Tea For Two

Flýtilyklar

Valmynd
Meginmál
Deildarval

Finnish local authorities

In Finland, local authorities or municipalities play a highly influential role in society. On a European scale, Finnish local authorities are responsible for an exceptionally wide variety of duties. Local authorities provide services for the residents, and welfare services are among the most important responsibilities. The most important services relate to:

· social welfare

· health care, education

· environment and technical infrastructure.

Success factors for local authorities include efficient regional co-operation, industrial policy and educational services of a high international standard. ITservices are continuously developed, and the residents use them actively.Public decision making in Finland is transparent, and the residents are actively involved. In local government, the preparation for decision making takes place openly, giving residents the opportunity to exert influence. There are currently in 2007 416 municipalities in Finland, the majority of them relatively small. 43 of them are bilingual and 19 Swedish-speaking. Some of the smallest municipalities have only a few hundred inhabitants, whilst the capital, Helsinki, has half a million. One in five, one million Finns, live in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. After Helsinki, the biggest cities in Finland are Espoo, Tampere, Vantaa, Turku, Oulu, Lahti, Kuopio, Jyväskylä and Pori.A significant project to restructure local government and services is in progress in Finland, the municipalities will merge and the number of them is diminishing.

Local self-government

Local government in Finland is based on local self-government by the people. The central features of local self-government are safeguarded in the Finnish Constitution:

· The residents elect the supreme decision-making body, the municipal council.

· The council has the general decision making authority in local affairs. In addition, the local authorities have certain specified responsibilities.

· The local authorities have the power to make financial decisions, based on the right to levy taxes.

· Local government is separate from central government, and the municipal bodies are partly independent of the state. Municipal administration is based on the Local Government Act, which governs how municipalities may organise their administration. The Local Government Act is based on recognising the diversity of municipalities. It secures the residents’ welfare in a democratic manner.

Municipal management system

The Finnish municipal management system is characterised by division into political and professional management. The local authorities can organise the municipal administration relatively freely. Each municipality must have a municipal council, a municipal board, an auditing committee for auditing municipal administration and finance, and an election committee that is responsible for organising elections. A municipality must also have a municipal manager, elected by the municipal council. The municipal manager is not a member of the local council.

· The municipal council expresses the will of the residents. It lays down the general operative and financial outlines and decides on the main objectives. The council is a future-oriented strategic director that defines long-term objectives and goals.

· The municipal board is responsible for municipal administration and financial management. It prepares matters to be decided by the council, executes the decisions and watches over their legality. The board’s responsibilities are more practical than those of the council. Municipal boards hold a strong administrative position in Finland.

· There may be committees working under the municipal board. The committees perform the permanent duties assigned by the municipal council. The responsibilities of the committees may include, for example, social and health care services, education, urban planning, environment and cultural and leisure services.

· The municipal manager works under the municipal board as the head of municipal administration, financial management and other functions. Finland is taking the first steps towards a mayor system based on elected officials. In connection with the revision of the Local Government Act, propositions have been made to establish the mayor model by legislation.

Municipal elections every four years

The municipal council’s power is delegated by the residents in direct, secret and proportional elections, held every four years. The number of councillors is proportional to the population of the municipality and may vary from 17 to 85. In the municipal elections of 2004, the number of elected council members totalled 11 966. Changes in population and municipal mergers will result in a decrease in the number of councillors over the next few years.

Municipal personnel

In total, the local and joint authorities in Finland employ nearly 430 000 people, which constitutes one-fifth of Finland’s entire workforce. In comparison, the state only employs some 124 000 people at its various levels. Due to the demographic age imbalance in Finland, it is estimated that by 2020 half of the current personnel will retire. This leaves municipalities competing against one another for employees. The most common positions in the municipal sector are nurses, practical nurses, teachers and doctors. Besides these, other substantial groups include kindergarten teachers, family day care providers, municipal home-helpers, firemen and property maintenance operatives. The municipal personnel in Finland is divided sector-wise as:

Health care 30 %
Education and culture 27 %
Social welfare services 26 %
Municipal enterprises and services 5 %
Community planning and public works 4 %
General administration 4 %
Real estate 2 %
Public order 2 %

Regional administration

Regional administration in Finland encompasses State regional administration and regional administration within local self-government. State regional authorities perform tasks allotted to them by central government at regional level and direct the activities of State local administration. The main regional authorities are the six State Provincial Offices, fifteen Employment and Economic Development Centres, thirteen Regional Environment Centres and the nine regional offices of the Finnish Road Administration. In addition, a large number of district authorities operate in different administrative Municipalities may establish a separate organization in a form of a Joint Municipal Board to organize specific functions such as providing educational, social or health care services. There are over 200 joint municipal boards.

The 19 mainland regions in Finland, Regional Councils, are also joint municipal boards, intermunicipal joint authorities formed by their member municipalities. In addition the autonomous province of Åland forms one region. Regional councils are compulsory for all the municipalities as a way of regional municipal co-operation. Their statutory tasks are regional policy and regional physical planning.