Topicality. It is caused by excessive centralization of powers and financial and material resources by the executive authorities, the inability of the territorial communities of the basic level to fulfill their powers, the deterioration of the quality and availability of public services owing to a lack of financial support and a deterioration of the infrastructure base of local self-government, and a decrease in the level of professionalism of officials.
Aim and tasks. The research was dedicated to identifying the essence of the administrative and territorial reform in Ukraine and to analyse its implementation, to identify the main problems, to formulate a systematic view on the administrative-territorial reform, to submit proposals to improve the process of reforming of local self-government and territorial organisation of power in Ukraine.
Research results. It was proved that the essence of the administrative and territorial reform consists in solving four tasks: improving the territorial division by improving of the system of administrative and territorial units and their consolidation at the basic and district levels; redistribution of powers between executive authorities and local self-government bodies and powers between local government bodies of different levels in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity; provision of territorial communities and their management bodies for the financial, material and human resources that are necessary for the exercise of their powers; the consolidation by the state authorities of the functions of monitoring the observance of the provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine and the norms of legislation by local self-government bodies. The administrative-territorial reform cannot be implemented without the parallel implementation of the reform of local self-government and administrative reform.
The consolidation of administrative and territorial units has become one of the main directions of numerous reforms of public authority in European countries. It is not possible to speak of a single model of the administrative and territorial system in Europe.
Administrative and territorial reform in Ukraine is inherently complex and involves a thorough and fundamental change in the system of state and local government, creating effective and self-sufficient management entities at all levels. Without the scale of reform, the government identified unrealistic terms of its implementation, narrowing the understanding of reform to a simple transfer of powers and financial resources to the basic level of local self-government without economic calculations about the possibility of exercising powers.
A number of measures were proposed to improve the process of reforming local self-government and the territorial organisation of power in Ukraine in terms of updating the Concept of reforming local self-government and territorial organisation of power in Ukraine, forming a conceptual vision of the second level of administrative-territorial structure (level of districts), developing a new Methodology for the formation of capable territorial communities, reduction of dependence of local self-government on transfers from the state budget, approval of standards (norms) of providing public services both in terms of their quality, and in terms of their value.
Conclusions.The practical recommendations in the article provide the basis for the development of normative acts and organisational measures aimed at improving the process of reforming local self-government and territorial organisation of authorities in Ukraine.
Multiannual expenditures in state budget and local government budgets in Poland