Project Title: IMC1 (Inter-municipal Partnerships for Improved Public Service Quality)

Location: Bosilovo, Vasilevo and Novo Selo

Short description:

The project aimed to contribute to the improvement of the quality of public services provision at a local level through the enhancement of inter-municipal cooperation. The project activities had been structured to provide support for establishing specialized joint department in the area of inspection in the Municipality of Bosilovo, tax administration in the Municipality of Vasilevo, and urban planning in the Municipality of Novo Selo.  These departments provide services for all citizens from the three municipalities, while ensuring that citizens have access to those services in their municipality. Additionally, the project supported establishment of another two joint competencies – Internal audit and IT. Also, the project activities were aimed towards establishing of citizen service centre’s in each municipality to provide services by internet but also through other mechanisms, provision of models and web-based solutions for access to information and networking among the three municipalities.

Corporate thematic area: Decentralization

Status of the project: Completed

Donor: Government of the Kingdom of Norway

Period of the project: September 2006 – September 2009

UNDP Programme Officer: Mihaela Stojkoska

Information about partners:

The Ministry of Local Self Government is the principal partner of the project.

Benefits from the Project:

The three partnering municipalities Bosilovo, Vasilevo and Novo Selo directly benefited from establishment of the three fully functional joint departments for delivery of decentralized public services in area of inspection, tax administration and urban planning. In addition to these, the project supported establishment of two additional joint competencies – Internal audit and IT. These joint departments offer more efficient and economic public services. In case these three municipalities have had established independent departments, expenditures for additional 24 employees (based on the positive legal requirements) would have been approximately 230.400 Euro (75.000-80.000 Euro per municipality annually).  Should the municipalities have decided not to have IMC for delivery of joint services there were two possible scenarios: 1) Municipalities would have had a vacuum in delivery of public services, since their budgets could not afford to employ so many municipal staff; 2) Provided that municipalities coped to make available funds for employment of the necessary personnel, it would have had a negative impact on the execution of the other municipal functions.

Also, fully equipped and functional three Citizen Service Centres which are serving as front offices for more than 40.000 inhabitants from the territory of the three municipalities is significant benefit for the municipalities and their citizens. Through these Centres citizens advantage more transparent and accountable municipal leadership and administration, more efficient, higher quality and faster public services, and improved responsiveness to the solution of their problems by utilising the savings deriving from the joint administration.

Achievements:

• Completed IT infrastructure in the three municipalities;
• Methodology and tools for implementation of the organizational design were developed. Functional analysis, organizational structure and job description for the staff in the Citizen Service Centres were prepared; In-depth functional analysis was carried out;
• Comprehensive registration of the taxpayer’s real estate and update of the taxpayer’s database for about 10.000 tax payers’ real estates was supported on the territory of the three municipalities;
• An additional module for urban planning software has been developed and installed;
• The project has supplied the three municipalities with vehicles to allow for better mobility of the personnel;
• Study tour to the Republic of Greece was organized for the representatives of the three municipalities in order to visit the citizen service centres in the Greek municipalities, which are considered as one of the most advanced in Europe in terms of efficiency and variety of services provided and to learn from their practice;
• The three municipalities were supported in the launching of better conditions for more sustainable future development;
• The inter-municipal cooperation was expanded with two additional joint services in 2008 - joint IT officer, hosted by Municipality of Novo Selo and joint internal auditor, hosted by Municipality of Vasilevo;
• Citizen Service Centers (CSC) were established, launched and fully operational in the three municipalities
• In the period May 2008 – January 2009, through Citizen Service Centres over 2000 services have been delivered, most of them processed by the joint tax, urbanism and inspection departments. The services delivered per municipality up to now are as follows: Vasilevo 700, Bosilovo 904 and Novo Selo 321;
• Front offices (Citizen Service Centres) and the respective back offices (joint tax, urbanism and inspection departments) were electronically integrated into a single Document Management System, which was customised for the specific needs of this Inter-municipal cooperation.
• Study visit to Bulgaria was carried out where a discussion forum on Inter-municipal cooperation and utilization of EU fund was organized by the Association of Southeast municipalities (BG) with the participation of mayors, representatives of ministries and municipal experts from both countries.
• The Inter-municipal cooperation of the Municipalities Bosilovo, Vasilevo and Novo Selo has been promoted at the international IMC conference in Italy, in Bulgaria, at the municipal fair in Germany as well as in the country. This IMC practice represents a row model for the rest of the rural municipalities in the country.
• Provided technical assistance to the Ministry of Local Self-government in preparation of a Handbook on Inter-Municipal cooperation and in developing the draft Law on Inter-municipal Cooperation;
• For 2008 the project was awarded as a best practice in the category of improved quality of local services by Council of Europe, ZELS, European Agency for Reconstruction, USAID and Ministry of Local Self-government.