Topic: Local services and Infrastructure - Institutions,
Regulation, Finance
In the field of public
administration the European Union does not have a policy in relation to Member
States. Furthermore, the EAS concept is particularly relevant at local level
where citizens’ expectations are naturally higher, the network of relationships
amongst actors is particularly dense and where civil servants and decision-makers
need more capacity building to handle innovations and anticipate problems and
opportunities.
The working group intends to
tackle a deep analysis of EAS, focussing on local services and infrastructures,
with an analysis that takes into consideration the following:
- the role of local institutions,
- the absence or presence of a regulatory framework,
- the role of traditional and innovative financial
institutions and tools at local level.
Local institutions and public administration at the local level
Historically, the provision
of so-called local public services and the design, tendering, management and
operation of local infrastructures have been carried out with different local
institutional and administrative frameworks in different geographical areas.
A separate analysis of
institutions and public administration frameworks could be a fruitful way to
approach the issue: institutions here are defined as a combination of formal
rules and informal constraints which structure political, economic and social
interactions (North, 1991 and Williamson, 1998). In this regard, the
institutional framework deals with formal and informal rules and strategic
policy goals. The administration is based upon local institutions and indeed is
greatly influenced by the expectations coming from individual citizens and
society as a whole and it is characterised by standards whose drivers and impact
on local services might vary greatly across regions, underlining the need to
evaluate European-wide harmonisation processes and best practices diffusion.
Service provision and regulatory frameworks at the local level
At the local level,
customers of regulated services are typically very sensitive to quality and
price and can express their discontent in vociferous ways. Additionally, the
regulated firms can often enjoy relatively close ties with the local public
authorities, either institutions or administrations, with the result that
boundaries between the regulators and the regulated are blurred (e.g.,
‘revolving doors’ mechanisms), making more complex the daily work of local
public administrators. Moreover, at the local level, the regulators and
administrators may lack the capacity to deal with complex regulatory systems
and techniques, which could be acquired through various forms of direct or
vicarious learning or policy transfer programmes.
The local level, therefore,
poses some special issues that especially originate from the deep intertwining
of social relations between local actors. This origin entails various sources
of resistance to enforce the ‘hardest’ parts of regulation, e.g., managing
tender competitions for the award of franchises, monitoring investments, costs
and tariffs, and inflicting sanctions for poor performance or contract breach.
This resistance (and the improper costs that might be imposed upon regulatory
agencies, regulated actors and indeed public administrators) can potentially
undermine the efficiency and effectiveness of regulatory systems in ways that
are relatively alien to the concerns of national and super-national regulators.
Hence, when designing local
service provision and regulation, an important issue to consider is the nature
of the actors involved (e.g. franchisers, local government, local
administrators, administrative magistrates, banks and other financial actors,
insurers and reinsurance companies, consumers, and environmental lobbies),
their information endowment and exchange, the incentives that drive their
choices, and the types of relationships established. These are all features
that influence the outcome of policies and projects, their success or failure,
notwithstanding the institutional, administrative and regulatory framework
officially established. To this aim, the Turin School of Local Regulation has
developed a tool called FIELD – Framework of Incentives to Empower Local
Decision-Makers, which can be chosen by paper authors to structure their
analysis or to derive useful hints (www.turinschool.eu/FIELD).
The role of traditional and innovative financial actors and tools at
local level
Investment in infrastructure
and services is indeed the big current issue, due to the current scarcity of
public funds in western countries, especially at local level.
Moreover, when the
infrastructures and local public services are characterised by revenue streams
that directly affect citizens, specific attention is required to protect the public
interest and to achieve a fair allocation of risks whilst maintaining the
solvency and the ability to attract a sufficiently large number of funding
operators. The question is whether consumers should pay, and to what extent,
the higher bills involved, and the consequent implication for general fiscal
engagement. Investors, on their side, look carefully at what they will
ultimately get, in particular from tariffs and fees paid by consumers, balanced
with possible equity injections from the public side. Until that becomes clear,
in times of dire public finance, involving private finance in large numbers,
building sound and effective public-private partnerships will probably remain
wishful thinking. A possible answer to start facing these current challenges is
stakeholders, local regulators’ and local administrators’ capacity building: this
is strongly needed.
The most interesting local
level to study today is indeed the urban level. Cities today represent an
extremely valuable attractor of investments, especially because of the paradigm
shift in infrastructure and services that the framework of a "smart
city" is keen to foster and promote. Smart city development is high-ranked
across the political agenda worldwide and the ability to attract relevant
investment is real.
The challenge in terms of
skills, capacity, financial innovation that local administrators and decision-makers
will have to face is relevant and theoretical and/or evidence-based research on
this topic is necessary.
Considering these background
elements, the Working Group on "Local services and infrastructure: institution,
regulation, finance” is seeking paper proposals for the 24th NISPAcee Annual
Conference as much as possible with a multi-disciplinary approach as
contributions from economics, finance, political science, laws, and sociology
can indeed provide a richer and broader perspective.
In particular, papers
tackling the following research topics are particularly welcome:
1) Asset ownership and
service delivery in local public services (*).
2) Regulatory framework of
local public services (*).
3) Innovative project
financing initiatives and administrative procedures for infrastructure and
local public services.
4) Disruptive technologies,
smart city platforms and local institutions and administrations.
5) Relationship between
local and central regulation.
6) Trust, uses, culture and
ethnical aspects: the impact on local services.
7) Distributional aspects,
tariffs, equity, phenomena of arrears in utility bills, subsidisation.
8) Is the harmonisation of
administrative standards s sufficient to ensure the desired quality and
performance of local public services? How can local policy diffusion be
enhanced?
9) Innovative capacity
building processes and frameworks for the public sector involved in the
regulation and provision of local public services.
Papers can present specific
case studies from the NISPAcee region or provide a comparative analysis within
different NISPAcee countries or between NISPAcee countries and other
geographical areas.
(*). Templates and
methodologies developed by the Turin School of Local Regulation are available
at http://turinschool.eu/lorenet/table and www.turinschool.eu/FIELD