Preliminary communication
Can Small Localities Perform? Trends in Administrative Capacity in Slovenian Municipalities
Miro Haček
orcid.org/0000-0003-1339-067X
; Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Irena Bačlija
; Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Abstract
The issue of economies of scale in many local services leads to amalgamation reforms that should provide economic viability for local governments. Larger local governments thus should be able to provide more functions, which may lead to more public interest and participation in local politics. However, many countries have small local governments, pursuing advantages of smallness. Slovenia is one of them. Slovenian municipalities are about average size in comparison to European Union average, but are extremely heterogeneous in size. The smallest local governments have to provide all local tasks and services stipulated by law as the largest ones. Although it seems that the main problem of the Slovene municipalities is their size, or at least of the majority of them, there are some indices that this could be overcome without amalgamation. This paper explores entrepreneurial ethos of directors of municipal administrations, coupled with informatization of the municipal administrations and state financial support for merging municipal administrations, that could be the important features in overcoming the problem of municipality size. The paper concludes that Slovenian
municipal administrations are still very understaffed since the number of current employees does not suit the range of tasks they have to perform, whereby municipalities are aware of the limited employment prospects. The use of modern organisational and administrative tools in Slovenian municipal administrations has not yet become a permanent feature of the majority of municipalities, while communication with citizens through e-tools is slowly becoming a standard. The only visible entrepreneurial principle is the consideration of citizens’ suggestions in the management of a municipality as the directors hold on to the classical
bureaucratic stance on other issues.
Keywords
local government; administrative capacity; local administration; local services; municipalities
Hrčak ID:
129602
URI
Publication date:
4.3.2014.
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