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MAKE SURE THE BUREAUCRACY PERFORMS
The citizens have a right to demand good service, simple and comprehensible rules, an
efficient use of resources and to be met by people who are professional, helpful and
friendly. The municipality is for its citizens, not the other way around. Taxpayers pay for
the municipal salaries and activities. We as politicians must continuously and visibly fight
corruption, wasting of resources, unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape in our
municipalities.
The municipal administration should use its resources efficiently. Again, good systems for
planning and monitoring are key factors. Certain other measures can greatly enhance
efficiency:
People’s participation and experience, are most valuable. We should strive to create
an organization which utilizes the experience and ideas of the individual staff
members and gives them space to find the best solutions. This is much more efficient
than micromanaging every decision and making prescriptive rules.
Ensure there are possibilities for staff to influence how they best do their own
work, based on the citizens’ needs and political decisions and guidelines.
Focus on results. An efficient organization is focused on the results, not on
processes. This allows staff members to think for themselves and use initiative and
creativity to solve the problems.
Listening to the citizens. An efficient organization listens to how the citizens
perceive the municipal services and activities. It is open to criticism and proposals
and realizes that its task is to meet the citizens’ needs.
Ruled by tasks, not by rules. One solves problems best when not hindered by
unnecessarily detailed rules.
The contacts between the municipal administration and the citizens should be as non-
bureaucratic as possible. Small thing can play a huge role in this aspect:
Simplified language: Documents, forms, letters and conversations should be easy to
understand.
Accessibility: It must be easy to get in contact with the right person in the
administration, whether it is a politician or a public servant. Offices, opening hours,
telephone switchboard and websites must all be easy to access, accurate and
functioning.
Registration of complaints: A complaints system should be set up to receive
residents’ problems and concerns. Summaries should be presented to the committees
regularly and should be used as information to make improvements.
Quick response: Complaints and problems should be dealt with as quickly as
possible and results should be reported back to the person who complained.