The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of agricultural production in the municipalities of Rio Grande do Sul and identify their determinants in 2006. Thus, the method of data envelopment analysis (DEA) with the product orientation, with constant returns to scale (CCR), and also with variable returns to scale (BCC) was used. The data used to calculate the performance indicators of the municipalities were obtained from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), referring to the last agricultural census (2006) the State of Rio Grande do Sul four input variables (inputs) were used, them being Land, Capital, Labour and Petrochemicals, and two output variables (outputs) , which are the values of livestock and agro-industrial production and summed the values o crop production. Analyzing the variables, it was found that the input has a negative relationship with efficiency, while output has positive relationship. CCR model in DEA efficient 13 municipalities (with indicator equal to 1.00) were identified, and found that most municipalities (30.77 %) have efficiency indicator between 0.11 and 0.20. You DEA BCC efficient 27 municipalities were identified, the majority (27.73 %) has no indicator of efficiency between 0.21 and 0.30. The Labour, Land, Capital and Petrochemicals variables are, respectively, those that determine the efficiency of the best cities in the state. / O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a eficiência na produção agropecuária dos municípios do Rio Grande do Sul e identificar os seus determinantes no ano de 2006. Para tanto, foi utilizado o método de análise envoltória de dados (DEA) com orientação ao produto, com retornos constantes de escala (CCR), e também com retornos variáveis a escala (BCC). Os dados utilizados para calcular os indicadores de eficiência dos municípios foram obtidos junto ao Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), referente ao último censo agropecuário (2006) do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul. Foram utilizadas quatro variáveis de entrada (inputs), sendo elas Terra, Capital, Trabalho e Insumos, e duas variáveis de saída (outputs), que são os valores da produção animal e agroindustrial somadas e os valores da produção vegetal. No modelo DEA CCR foram identificados 13 municípios eficientes (com indicador igual a 1,00), além de verificar que 30,77% possuem indicador de eficiência entre 0,11 e 0,20. Já no modelo DEA BCC foram identificados 27 municípios eficientes, sendo que 27,73% possuem indicador de eficiência entre 0,21 e 0,30. As variáveis Trabalho, Terra, Capital e Insumos são, respectivamente, as que melhor determinam a eficiência dos municípios gaúchos.

The aim of this one-year master thesis in archival science was to examine how municipalities take regulations concerning public records into account when they use Facebook. Another aim was to examine the involvement of archivists, registrars or similar staff in the management of the regulations. Since Swedish archival theory and practice has a close connection to the application of these regulations, such an examination was hopefully going to reveal tendencies of importance for archival science. The method used to collect information was a web questionnaire and the result was based on answers from 21 municipalities with an official Facebook page. The questionnaire showed that six of the municipalities regarded documents originating from their Facebook page as public records. Three did not, and a large group had not yet decided how to treat these documents. Only three municipalities did archive documents from Facebook. The involvement of archivists, registrars and similar personnel was generally very small, even though regulations concerning public records had more often been taken into account in the municipalities that had informed this personnel about the use of an official Facebook page. The difference in management between the municipalities was together with the demand for national guiding principles indicating difficulties in applying the regulations to social medias like Facebook. The fact that most of the municipalities that had taken the regulations into account had come to the conclusion that Facebook generated public records, together with the fact that national guiding principles presented during the work with this thesis had the same interpretation, indicated that documents originating from Facebook will be a part of Swedish public records in the future. The difference in management and the demand for guidance also indicated a need for better division of responsibilities and a more active approach in the future, to ensure that the regulations concerning public records are taken into account early and correctly when authorities starts to use new medias.

For decades Sweden has been at the forefront of issues regarding environmental politics, and Swedish municipalities have a key role in sustainable development, but differ greatly in their commitment for environmental politics. But what are the underlying reasons for this disparity? Previous research has identified societal factors that may hinder or push municipalities to drive more ambitious environmental politics. However, there is a need for more empirical evidence on what factors that may better explain the differences between municipalities’ environmental commitment. This thesis aims to identify possible causes for the difference between Swedish municipalities in the extent to which they implement local environmental politics. Four variables are selected, based on theories about what may explain municipal commitment to environmental politics: Presence of the Green party within the municipal executive board; quantity of municipal officers who work with environmental issues; whether the municipality is dependent on industry that is harmful to the environment; and local support for The Swedish environmental protection association (Naturskyddsföreningen) among the municipal population. Four hypotheses are tested and three of them find support in the empirical data. Only the hypothesis about the effect from the environmental organization is found to lack support. The results indicate that the number of municipal officers who work with environmental issues is the variable that best explains the variation between municipalities in environmental commitment. At the same time, the effect of the Green party on municipal commitment for environmental politics is less than anticipated. The results suggest that other variables need to be examined to better understand what may cause the difference between Swedish municipalities in commitment for environmental politics.

Abstract In its present meaning, the Finnish word 'ymp?rist?', that denotes the environment, already emerged in the 19th century. Yet it is only now that its true meaning is understood more broadly than just referring to matters and objects that surround a given place. The most essential feature of the change that has occurred in its nuances of meaning is the fact that the questions and problems related to environmental themes have emerged as permanent targets of social planning within the scope of which they should also be solved. The 20th century, known as an era of progress and development, was unable to settle these questions but rather went on to generate environmentally bound social problems which have proved even more difficult to grasp. The reasons for this are deeply embedded in reductionism and its reality-braking approach. The present investigation employs a strongly holistic viewpoint in underlining the above problem clusters against the traditional nature of scientific development and the perspectives of individual disciplines, particularly as the problems and questions connected with the whole formed by the environment and society are not separate or definable by one instance only. Problem-solving in environmental planning, which overlaps with social and community-based problems, is essentially determined by the organisation of the various planning tasks into open problems. Being multi-dimensional, controversial, difficult to shape and including a variety of alternative solutions, situations of this kind require planning that outlines future opportunities and takes into consideration the interactive nature of different factors. Thus planning must no longer be used as a means of determining or bordering the future in the sense characteristic of its traditional nature but rather as a creative, visionary and strategic instrument of constantly looking for the things of tomorrow. With regard to theoretical planning, the environment-society relationship in fact requires more problem-based approaches, local solution patterns and a more fundamental grip on things. In the level of individual local government districts assessed in the present paper, the scope and multi-dimensional nature of the environment, when seen in the framework of planning a sustainable future in societies, has given rise to definition problems as well as concrete implementation difficulties. Despite these, there has already been some awakening to assume the direction required by a holistic grip on the environment. Yet the majority of the local government authorities in Finland still have a long way to go to realise the kind of long-term fundamental perspectives and interaction between the various factors that lie in their operating environments that are required for really employing a strategy. It takes time of course to change traditional operating patterns and cultures. The most important thing here is that the instances concerned should recognise the direction of development as their own and correct so as to ensure that the process of change will continue.

The goal of this study was to explore and describe roles of social workers in enhancing social capital in communities to manage HIV and Aids in the Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipalities. In order to achieve this goal, a qualitative research approach was adopted to explore and describe the views of social workers and community members. The research deals with the roles of social workers in enhancing social capital in the communities of Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipalities in order to manage HIV and Aids. To this end, the collective case study design guided the study. Focus group interviews were used as the data collection method for this study, and two distinct interview schedules developed and utilised for social workers and community members, respectively. From the raw data, the researcher implemented the qualitative data analysis process of Creswell (1998) to extrapolate themes and sub-themes through thematic analysis. The trustworthiness of the data interpretation was confirmed through reflexibility, voluntary participation and the guarantee of anonymity. An analysis of three different sources of data, namely the literature review and focus group interviews with social workers and community members was undertaken to answer the following two research questions, namely: (1) Based on the views of social workers, what are the roles of social workers in enhancing social capital in the communities to manage HIV and Aids in the Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipalities?; and (2) Based on the views of community members, what are the roles of social workers in enhancing social capital in the communities to manage HIV and Aids in the Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipalities? The key finding of the study was that, social workers have various roles to play in enhancing the social capital of communities to manage HIV and Aids in the Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipalities. More specifically, it was found that: (1) Social workers provide critical services in the identification and assessment of situations in which relationships between people and social institutions need to be initiated, enhanced, restored, protected and terminated; (2) Social workers promote social change, problem solving in human relationships, and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance their well-being; (3) Social workers provide essential leadership and support in mobilising community response to HIV and Aids; (4) Social workers strengthen bonding, bridging or linking relationships that are critical for building family and community capacity, connecting families to services and supports, improving safety nets for prevention and early intervention, and for empowering family and community members; (5) Social workers develop special kinds of local communities that promote people’s health and well-being and, at the same time, contribute to sustainable, integrated social and economic development; and finally, Social workers play a critical role in combating stigma related to HIV and Aids through education and raising awareness. In strengthening the roles of social workers to enhance social capital in the communities, in order to manage HIV and Aids in the Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan, the following recommendations are made: to ensure that relevant international, regional, national, provincial and district level policies, guidelines and other relevant statutes are part of social workers’ workplace orientation programme and continuous professional training; to emphasise the social capital concept in the tertiary education curriculum of social workers; to ensure that social workers are urgently and continuously strengthened and sustained during HIV prevention efforts; to ensure that social workers transition from their work in needs orientation to human rights affirmation; to encourage the NGO sector to include a developmental social work focus in their HIV and Aids work with communities; and to ensure that social workers work on coordination and open discussions of interpersonal networks between the government and NGOs. These recommendations are consolidated into a document entitled ‘Guidelines for social workers to building social capital in communities towards the management of HIV and Aids in the Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipalities’. Future research could focus on the following: (1) Extending the research study to other Metropolitan Municipalities in the Gauteng province in order to compare if social workers in other municipalities identifies with the findings of the current study and to expand the recommendations originating from this study on a provincial level; (2) Investigating social capital as a community development tool for social work in the context of HIV prevention and management in the South African context further; (3) Guiding social workers on the role they could play in the efforts to prevent and manage HIV infection at community level; and (4) Implementing the guidelines originating from this study in practice and determining their strengths and limitations. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / am2014 / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

The aim is to study the empirical relevance of performance management systems in the public sector, based on the performance management systems framework. A qualitative approach was chosen, making three case studies of Swedish municipalities by conducting personal interviews. The municipal chief executive, municipal CFO and a financial manager at a department were chosen at every municipality, providing us with diversified as well as accurate information. The interviews were based on the PMSs framework developed by Ferreira and Otley (2009), giving a broad and detailed description of the systems. This information, together with the theoretical framework, was then processed, leading up to the analysis and conclusions. Pursuant to the new public management, performance management is a relatively new concept in the public sector. The three studied municipalities all have relatively new PMSs, showing that this area is empirically relevant to study. As expected, the municipalities displayed both positive and negative sides of their systems, described in more detail in the paper. The PMSs framework is considered a useful tool in this study, making it relevant in the public sector. Still, both benefits and drawbacks are found, presented together with possible improvements.

Magister Philosophiae - MPhil / There is overwhelming evidence that South Africa’s rivers are heavily polluted, a situation which is attributable to a large degree to poorly functioning and inefficiently managed waste water treatment works in municipalities. The evidence suggests, furthermore, that municipalities often do not comply with their constitutional obligation to provide water services in a sustainable manner and promote a safe and healthy environment. Such non-compliance infringes on people's constitutionally guaranteed rights to a pollution-free environment and equitable access to sufficient and safe water. The problem is that municipalities are not properly managing the waste water treatment works (WWTWs) and not regulating industrial discharge into these works in accordance with the prescribed national norms and standards. The National Water Act 36 of 1998 and other related Acts provide for legal and informal enforcement mechanisms that criminalise acts of pollution. However, none of them have been effective in enforcing municipal compliance with the national norms and standards of effluent management. There are two main reasons for this. First, the constitutional structure does not allow the Minister responsible for water management to exercise direct supervision of the municipalities despite the functional relationship the Department of Water and Sanitation has with municipalities in respect of water. Secondly, the Constitution (1996) instructs the spheres of government to avoid legal processes and cooperate with one another by intervening to execute the function if the sphere responsible for the function lacks capacity. This thesis explores the possible use of two statutory instruments of cooperative government and intergovernmental relations as strategies to complement and support the conventional enforcement measures in the water sector: the establishment of water intergovernmental forums; and the use of implementation protocols to supervise municipalities that chronically lack capacity as a way of providing targeted support and monitoring to facilitate an effective compliance and enforcement regime in the water sector.

The master´s thesis deals with the phenomenon of social networks and their possible use in the communication policy of towns and municipalities with specific application to the city of Pilsen. The thesis focuses on the specifics of public administration and the appropriate way to use common marketing tools. The thesis examines the current situation of communication of the city of Pilsen. Questionnaire survey and interview method the thesis examines the opinion of the general public and experts on the use of social networks by the public sector. The survey of good practices of domestic and foreign cities and municipalities anticipates incentives to improve the current state of the use of social networks. The aim of the thesis is to propose measures to streamline communication and eliminate the risks associated with the communication of the city of Plzeň on social networks.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the attitudes and working methods that study- and career counselors apply when it comes to competence provision. The main focus of the thesis was to investigate whether the study and career counselors consider that competence development work is an essential part of their work in a primary school in a municipality with a dominant market of industries. Therefor our main question was about how the study and career counsellors are working with this today, if there is any influence from external stakeholders and what the desired role of collaboration they would like to have in the future. We have contacted forty study and career counsellors who work in primary school in member municipalities in the network of Industristarka Kommuner and they were interviewed by mail and in some cases by phone. There were totally nine study and career counsellors that were represented in the survey. The study results in a model for the collaborative role, which could be divided into four stages, directly active, indirectly active, indirectly passive and direct passive, depending on the position and behavior of study and career counselors in the question of collaboration. The roles could also be linked to different career theories and were largely dependent on how the top of the board looked and most of our informants had a desire to take a step back and allow someone else to manage the skills to solve time for other guidance work.

Objective of this thesis is to describe the municipal authority. Town Dobříš is used town as an example. First, I define municipality, its force and competence. I describe particular rights of municipality citizens. Further, I characterize local authority, its structure, acts and I introduce specific example of council act -- municipal ordinance of binding force of town Dobříš. Similarly I describe local board, its structure, acts and council committee. I delimitate position of mayor and vice mayors. I characterize municipal office including unions and secretary. I describe particular forms of municipalities cooperation.