Local Public Service Delivery Arrangements in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

Introduction

Public administration reforms in Czech Republic and Slovakia started almost immediately after the ‘Velvet Revolution’ in 1989. From the beginning, decentralization was used as an important reform tool to achieve better performance from the system, bringing positive but also negative results at the same time. The municipal and regional governments are currently responsible for a comprehensive set of public services: local public services, part of the sport, leisure and tourist provisions, children’s homes, some health services, basic social services, primary and secondary education or cultural establishments. Probably the most important remaining problem, limiting the success of decentralization processes in the Czech Republic and Slovakia is significant territorial fragmentation and lacking the financial and managerial capacity to successfully adopt the NPM instruments in public service delivery.

During the socialist period, the local communal public services were part of the so called ‘local economy’. The structure and size of the ‘local economy’ are characterized by Figure 1 and Table 1. Local services were delivered by national committees in accordance with uniform rules as defined by the law and financed partly from the state budget and partly from consumer fees (local enterprises, recycling bodies and housing bodies were self-financing institutions).

Figure 1.

­

(Kontra et al., 1989)