Strasbourg, 24 September 2010 CDLR(2010)31
Item 4.4.4 of the agenda
EUROPEAN COMMITTEE ON LOCAL AND REGIONAL DEMOCRACY
(CDLR)
CENTRE OF EXPERTISE FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM
For information
Secretariat Memorandum
prepared by the Directorate General of
Democracy and Political Affairs
Directorate of Democratic Institutions
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Introduction
Created at the beginning of 2006 following the decision of the Third Summit of Heads of State and Government and confirmed in May 2008 by decision of the Committee of Ministers, the Centre of Expertise for Local Government Reform aims at building capacity in local authorities throughout Europe by the use of impact-oriented programmes.
This document contains a brief overview of the activities implemented so far and still planned for 2010 (Appendix I).
At its meeting on 6 July 2010, the Advisory Board adopted the annual report for 2009 with a message to the Committee of Ministers. The report – of which the Ministers’ Deputies are expected to take note at their 1095th meeting, on 13 October 2010 – is reproduced as an Addendum to this document.
The Board also had an initial discussion based on the list of suggestions for reforming the Centre’s structures, working methods and prioritising of its interventions. The discussion will be resumed at the next meeting of the Board, presumably in early 2011.
Action required
The CDLR is invited to take note of the information provided in the Appendix to this document and make any suggestion it deems appropriate in respect of the Centre’s programmes.
Appendix
The Centre of Expertise in 2010
In 2010, the Centre has continued to respond to a constant or even growing demand for programmes arising from member states. It does so with a view to matching the expectations of the European ministers responsible for local and regional government who, in the “Utrecht Agenda” highlighted it as one of the main strands of the overall work, which the representatives of ministers, members of the CDLR, are instructed to support and encourage.
In administrative terms, however, following the appointment of the new Head of the Centre, one permanent administrator’s post will be transferred to the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights (as from 1 January 2011). In the interval, the post is vacant. This obviously has an impact on the capacity of the Centre to respond to all the demands it receives with a reduced workforce.
The Head of the Centre having also the responsibility for the (legislative and policymaking) co-operation programmes, more horizontal co-operation between the two operational sectors and possibly some form of integration of work is being developed. While assistance programmes are mainly aimed at central authorities and not at local authorities themselves, capacity building for local authorities and legislative/policy assistance on institutional reforms have common points and re-enforce each other. There is value also in trying to integrate, to a degree to be examined more closely, the two teams: economies of scale, especially in staff travel time and costs, would be obtained if both types of activities were managed, in a given country, by the same staff member.
The Centre’s support to the implementation of the Strategy for Innovation and Good Governance at Local Level will continue by addressing the specific needs of countries engaged in the Strategy.
The following two criteria have been used for selecting programmes to be implemented in 2010:
- first, programmes where the impact is highest through budgetary leverage offered by local or other partners or the guarantees as to the sustainability of the programme; typically, the Centre will fund the general management and expertise (one fourth to one third of the total costs) of the programme, while the local partner will need to finance all operational costs;
- second, programmes which are a follow-up of the implementation of the Strategy for Innovation and Good Governance at Local Level.
The following tables present an overview of the activity envisaged for 2010.
Development of tools
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- Publication of the new toolkit on performance management and municipal planning - Publication (possibly in the same toolkit) of the tool developed for the Leadership Academy Programme; - Preparation of the first version of a new tool/toolkit on human resources management |
Country-specific programmes
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Albania - Human resources management - Inter-municipal Co-operation - Support to implementation of territorial planning Armenia - Up-date of the National Training Strategy - Support with municipal planning to the City of Yerevan Belgium - Performance management Bulgaria - Public Ethics Croatia - Inter-municipal co-operation France - Several activities in co-operation with INET (citizen participation and strategic management), Lille (Digital City) and OPPALE (piloting a working group) and Bordeaux (conference on the Strategy and performance management) Georgia - Strategic Municipal planning Programme Hungary - Best Practice programme Malta - Performance Management - Inter-municipal co-operation |
Russian Federation - Inter-municipal Co-operation Programme Chechnya - Five preparatory activities (leadership, performance, planning, assistance to drafting city statutes and financial management) Serbia - Performance Management - Human Resources Management Spain - Citizen participation Switzerland - Best Practice Programme in the Ticino canton “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” - Performance Management Programme Turkey - Leadership Academy Programme Ukraine - Follow-up to the Public Ethics Benchmarking Programme - Best Practice Programme - Performance Management Programme |