Commonwealth Local Government Forum

Local government service delivery

Equitable and efficient service delivery is at the heart of local government’s mandate. The resources in this section focus on the management and delivery of key strategic, corporate and technical services, ranging from those for which local government has direct responsibility, to shared service provision, and services for which local government is a partner.

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Public service delivery in South Africa: The political influence at local government level

This paper analyses poor service delivery at local government level, which is attributed to the politicisation of administrative components in municipalities, resulting in poor local governance. The public service delivery system has been perceived as one of the most important ways of reducing poverty through poverty alleviation programmes. As part of the South African government's cooperative system, key stakeholders in municipalities ought to adopt an integrated approach to public service delivery. An integrated approach to public service delivery demands that local municipalities, together with relevant stakeholders, integrate processes and services to ensure effective and efficient service delivery. This ultimately will result in an improved standard of living and sustainable livelihood for communities. With regard to public service delivery, local municipalities have the obligation of creating income opportunities people, especially the poor, with the sole aim of contributing towards poverty reduction and the realisation of the expectations of people, as stated in the South African government's White Paper of transforming public service delivery. The political interface in local municipalities greatly affects effective and efficient administration, as well as growth opportunities. Administrators, therefore, have the important function of ensuring that explicit assignments of objectives and administrative functions are wholly separated from the policymaking activities of government. This paper, therefore, suggests that municipalities adopt the merit system and abandon the spoils system that is highly characterised by political favours and political interferences. Political favours and interferences are dominant in local South African government, and they hinder the process of providing services equally.

Author: Mfundo Mandla Masuku, Nokukhanya Noqiniselo Jili Publisher: Journal of Public Affairs Publication year: 2019


Service Agreement Templates

These templates are meant to act as guides for organizizng a service agreement. Clauses will need to be altered, added and deleted to ensure that the agreement is best suited to fit the unique needs of your community. For example, the payment section of the template is only a suggestion; parties may wish to structure their payment for services differently based on the desired level of services and needs. Communications Protocol TemplateWater and Wastewater Service Agreement TemplateSolid Waste Service Agreement TemplateFire Protection Service Agreement TemplateRecreation Service Agreement TemplateComprehensive Service Agreement TemplateTransit Service Agreement TemplateAnimal Control Service Agreement Template

Author: Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Publisher: Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Publication year: 2018


Water Security Challenges of South and South East Asia: Mainstreaming Local Governance Institutions

In the backdrop of the growing concerns of increasing water security in the larger Asian, especially South and South East Asian (S&SEA) context, this paper examines the major water security challenges as well vulnerability of the countries in the region towards water-scarcity induced problems. It is observed that the water security concerns in the S&SEA region emerge from a host of factors that are attributed to growing populations, urbanization, industrial development and the nascent climate change induced threats. Apparently, all these factors continue to remain quite virulent in the future as well despite earnest efforts among individual countries to overcome many of these developmental issues through appropriate policies as well as adaptation and mitigation strategies. Following an analysis of the status of water across S&SEA and other countries, the paper makes a critical look at the major water security challenges as emerge from the empirical literature. Since water security issues are increasingly becoming potent affecting the sustainable livelihoods of human and cattle population as well as the survival of the environmental and ecosystems, it is all the more important that the countries concerned are to be highly sensitive and responsive in terms of mainstreaming the local governance, institutions and community based as well as other local development agencies for protecting and conserving the water resource systems. In this regard, the paper brings out the imperatives of evolving strategies for strengthening the ties between local institutions (state operated, private, and community/civil society based) as well as national governments?and?or?international/cross-border NGOs in?the regional context of  the S&SEA to address the water security challenges from a multi-stakeholder, multi-sectoral perspectives. This essentially calls for constant interactions between countries as well as regions within a country, to use or the locally suited institutional models to address the multiple problems of access to water as well as strengthening the economic, political and financial capabilities of the local institutions to achieve the SDGs

Author: P .K. Viswanathan and Chandra Sekhar Bahinipati Publisher: Asian Profile Journal Publication year: 2017


Australian Infrastructure Financial Management Guidelines

The Institute of Public Works Engineering Australia (IPWEA) has recently published the Australian Infrastructure Financial Management Guidelines. The Guidelines provide new assistance to link the technical (engineering) and financial aspects of managing infrastructure and services, and to assist infrastructure owners such as local government to develop sustainable long-term asset and financial management plans. Financial management for long-life infrastructure assets (such as roads, water, sewerage, and stormwater networks, and community buildings) is about ensuring sustainability in the provision of services required by the community. These new Guidelines offer advice for every organisation and individual with responsibility for the management of infrastructure assets. 

Author: Chris Champion Publisher: Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance Publication year: 2009


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