Strasbourg, 18 March 2014 CDDG(2014)4
Item 4 of the agenda
EUROPEAN COMMITTEE ON DEMOCRACY AND GOVERNANCE
(CDDG)
STRATEGY FOR INNOVATION AND GOOD GOVERNANCE
AT LOCAL LEVEL
For guidance and action
Secretariat Memorandum
prepared by the
Directorate of Democratic Governance
Democratic Institutions and Governance Department
________________________________________________
Introduction
The Strategy for Innovation and Good Governance was endorsed in 2007 by the Ministers responsible for local and regional government of the Member States of the Council of Europe at the Valencia Ministerial Conference in October 2007. The Committee of Ministers adopted the Strategy in 2008. Since then, the Council of Europe has promoted this Strategy and the associated European Label of Governance Excellence (ELoGE) as a learning tool in all Member States.
The Strategy is piloted by a Council of Europe’s Stakeholders’ Platform (SHP), which includes representatives from the Committee of Ministers, the Parliamentary Assembly, the CDDG, the Congress and the Conference of International NGOs[1].
The SHP follows and gives guidance to the implementation of the Strategy and the ELoGE label. It approves the application by States that wish to commit themselves to the Strategy and to establish a national (regional) platform to oversee the granting of ELoGE.
So far only five Member States have either formally adopted or otherwise implemented the Strategy: Belgium, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Norway and Ukraine. Only Bulgaria and Norway have taken a definitive decision to implement the ELoGE. Since 2010, the ELoGE label has been awarded to 33 local authorities in these two countries.
In several countries (Austria, France, Germany, Romania, Spain) local and central authorities have shown interest for the label but the requirements of the accreditation procedure and the need for political involvement from the side of the government and the local government associations have hindered the process of acceding to the label. In Norway too a critical reappraisal of the Strategy took place.
In view of the above, the Secretariat conducted a reappraisal of the implementation of the Strategy and prepared proposals for simplification and improvements to the procedures (see Appendix I).
After the informal meeting of the Council of Europe Stakeholders’ Platform[2] in October 2013, the Ministers’ Deputies held a debate on the future of the Strategy and agreed to entrust “the CDDG, in co-operation with the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe and the other bodies participating in the Stakeholders’ Platform for Innovation and Good Governance, to examine ways of simplifying the tools and procedures used for the promotion of the twelve principles of good democratic governance at local level, as well as means to increase their visibility, and to report to their Rapporteur Group on Democracy (GR-DEM) by the end of 2014.”
The documents prepared for the SHP (see also Appendix II) could constitute the starting point for the CDDG’s work on the examination of ways of simplifying tools and procedures of the Strategy. The CDDG if so wished could have a preliminary consideration of them.
The CDDG may wish also to take into consideration the report of the former CDLR on “Initiatives to strengthen good governance, capacity building and citizen’s democratic participation at local level”.
In order for the CDDG to implement the terms of reference given to it, it is suggested that it appoint a working party of (up to) four members tasked with consulting the other partners (Parliamentary Assembly, Congress, Conference of NGO’s) on the basis of documents already available, and report back to the CDDG at its next meeting. If appropriate, the working party can refer to the CDDG Bureau for advice and guidance, prior to delivering its recommendations.
Action required
The CDDG is invited to:
- appoint four members to sit on the working party on the simplification of tools and procedures for the promotion of the twelve principles;
- task the working party, in consultation with the Parliamentary Assembly, the Congress and the Conference of INGOs, to examine ways of simplifying the tools and procedures for the promotion of the twelve principles;
- submit a draft report ahead of the next meeting of the CDDG thus enabling it to adopt its response to the Committee of Ministers by the end of 2014.
APPENDIX I
Secretariat’s proposals for simplifying the methodology of implementation
of the European Label on Governance Excellence (ELoGE)
The factors highlighted in the evaluation of the Expert (appendix II) show that the current procedures of the ELoGE hinder the implementation of the ELoGE in particular and the promotion of innovation and good governance at the local government level in general.
The Secretariat therefore suggests that the procedures be reconsidered. Based on many discussions with stakeholders at national, regional and local levels in Member States, the Secretariat has developed a number of proposals to change the procedures for the implementation of the ELoGE, including:
1) To transform the national/ regional stakeholders’ platform into a national/regional certification committee.
Originally, the provision for a national/regional stakeholder platform was included in the procedures to ensure a sustainable dialogue between levels of government on the development of good governance.
However, the evaluation shows that the involvement of national/regional levels of government in local governance issues in Member States with a strong local self-government tradition is not helpful. It could even be said that the obligation to establish a national/regional platform is limiting the development of a dialogue and co-operation between levels of government, because it provides no opportunity for bottom-up initiatives to start this dialogue in the first place.
The Secretariat therefore proposes to withdraw the obligation to include a representative of a national or regional ministry responsible for local government in the national or regional stakeholders’ platform[3]. Instead the Secretariat proposes to encourage stakeholders in Member Countries to set up a certification committee at national or regional level which oversees the ELoGE certification process and gives it credibility.
This certification committee must be accredited by the European Stakeholder Platform which means that future applications by national or regional certification committees will be subject to the existing scrutiny procedures. Future certification committees could for example consist of at least two different stakeholders (e.g., an association of local authorities and a university) and its application for accreditation by the Council of Europe should explain how its independence, expertise, transparency and accountability will be guaranteed.
2) To simplify the procedure for agreeing to the Strategy for Innovation and Good Governance.
The current procedures require a signed document or declaration by the respective Member State that clearly certifies the joint undertaking by the national government and the regional/local authorities, transmitted to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe by the Permanent Representation of the Member State involved[4].
In light of the proposal to transform the national/regional stakeholders’ platform into a certification committee at national or regional level, the Secretariat proposes to simplify this procedure: a letter signed by the CDDG member of the country concerned should be transmitted to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe through that country’s Permanent Representation to the Council of Europe.
3) To allow for direct certification by the Council of Europe of local/ regional authorities piloting the ELoGE.
Several regional/national stakeholders expressed their desire to pilot the implementation of the ELoGE at local government level before they commit themselves to setting up the stakeholder platform and seek accreditation by the Council of Europe. However, local authorities were only willing to undertake such a pilot if there was some prospect of obtaining the ELoGE certificate in a timely way afterwards.
In order to encourage the implementation of the ELoGE and the Strategy in Member Countries, the Secretariat proposes that in future the Council of Europe could award the Label directly to pilot local and regional authorities which meet the criteria. This process would be exceptional and would only take place in the initial piloting phase and provided that the candidate municipalities cover evaluation costs.
This would imply that the European Stakeholder Platform, supported by the Secretariat, would have to oversee the certification of local/regional ELoGE pilots in order to carry out quality control and ensure its independence. The assessment of the pilots will be done by external consultants approved by the Secretariat. The awarding of the certificate requires the approval of the European Stakeholder Platform, following a recommendation of the Secretariat. The Secretariat is confident that this new role will be fulfilled within its existing portfolio and that the financial implications would be covered by the existing budget.
Nevertheless, the Secretariat underlines that, in current circumstances, the European Stakeholders Platform can only accept a limited number of pilot applications and therefore the Secretariat proposes to limit the number of pilots to five per Member State.
After five pilots have been awarded the ELoGE label in one Member State, the Secretariat will expect to persuade stakeholders in the Member State to set up a certification committee based on the rules established by the Council of Europe.
4) To instruct the Secretariat to prepare relevant case studies.
In order to prove added value to interested local and regional authorities, the Secretariat will provide case studies which clearly illustrate the reasons why local authorities have decided to apply for and implement ELoGE, the insights they have gained from the self-assessment and external assessments based on ELoGE, and the improvements they have implemented as a result.
This would allow the Secretariat to develop an online ‘Hub of Good Local Governance Practice’ with case studies stating the reasons why the local authorities have decided to implement ELoGE and the benefits they received from it, ideally backed up by video clips with statements from key local stakeholders. Such an empirical database may provide the evidence which has been lacking so far that the benefits of an ELoGe certification are greater than the costs.
5) To enable the Secretariat to facilitate and support learning from ELoGE certified local authorities and ELoGE pilots.
In order to fully use the potential of ELoGE as a driver of the Strategy for Innovation and Good Governance in Member Countries, the Secretariat may facilitate the exchange of good practice and learning between Member Countries. This may range from putting interested local authorities in touch with each other to supporting peer reviews between local authorities or ‘open days’ to enable other local authorities to learn from good practice.
APPENDIX II
Evaluation of the promotion of the ELoGE in Member States
by Ms Elke Loeffler (Governance International), consultant
Evaluating the promotion of the ELoGE in Member States
In last five years the Secretariat has organised many meetings with representatives of central and local government agencies in Member States which showed interest in the ELoGE. The feedback received at these meetings reveals a number of barriers for rolling out ELoGe.
1) At both central and local government levels there is no obvious target group to ‘implement’ ELoGE.
The fact is that only very few public managers have a job title reflecting ‘responsibility for good governance’ which makes it very difficult to ‘market’ this tool. Obviously, good governance may be considered a leadership issue but most elected leaders do not take a strong interest in ‘good governance’ unless a crisis (e.g. corruption case) happens. This is even more the case in times of recession and fiscal pressure, when short-term efficiency savings are considered as the key priority by most leaders and public managers. Nevertheless, there are a number of ‘good governance champions’ in every Member State but they are only likely to take an interest in the ELoGE if the implementation process is not cumbersome and there are obvious benefits in using ELoGE as a learning tool and certification framework.
2) The ELoGE and its 12 Principles are seen as a ‘one size fits all’ approach on the part of the Council of Europe.
In particular, the fact those ALL 12 Principles are binding for all Member States leave central, regional and local government with little flexibility to adapt the ELoGE to their context. For example, while representatives of German local authorities expressed interest in the ELoGE Principle ‘Sustainability and Long-Term Orientation’ (Principle 9) and ‘Sound Financial Management’ (Principle 10), the criterion ‘Fair Conduct of Elections’ which is part of Principle 1 (‘Fair Conduct of Elections, Representation and Participation’) or ‘Rule of Law’ (Principle 5) were not considered to be relevant. However, the fact that the current ELoGE procedures do not allow local authorities to focus on strategically important governance issues, but rather oblige them to invest resources into assessing all 12 Principles, whether relevant or not, reduces the attractiveness of the ELoGE as a learning tool and certification framework significantly.
In particular, the requirement to cover ‘Fair Conduct of Elections’ which is part of Principle 1 is highly problematic. While there is no doubt that this is a key aspect of ‘good governance’ this is not an issue which lends itself to self-assessment by local authorities but rather requires a judicial review. The feedback received from various stakeholders shows that this ‘sub-criterion’ which comes up on top of the list of the 12 ELoGE Principles has a negative impact on the decision of elected local government leaders to consider the use of ELoGE as a learning and certification tool.
The existing requirement to make the certification of local authorities dependent on the formation of a regional or national stakeholder platform, and its accreditation by the Council of Europe, is considered to be a very serious obstacle to its implementation.
The discussions in various Member States indicate two major reasons for this:
Regional and national government representatives in Member Countries stressed the need to pilot the use of the ELoGE at local government level before they committed themselves to setting up the stakeholder platform and seeking accreditation by the Council of Europe. However, local authorities would only being willing to undertake such a pilot if there was a realistic chance for them to obtain the ELoGE certificate within a foreseeable time period after piloting it. Local government leaders showed no willingness to invest staff time and financial resources into a resource-intensive pilot if there are no benefits other than learning, given that there is an abundance of other certification and award schemes in many Member Countries.
The involvement of national/regional government representatives in the ELoGE (and its wider good local governance strategy) proves to be highly problematic in those Member Countries with a strong local self-government tradition, where national/regional government does not wish to be seen to interfere in local government issues. Not surprisingly, it has proved difficult to introduce the ELoGE in Member Countries with strong local self-government, even where there has been strong interest by a number of local authorities in an ELoGE certification. Discussions showed that in those countries/regions with strong local self-government it is unlikely that state representatives will have strong buy-in to or support for ELoGE for legal and political reasons (particularly where they have limited powers justifying any such involvement in a different level of government).
3) Lack of case studies of local authorities which have undergone the certification process.
This means that there is a lack of evidence which can clearly illustrate the reasons why these local authorities have decided to use ELoGE, the insights they have gained from the self-assessment and the external assessments undertaken in the ELoGE process, or the value of the improvements they have been able to implement as a result.
4) ELoGE has to compete against other well-established assessment tools, such as the Common Assessment Framework (CAF), which is strongly promoted by a number of Member Countries and local government associations and is free of charge for public agencies to use.
The fact that the Council of Europe cannot even provide a small ‘kick-off’ fund to help national/regional government justify the costs for developing an infrastructure and marketing outlets to introduce the ELoGE or to incentivise local authorities to use the ELoGE makes it hard to persuade government representatives to buy into the ELoGE. Furthermore, there are no resources provided by the Council of Europe for international exchange and visits between local authorities which have been awarded the ELoGE – if they existed, they would provide another incentive for local authorities to apply for an ELoGE certification.
While other tools like CAF are not specifically adapted to local authorities, there established notoriety is more appealing than a newly established label.
In brief, the ELoGE does not constitute a very attractive offer as it stands at present, even though it has a lot of potential for improving local governance in Member Countries.