Local Legislatures

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Leland ◽  
Holly Whisman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Rural School ◽  
The Body ◽  
City Councils ◽  
Urban City ◽  
Quantitative Analyses ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Administrative Responsibilities

Local government legislatures range from large urban city councils and county commissions to rural school boards. These bodies are shaped by state law and are quite diverse in their policymaking and administrative responsibilities. This article presents an overview of the current research on local legislatures, their structures, functions, and powers. The authors assess the body of research for each type, including cities, counties, and special purpose governments, and identify research opportunities of importance to local legislatures. The authors conclude that research has been hampered by the diversity of local governments and the limited comparability of units, and therefore tends toward methodologies that focus on contextual specificity. This is a complication that is likely to continue to influence the ability of researchers to address issues of decision-making, accountability, cooperation and other important questions using quantitative analyses, despite the pressing need to understand the impact of local legislatures in order to make informed choices about how to proceed in an increasingly complex realm of local government.

Evolution of e-participation in Greek local government

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Constantina Costopoulou ◽  
Maria Ntaliani ◽  
Filotheos Ntalianis
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Community ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Mobile Apps ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Impact

Local governments are increasingly developing electronic participation initiatives, expecting citizen involvement in local community affairs. Our objective was to assess e-participation and the extent of its change in local government in Greece. Using content analysis for 325 Greek municipal websites, we assessed e-participation status in 2017 and 2018 and examined the impact of change between these years. The assessment regards two consecutive years since the adoption of digital technologies by municipalities has been rapid. The main findings show that Greek local governments have made significant small- to medium-scale changes, in order to engage citizens and local societies electronically. We conclude that the integration of advanced digital technologies in municipalities remains underdeveloped. We propose that Greek municipalities need to consider incorporating new technologies, such as mobile apps, social media and big data, as well as e-decision making processes, in order to eliminate those obstacles that hinder citizen engagement in local government. Moreover, the COVID-19 outbreak has highlighted the need for enhancing e-participation and policymakers’ coordination through advanced digital technologies.

scholarly journals Auditors characteristics and audit delay: Evidence from Indonesian regional governments

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sutaryo Sutaryo ◽  
Yediel Lase
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Educational Background ◽  
Auditor Characteristics ◽  
Regional Governments

Overdue financial statements reporting, more specifically audit delay, can cause losses in its capacity in decision making. We investigate the effects of auditor characteristics on local governments’ audit delay by studying 127 Indonesian local governments. We find that auditor professional proficiency and auditor educational background have significant effect on the audit delay of local government financial statements. Our results also indicate the intersection of some auditor characteristics in affecting audit delay. Our findings mainly suggest that the auditor professional proficiency should be improved to shrink audit delay.

Improving Fire Safety by Understanding the Fire Performance of Engineered Floor Systems and Providing the Fire Service with Information for Tactical Decision Making

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Kerber ◽  
◽  
Daniel Madrzykowski ◽  
James Dalton ◽  
Bob Backstrom
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Fire Service ◽  
Metal Plate ◽  
The Body ◽  
Fuel Load ◽  
Firefighter Safety ◽  
Floor Systems ◽  
Floor System ◽  
The Impact

This research project was a collaboration of several research organizations, product manufacturers and fire service representatives to examine hazards associated with residential flooring systems to improve firefighter safety. Funding for this project was provided through the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Grant Program. The main objective of this study was to improve firefighter safety by increasing the level of knowledge on the response of residential flooring systems to fire. Several types (or series) of experiments were conducted and analyzed to expand the body of knowledge on the impact of fire on residential flooring systems. The results of the study have been prepared to provide tactical considerations for the fire service to enable improved decision making on the fire scene. Experiments were conducted to examine several types of floor joists including, dimensional lumber, engineered I-joists, metal plate connected wood trusses, steel C-joists, castellated I-joists and hybrid trusses. Experiments were performed at multiple scales to examine single floor system joists in a laboratory up through a full floor system in an acquired structure. Applied load, ventilation, fuel load, span and protection methods were altered to provide important information about the impact of these variables to structural stability and firefighter safety. There are several tactical considerations that result from this research that firefighters can use immediately to improve their understanding, safety and decision making when sizing up a fire in a one or two family home. 
 This report summarizes the results from each of the experimental series and provides discussion and conclusions of the results. 


E-Governance and Natural Hazards in Mozambique

2015 ◽  
pp. 253-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avelino Mondlane ◽  
Karin Hasson ◽  
Oliver Popov
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Strategic Planning ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Impact

Strategic planning is a decisive process toward sustainable development for any organization. Mozambique has developed many tools toward good governance, among which Poverty Alleviation Strategy Paper (PARPA) is an umbrella. PARPA includes different key decisive segments of society, particularly the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as the pool for development. This chapter investigates to what extent e-Governance, particularly the development of strategies based on ICTs, can contribute to minimize the impact of floods at local governments by addressing best practice and decision-making process. The authors address backcasting methodology as an approach to consider in a participatory strategic planning for long-term decision-making processes. They use Chókwe District as a showcase where e-governance has an impact in mitigating and preventing the impact of floods.

Local Government as a Democracy Actor or a Service Delivery Actor

2014 ◽  
pp. 127-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Demediuk ◽  
Stephen Burgess ◽  
Rolf Solli
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Governance Practice

Local governance occurs where a local government gives citizens a say in things that really matter to them, and e-governance initiatives provide electronic means to enable citizens to participate in this shared governing of the community. The clearer a local government is about the nature and degree to which it needs to act as a democracy actor (better citizens and better government) and/or a service delivery actor (better decision making), the greater the prospect that it can choose appropriate electronic means through an e-governance approach to meet those ends. In order to guide an e-governance practice and inform further research, this chapter: provides models that articulate the elements that constitute better decision making, better citizens, and better government, and presents examples from five local governments of how electronic means can satisfy particular ends.

scholarly journals The 2011 Commonwealth Local Government Conference: Energising Local Economies: An Overview

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Local Economic Development ◽  
Local Economies ◽  
Financial Difficulties ◽  
Economic Climate ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact

In the current economic climate, creating the right environment for local enterprise, inward investment, and business and skills development, is an important factor in ensuring the prosperity and wellbeing of local communities. The impact of the global financial crisis has not been uniform across the Commonwealth and countries are using different strategies to overcome their financial difficulties. Local government increasingly plays an important part in this. More and more local governments in countries across the Commonwealth have responsibilities and powers for local economic development: in some countries local authorities can already show how their policies and actions are helping energise their local economies, while in other countries local councils are just beginning to get to grips with these responsibilities.

scholarly journals Constitutional Democracy and Caretaker Committee in Nigeria Local Government System: An Assessment

2013 ◽  
pp. 110-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jude C Okafor ◽  
Ikechukwu H Orjinta
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Government Reform ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
Financial Autonomy ◽  
The Third ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Nigerian Literature ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Subsequent Replacement

The 1976 Local Government Reform among other landmark changes unified the local government system in Nigeria, and the 1979 constitution made local governments the third tier of government and provided for a system of local government by democratically elected councils. More recently, elected local government councils have been dissolved and replaced with Transition Committees or Caretaker Committees appointed by the Governors’ of their respective states. This paper therefore, examines the impact of the caretaker committees in Nigerian Local Government on the practice of constitutional democracy. The discussion is framed by the theoretical perspectives and Nigerian literature on local government and constitutional democracy, and by the recent phenomenal wave of dissolving elected local government councils and subsequent replacement with caretaker committees. Contrary to popular belief, that local government as the third tier of government has failed to achieve the objective for which it was created, this paper observes that party politics has been the bane of Nigerian local government since its inception, and that democratically elected local councils with political and financial autonomy are the major conditions for an effective and efficient multi-purpose local government system in Nigeria.

(Re)Designing Business Processes Using Markov Theory and Constrained State, Transition and Actor Role Spaces

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sérgio Guerreiro
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
The Body ◽  
Process Redesign ◽  
Discount Factors ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Markov Decision ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Impact

Decision-making processes are the utmost important to steer the organizational change whenever business process workarounds are attempted during operational times. However, to decide the non-compliant situations, e.g., bypasses, social resistance, or collusion; the business manager demands contextualized and correct interpretations of the existing business process redesign options to cope with workarounds. This article explores the need to aid the decision-making process with a full constructional perspective to optimize the business processes redesign. So, the Markov decision process is combined with the body of knowledge of business processes, in specific, the concepts of designing enterprise-wide business transactions. This methodology supports the management initiatives with more knowledge about the value of business processes redesign. A classical chain of Order-to-Cash business processes (the order, the production, the distribution and the selling of goods) illustrate the benefits of this quantitative approach. Results obtained for business processes redesign in reaction to workarounds are reported. The analysis results show that this approach can anticipate the sub-optimal solutions before taking actions and highlights the impact of discount factors in the final obtained value. The contribution of this novel conceptual integration to the business processes community is the forecast of value function of business transaction redesign options when facing non-compliant workarounds. From related literature, business processes compliance usually comprises offline computation and the redesign is only considered in the forthcoming business processes instances. This article is innovative in the sense that it anticipates the value impact of a redesign, allowing more effective decisions to be taken.

scholarly journals The Impact of Social Accountability Mechanisms on Fiscal Management Challenges Facing Goromonzi Rural District Council, Zimbabwe

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 141
Author(s):  
Trust Madhovi
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Monitoring And Evaluation ◽  
Social Accountability ◽  
Rural District ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Fiscal Management ◽  
District Council ◽  
The Impact

This paper examines the impact of social accountability mechanisms on the fiscal management challenges facing local government bodies in Zimbabwe. The paper hypothesises that there is a positive relationship between the use of social accountability mechanisms or tools by local authorities and the effectiveness of their fiscal management policies to mobilize more revenue for service delivery. In this study, both quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted in gathering and analysing data from central government officials, Goromonzi Rural District Council employees and members of the public. The results of the study reveal that the local government body faces a number of fiscal management challenges that include a shrinking tax base, non-payment of taxes, resistance to successive budgets; lack of implementation; lack of monitoring and evaluation. Council has implemented participatory budgeting to deal with some of these challenges. While results show a significant improvement in tax collection, some of the challenges have persisted. The paper proposes some recommendations useful to central government, policy makers, civil society organisations, local government officials and the general public. The paper manages to demonstrate that the implementation of social accountability tools can have positive impacts on the fiscal management challenges facing local governments. 

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