Municipal administrative restructuring in non-metropolitan areas: final report

Abstract

Three themes are addressed here: (1) The restructuring of municipal head offices, and the achievement of strategic planning and inter-departmental co-operation at this level (2) The role of outlying offices (satellite towns) in promoting community-based development (3) Relationships between municipalities and their residents (i.e. client service). The concrete innovations described in this paper may be regarded as the early stages of implementing a strategic management paradigm, which focuses on outputs, outcomes, customer-oriented delivery, and development management. In the final section of the paper, it is argued that international comparisons regarding municipal restructuring should be undertaken. A typology of possible municipal re-structuring is presented. It should be noted that municipal administrative restructuring goes a long way beyond the three themes discussed in this paper, and should include alternative service delivery (e.g. outsourcing of functions, public-pubic partnerships, etc). However, these themes are dealt with by other teams in the ODA network, and will not be discussed here. Furthermore, it is argued in the final section, that achieving strategic management is probably more important, in the short-term, than pursuing more ambitious market-oriented styles of management.