work from private suppliers. Given this large public procurement market, it is clear that poor procurement practices might hinder sustainable development and negatively impact public finances and economic growth. This article uses data from the Czech Republic and Slovakia to show that these countries’ procurement systems are over-bureaucratised, and tries to identify the causes and results of such a situation. Our findings confirm that the systems investigated are characterised by legislation that is both too detailed and frequently amended, and an administrative culture that prefers compliance to performance. With over-bureaucratisation, procurement officials opt for a Rechtsstaat administrative culture of “bureaucratic safety” that generates excessive levels of passive waste of public resources

Ekonomski aspekti lokalnog upravljanja otpadom: Češka Republika i Slovačka

This paper provides data from our long-term research about municipal waste management in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Three issues are the covered – scale and results from contracting out, impact of competition of costs (the relationship between the unfair competition and municipal waste cost in the Czech Republic), and economies of scale in the Czech Republic. From the point of view of forms of waste management service, despite the methodological problems, the research does not confirm priority of contracting out and suggests that the decisions about the best form of local service provision should respect local conditions and not any universal pattern. The authors also show that lack of competition is one of the main causes of the limited results obtained by contracting. The specific data from the South Moravian Region and the Pardubice Region have shown that results of competitive environment analysis could be affected by the existence of cartel. The results of the analysis of the economies of scale in waste management in the Czech Republic indicate that the bottom of the cost curve is to be found at about 2,000 inhabitants. Moreover, the cost curve in the Czech Republic is not a classic U-shaped curve. The U-shaped curve appears only for small municipalities, and disappears for larger settlements.U radu se prezentiraju podaci dugoročnog istraživanja lokalnog upravljanja otpadom u Češkoj Republici i Slovačkoj. Tri su pitanja u žarištu interesa: raširenost i rezultati vanjskog ugovaranja (contracting out), učinci natjecanja na troškove (odnos između nepoštenog natjecanja i troškova lokalnog otpada u Češkoj Republici) te ekonomija razmjera u Češkoj Republici. S gledišta oblika zbrinjavanja otpada, usprkos određenim metodološkim problemima, naše istraživanje ne potvrđuje da je vanjsko ugovaranje najbolje rješenje, već sugerira da odluka o obliku pružanja te lokalne usluge treba uvažiti lokalne uvjete a ne neko univerzalno rješenje. Također smo pokazali da je jedan od glavnih faktora koji dovode do graničenih rezultata vanjskog ugovaranja – manjkavost tržišnog natjecanja. Podaci iz dviju regija, Južne Moravske i Pardubica, pokazuju da rezultati analize natjecateljskog okruženja mogu biti iskrivljeni zbog postojanja kartela. Rezultati analize ekonomije razmjera u upravljanju otpadom u Češkoj Republici pokazuju da je donja točka krivulje troškova već na razini 2.000 stanovnika. Štoviše, krivulja troškova u Češkoj Republici nije klasičnog U-oblika. Krivulja U-oblika pojavljuje se jedino kod malih jedinica, dok kod većih nestaje

Inclusion by Co-Production of Social Housing: The Slovak Experience

The field of social housing is one of many subjected to the potentials of co-production. Specifically, the Sustainable Development Goals target 11.1 is “By 2030, ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums”. The current Slovak “State Housing Policy Concept to 2020”, among others, defines specific objectives, e.g. increasing or at least maintaining the same share of public expenditure on housing, introducing a new housing allowance, and supporting the development of the non-profit sector in housing provision. The goal of this article is to investigate to what extent co-production – as joint working of the public, private for profit and private not-for profit sectors – has the capacity to address the gap in the provision of social housing in the Slovak Republic. Using the method of case study, the scale and forms of co-production in social housing are investigated and the key factors and barriers of co-production in this area are analysed. The authors suggest that co-production of social housing is the most efficient method of delivery of social housing, improves sustainability, and helps to include the beneficiaries into society. However, this approach requires extra energy from the stakeholders – especially from public officials – and is thus still rarely used in practice

Telework in Public Sector Organizations: The Slovak National Library

Reforms of government and public administration combined with use of information and communications technologies (ICT) have brought many innovations in public sector, including telework as a form of organizing and performing work out of the employers´ premises. This structural change in work organization aims at increasing efficiency and in some cases, economy, too. The authors used qualitative and quantitative approach based on original survey data from own research, including data collected within the LIPSE project. Main findings point out the factors that influence the use of telework in the conditions of Slovakia in a selected public sector organization, e.g. the social, technological and inter-institutional dynamics factors playing a vital role in telework adoption