Strasbourg, 16 November 2012                                                             CDLR(2012)25

Item E1 of the agenda

                                                                                                                         

EUROPEAN COMMITTEE ON LOCAL AND REGIONAL DEMOCRACY

(CDLR)

CENTRE OF EXPERTISE ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM

Update on activities

For information and guidance

Secretariat Memorandum

prepared by the

Directorate of Democratic Governance, Culture and Diversity

Democracy, Institution-Building and Governance Department

This document is public. It will not be distributed at the meeting. Please bring this copy.

Ce document est public. Il ne sera pas distribué en réunion. Prière de vous munir de cet exemplaire.

Introduction

This document gives a preliminary overview of the activities of the Centre of Expertise for Local Government Reform provided to member States’ governments and local authorities in the year 2012 and presents prospects for 2013.

Action required

CDLR members are invited to:

• take note of the information provided in the Appendix in respect of the activity in 2012;
• formulate suggestions for the future activity of the Centre in 2013.

APPENDIX

CAPACITY BUILDING AND LEGAL ASSISTANCE IN 2012

I.         CAPACITY BUILDING - THE CENTRE OF EXPERTISE FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT     REFORM

          Overview

In 2012, the Centre will have implemented (the equivalent of) 29 programmes in 20 countries, which is a positive achievement and a good level of activity.  Although the operational budget for the Centre was reduced by more than a third in 2012, the Centre was able to compensate for this shortfall by successfully attracting extra-budgetary funding.  Nevertheless, the level of activity for 2012 is slightly under that of 2011 when the Centre’s activity reached a peak; however, this is more to do with the fact that the four activities envisaged for 2012 in Malta and one activity each in Belgium and Turkey were postponed to 2013 rather than because of the diminished operational budget of the Centre. 

The extra-budgetary funding for the Centre came in the context of Joint Programmes with the European Commission, Voluntary Contributions by member states and co-funding by other partners. In 2012, the Centre of Expertise, despite its small size, continued to be the unit of the Council of Europe which had attracted the largest volume of Voluntary Contributions.

In general, the programmes offered by the Centre are well received and successful and the Centre has raised interest among, and obtained commitment and support for its work from the municipalities and associations in a large number of countries.

In 2012, the Centre implemented its first fully-fledged pan-European programme: the Best Practice for Coastal Towns, following an initiative of the President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities and in co-operation with the Congress and the Local Government Association of England.

In a further sign of the increasing cooperation with Congress, the Centre also offered support for the monitoring visit of the Congress to Ukraine. It prepared a report on the State of Democracy in Albania, which should be helpful for the monitoring that will be conducted by the Congress in this country at the end of the year. The common programme Centre of Expertise – Congress for Albania received a generous voluntary contribution from Switzerland and is already underway.

An initiative is currently being discussed for Tunisia (and possibly further down the line for other “Arab Spring” countries).

The Centre also finalised new toolkits, addressing issues which have been raised in the field during the activity implemented in previous years: leadership development, human resources management and cross-border/transfrontier co-operation.  The new publication strategy of the Council of Europe will see the toolkits made available in electronic format, although the HRM toolkit will also be available in paper format.

In 2012, in co-operation with the Management Centre of Innsbruck, the Centre organised a regional seminar based on the Leadership Academy Toolkit for local officials from Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Italy and a Training of Trainers on the same topic in Bellinzona (Switzerland).

The Centre also provided targeted support to the promotional activities of the Strategy for Innovation and Good Governance (organisation of meetings, presentation of the benchmark, legal advice).

The following list sums up the activities for 2012.

Development and publication of tools

Finalisation and publication of the new Toolkit on human resources management Finalisation of the Toolkit on Leadership Development in Local Authorities (based on the tools developed for the Leadership Academy Programme) Development of a new Toolkit on Cross-Border Co-operation (in co-operation with the Nordic Council)

Country-specific programmes

Albania

Stage one of the project on strengthening local democracy successfully completed.

Follow-up programme on

Human resources management

Inter-Municipal Cooperation

Armenia

Support with strategic municipal planning to the City of Yerevan and other Armenian Cities

Austria

Regional training on Leadership and Strategy for Good Governance (Innsbruck)

KDZ prepared an application for ELOGE.

Belgium

Performance management

Bulgaria

Leadership Academy

Croatia

The CoE-UNDP-LGI Toolkit on Inter-municipal co-operation wasadapted to the Croatian environment. In April 2012, Croatian Association of Municipalities organized first training for local officials based on the updated Toolkit and planned to offer the IMC training on a regular basis.

France

5 training sessions on performance management for INET

Co-operation with the French National School of Administration (ENA) on the Serbian project

Training on local government and capacity building in Europe to the Strasbourg Institute of Political Studies (IEP).

Georgia

Follow-up to the Strategic Municipal planning Programme

Germany

Promotion of the European Label for Innovation and Good Governance – ELOGE (in the Land of Bade-Württemberg)

Hungary

Best Practice programme

Leadership Academy programme

Italy

Inter-Municipal Co-operation

Malta

National Training Strategy

Assistance to finalise a capacity-building project for local government authorities (to be funded by Norway grants). The project should be launched in 2013 and will contain the following components:

·Training needs analysis and strategy*

·Leadership Academy*

·Performance Management*

·Strategy for Innovation and Good Governance

Moldova

Best Practice Programme

Montenegro

Local Leadership Academy programme

Russian Federation

Cross-border Co-operation Programme (North-West Russia)

Chechnya

Three seminars, namely Seminar on ensuring equal treatment of interests between towns and rural settlements in the work of  local authorities at regional level; Seminar on the optimisation of the work of local self-government  in the rural settlements of the Northern Caucasus region: experience, best practices and current challenges (an event open to all North Caucasus federal entities) and Seminar on the interaction of NGOs with public authorities (federal, regional and local levels)

Serbia

Performance Management*

Human Resources Management*

Kosovo[1]*

In co-operation with the Association of Kosovo Municipalities, the first round of the Best Practice Programme was launched in June 2012.

Spain

Support to the implementation of the Strategy (with the participation of French pilot cities of Label)

Switzerland

Best Practice Programme

In co-operation with the Ticino Training Centre for Local Authorities (CFEL) a 4-day training of trainers on “Leadership Academy Programme” (LAP) was organized. Trainers and experts in the field of local government from five member States (Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Malta and Ukraine) attended the ToT.

Turkey

In cooperation with the Union of Turkish Municipalities Centre of Expertise completed the first round of the Leadership Leadership Academy Programme for 25 women deputies and councillors.

Preparatory activities were implemented for launching the Best Practice Programme which is expected to be officially announced early 2013.

Ukraine

Follow-up to the Public Ethics Benchmarking Programme*

Best Practice Programme*

Performance Management Programme*

Local Finance Benchmarking*

Leadership Academy Programme*

Support to the implementation of the Strategy

Local Government Associations Programme*

(over 30 various activities, including study trips)

New website: http://scaleup.org.ua/ua/

Multilateral

Best Practice in Coastal Towns

* Programmes implemented with financial support from the EC or from member States

II.       ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME - THE PROGRAMMES FOR DEMOCRATIC STABILITY

In 2012, the demand for assistance programmes was stable. The Centre delivered substantial support in Ukraine (as part of an on-going programme funded by Sweden to end in December 2012), Serbia and Armenia.

The following list presents the main results of the legal assistance in various countries in 2012. It does not refer to activities because of lack of space.

Armenia

                                                     

Legal expertise has been provided on

-the draft law on “Community Residents’ participation in local affairs” which is prepared in view of Armenia’s envisaged ratification of the Additional Protocol to the Charter. Armenia has been on the first countries to sign the Additional Protocol and pending its ratification, necessary legislative changes are in preparation accompanied by the active assistance of the CoE.

-envisaged amendments in the Basic Law on Self-Government regarding the revision of competences of Armenian municipalities

- approaches for developing a policy of intermunicipal cooperation and encouraging mergers of separate municipalities.

Bosnia Herzegovina

Expert participation on the inter-agency working group on local government reform was secured throughout the year.

Moldova

Assistance to the implementation of the Strategy for Decentralisation

Montenegro

Together with the Ministry of Interior a proposal for a prospective joint programme between the EU and the CoE was developed: it targets in particular sectoral harmonisation of legislation in the area of local self-government.

Serbia

Several different outputs (legal appraisals, contributions, reports, recommendations) in the fields of:

Institutional framework for local governments

Financial arrangements and financial decentralisation

Co-ordination mechanisms and decentralisation strategy

Citizen participation

Municipal Property.

Ukraine

Preparation and finalisation of the draft Concept of LSG reform

Support to the Constitutional revision

Support to IMC (legal and practical)

Legal appraisals: draft laws on IMC, on local initiatives, on unification of territorial communities, on local government reform, on municipal service, on constitutional amendments, etc.

Study trips to France, Sweden, and Norway

Over 30 different events, roundtables and workshops. 

New website: http://www.slg-coe.org.ua/

III.      PROSPECTS FOR 2013 AND BEYOND

The programme on legal assistance in Ukraine (funded by Sweden) will close down at the end of 2013 but there are follow-up possibilities. The Joint Programme with the European Commission in Serbia will end late December 2012 but a new joint programme is being negotiated with a likely start in Spring 2013 till 2016. Other than Serbia and Ukraine, negotiations are at an advanced stage regarding possible new programes in Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Russian Federation and Turkey.

The new and ambitious capacity-building programme for Malta, including four different components, should start in early 2013. This programme will be funded by a Norwegian EEA grant offered directly to Maltese authorities.

The Centre has received an expression of interest for a potential programme in Tunisia and is currently in discussions with ODG PROG in order to develop and offer a common programme with the Congress which could include both a reforme - agenda and a technical component.

Municipalities in Greece, Spain and Portugal have also shown interest in implementing a programme based on the Benchmarks on Local Finance. CEMR has expressed its support for, and interest in, participating in such programme. NALAS is also interested in extending the implementation of this programme to two more countries from SE Europe. It is to be hoped that this programme will be funded through a joint financial effort (EEA Norway grants, OSI grant and Ordinary Budget).

However, in 2013 the Centre of Expertise will operate with significantly reduced staff: two positions paid by the Ordinary Budget expired in 2012 and the two secondments currently benefitting the Centre of Expertise will also expire in June and December 2013 respectively. Therefore,  even if one or two of the current programmes under negotiation for extra-budgetary funding gets the green light to start in 2013, the overall level of activity of the Centre of Expertise is expected to decrease slightly.