Management of any aspect of life remains the single determining factor for success, wealth, growth and prosperity – this is a general truth. Without an effective management system, nothing will have direction and no milestone can be achieved. The most important management section of any organization is the management on ground level. If ground level management of an organization is defective, the organization will not function and will soon only serve as a reference to a valuable lesson. The sustainability of local government is determined by the same principle, with the success thereof ascribed to the management of infrastructure and processes within a municipality. One such functioning aspect of municipalities is the electrical energy metering system. A wellmanaged and maintained electrical energy management system is one of the few capital resources of any municipality. The electrical supply system can however also be one of many constraints, impeding development if mismanaged. This research study shows the effects of management, or the lack thereof, on selected rural municipalities. Research was done to determine the current state of technology and the associated financial impact on these municipalities. Although it is not possible to generalize, it is evident from this research study that an underlying problem is the lack of proper ground level management. Design science research was used to add value in the form of a capability maturity model for rural municipalities. Such a model can be used to score a municipality in terms of its capability maturity at national level. When applied correctly, this model can be used as a management tool. By the implementation of certain management strategies based on technical principles, the impact of an electrical energy metering management system was also illustrated by this research study. This research study also covers the applied method and results as implemented by several municipalities within the Republic of South Africa. / Thesis (MIng (Electrical and Electronic Engineering))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

Management of any aspect of life remains the single determining factor for success, wealth, growth and prosperity – this is a general truth. Without an effective management system, nothing will have direction and no milestone can be achieved. The most important management section of any organization is the management on ground level. If ground level management of an organization is defective, the organization will not function and will soon only serve as a reference to a valuable lesson. The sustainability of local government is determined by the same principle, with the success thereof ascribed to the management of infrastructure and processes within a municipality. One such functioning aspect of municipalities is the electrical energy metering system. A wellmanaged and maintained electrical energy management system is one of the few capital resources of any municipality. The electrical supply system can however also be one of many constraints, impeding development if mismanaged. This research study shows the effects of management, or the lack thereof, on selected rural municipalities. Research was done to determine the current state of technology and the associated financial impact on these municipalities. Although it is not possible to generalize, it is evident from this research study that an underlying problem is the lack of proper ground level management. Design science research was used to add value in the form of a capability maturity model for rural municipalities. Such a model can be used to score a municipality in terms of its capability maturity at national level. When applied correctly, this model can be used as a management tool. By the implementation of certain management strategies based on technical principles, the impact of an electrical energy metering management system was also illustrated by this research study. This research study also covers the applied method and results as implemented by several municipalities within the Republic of South Africa. / Thesis (MIng (Electrical and Electronic Engineering))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

Abstract The aim of this paper is to investigate whether Vara municipality has a continuous picture of their identity, profile and image. Globalization has contributed to the increasingly growing of place marketing. Therefore, the study goes on to using the concepts of identity, profile and image to find out if Vara Municipality communicates similar throughout the whole organization and find out their all through core values. Globalisation will be an interpretive framework for the work that describes why the place marketing is becoming more pressing. The sense of place will be a central part of this study as it is the feelings and images of different places that will be described by the municipality together with the identity, profile and image. The method consists of structured- and semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The structured interviews were used to find out which image the neighboring municipalities had of the Vara Municipality and they were also used to find out the identity of the municipality by interview its own residents. The semi-structured interviews were used to find out the profile by interviewing the quality- and HR-manager of Vara municipality. The results and analysis concludes that Vara municipality has two central values of the municipality that is consistently in identity, profile and image, these values are culture and entrepreneurship. The identity and the image had several similarities but the profile was very different comparing to the image of the neighboring municipalities and its own residents. This may be because the profile represents what the municipality want others to see, and can be a bit of a ”belief in the future”. Wara municipality needs to work on the profile if they want a consistent image so it fits better with their identity and image.

Alla kommuner i Sverige måste ha en gällande översiktsplan, men hur den utformas är till stor del upp till kommunerna själva. Uppsatsen syftar att studera hur genus, jämställdhetsintegrering och intersektionalitet tar sig uttryck i landsbygdskommunerna Flens, Lessebos, Valdemarsviks och Östra Göinges översiktsplaner. Samt att undersöka hur verksamma planerare förhåller sig till begreppen. Genom innehållsanalys och diskursanalys analyseras plandokumenten och redovisas tillsammans med intervjuer som genomförts med tjänstepersoner som varit delaktiga i arbetet med samma översiktsplan. Av resultatet framgick det att social hållbarhet är en viktig del för att nå en hållbar utveckling i kommunen. Resultatet visar att det utrymme som genus och jämställdhetsintegrering ges i planen har att göra med intresse och kunskap hos planeraren att lyfta dessa frågor. Intersektionalitet är ett perspektiv som inte får något utrymme i planerna, men i framtiden kommer att behöva beaktas. / Municipalities in Sweden must have a comprehensive plan, but how these are constructed are up to themselves. The aim of this paper is to study how gender, gender mainstreaming and intersectionality is expressed in the rural municipalities comprehensive plans of Flen, Lessebo, Valdemarsvik and Östra Göinge. The aim is also to understand how professional planners relate to the concepts. The comprehensive plans were analysed with content- and discourse analysis and presented together with interviews with professional planners working in the rural municipalities.  It became clear that social sustainability is an important part of achieving sustainable development in the municipalities. The results show that the space given to gender and gender mainstreaming in the comprehensive plans has to do with the interest and knowledge of the planner to integrate these. Intersectionality is a perspective that is not given space in the plans, but will need to be considered in the future.

This study was developed to determine the future fiscal condition of a small rural municipality, North Logan, Utah. An effort was made to determine whether or not present revenue sources would be able to keep pace with future expenditures at the local government level by projecting North Logan, Utah's, revenues and expenditures for 1975 and 1980. North Logan, Utah, should not have an "expenditure-revenue gap" within the next 10 years. At this time, it would appear that because of the construction growth and sales tax proportional increases, both due to large population increases, North Logan should have sufficient revenue to provide all future public goods and services demanded by the community.

The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the development and success of rural municipalities within the administrative district of the Hradec Králové municipality. The thesis will take into account the influence of external development factors on the success of the municipalities, i.e. the influence of size in the form of population and the influence of location in the form of distance from the city Hradec Králové. In the spirit of the currently prevailing institutional directions of development, the emphasis on internal development potentials and actors and the so-called bottom-up approach in the rural development paradigm, municipalities will be evaluated on the basis of indicators based on these concepts, which can be used to assess the level of development and therefore the success of a rural municipality. The output of the evaluation will be an overview of each village and how its location in relation to the centre and its population affect its development. The final determination of successful and threatened rural municipalities will be compared for the entire Hradec Králové ORP. The thesis does not aim to establish a new theory of the approach to the study of the development of rural municipalities, but through one of the many approaches to assessing the development of rural municipalities to...

This essay deals with the question of lines of development within the politics in the rural municipality of Nyed 1950-1962. The aim is to explore how local politics and policies were handled from two perspectives. Firstly the issue of conflict and consensus or majority rule and consensus. Here Arend Lijphard's theory of majority and consensus provides a theoretical base for the essay. Secondly the aim is to explore the actions of the local politicians with regards to leisure time policies to find out whether or not they ideologically belonged to the concept of ”folkhemmets kommun” by Ulla Ekström von Essen. The source material for this essay has been the minutes from the two major bodies of local politics in Nyed, kommunalfullmäktige and kommunalnämnden. The minutes from folkskolestyrelse has also been studied in specific policy cases. An interview with local ex-politician Sven Bjureld (c) has also been conducted to give a fuller view of the topic than the study of minutes can give. In the essay the conclusion is drawn that the politicians were part of the ideology of Folkhemmets kommun and that it was the social democrats that were the driving force in that development. It is furthermore concluded that the level of conflict was relatively low and that the municipality can be grouped as a consensus municipality according to Lijphard's theory. There were however three distinct areas of policy where there were more conflict that others: real estate policy, leisure time policy and education policy. The usage of motions as a political weapon was quite low during the period with 12 motions written. It was primarily the social democrats that used this weapon. The essay also points out the fact that there was a movement during the period with regards to how the task of the local politicians were viewed. In the beginning of the period the politicians primarily saw their role as a passive one whereas in the end they saw themselves as having an active role in making the municipality viewed in a positive way by the inhabitants and other members of the public. With regards to development over time it is concluded in the essay that there was a breach around 1955/1956. After that time politics in Nyeds rural municipality started to follow the lines of political parties.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka samverkan mellan socialtjänst, skola, polis och fritid vid förebyggande arbete mot ungdomskriminalitet. Studien utgår ifrån en kvalitativ forskningsmetod genom att semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförts med yrkesverksamma inom samverkansformen SSPF (socialtjänst, skola, polis, fritid) i en landsbygdskommun i Sverige. Materialet analyserades genom en tematisk analys och därigenom framkom fyra huvudteman: organisering av SSPF i en landsbygdskommun, professionellas erfarenheter av SSPF-samverkan, variationer i de professionellas uppfattningar om SSPF och verksamhetens utvecklingsmöjligheter. Resultatet av studien analyserades med hjälp av tidigare forskning kring ämnet och Horwath och Morrisons samverkansmodell. Utifrån intervjuerna framkommer det att landsbygdskommunen använder samverkansmodellen SSPF för att arbeta förebyggande mot ungdomar i riskzonen för kriminalitet och missbruk. Det belyses att en styrgrupp, arbetsgrupp och samordnare är centralt för organiseringen av SSPF-samverkan. Gynnsamma faktorer som framkommer för SSPF-samverkan är en samordnare, förmedling av samt förståelse för syfte och mål med SSPF och relevanta personer i SSPF-forumet. Förhindrande faktorer som framkommer för SSPF-samverkan är socialtjänstens lagstiftning och att det i SSPF-forumet i första hand lyfts ungdomar som är kända hos aktörer. / The aim of this study is to examine collaboration between social services, school, police, and leisure sector when working preventive against youth criminality. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with professionals within the collaboration-model SSPF in a Swedish rural municipality. The research questions were investigated by conducting a thematic analysis of the data. Four main themes emerged in the analysis: organization of SSPF in a rural municipality, professionals experiences of SSPF collaboration, variations in professionals’ perceptions of SSPF and the potentialities of the operations. The results of the study were analyzed using previous research around the subject and Horwath and Morrison’s collaboration model. The interviews demonstrated that the rural municipality uses the collaboration model SSPF to work preventively for young people at risk for crime and addiction. A steering group, working group and a co-ordinator appeared significant for the organization of SSPF collaboration. Favourable factors for the SSPF collaboration that appeared were a co-ordinator, communication and understanding of the purpose and goals of SSPF, and appropriate members in the SSPF forum. Preventive factors of the SSPF collaboration included the legislation of the social services and the principle that in SSPF it was mainly young people who were already known by the participants that were discussed.

Thesis (MBA.) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / Local governments have been identified as the main catalyst for service delivery provisions. However, challenges, such as capacity and lack of financial sustainability, means many municipalities struggle to meet this obligation. This study sought to evaluate the challenges the Musina Local Municipality faces in their attempt to manage their finances for financial sustainability. The study adopted a quantitative approach. A structured self-administered questionnaire was employed as a data collection tool from sampled respondents. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse the gathered data. The findings of this study indicate that the main challenge confronting the Musina Local Municipality was the low revenue collection. This is mostly as a consequence of community members’ inability to pay for services due to their unaffordability. The findings reveal that the Musina Local municipality made most of its revenue income from property rates, services charged on tariffs and fines. As such, failure by customers often left it in financial distress. The municipality’s poor financial position leads to other challenges, such as inability to pay creditors, lack of financial reserves, diversion of grant funding to fund the operation deficits. The study, therefore, concludes that the municipality is not financially sustainable. The study recommends that the municipality should develop a sound billing and revenue collection structure and place more emphasis on revenue collection of monies owed to them for amenities rendered.

This thesis examines a protracted planning process in the Saskatoon city-region. More specifically, it examines the planning process which occurred between 1992 and 2004 regarding a residential housing development on The Willows Golf Course. This thesis reveals that the protracted planning process was the result of several factors including: the fragmented character of governance; the planning and development policies and decision-making process in the Saskatoon city-region; the multiplicity of actors; and the political dynamics that arose in an intermunicipal conflict between the City of Saskatoon and the Rural Municipality of Corman Park. <p>The thesis concludes that this case study provides some important lessons for both governments and planners in the Saskatoon city-region as well as other city-regions on opportunities and obstacles for improving planning processes. The first major lesson is that problems emerge when an innovative proposal lands in the context of an antiquated policy framework that cannot adequately deal with it. The second major lesson is that the current regional planning mechanisms are not conducive to comprehensive long-term planning for the city-region. The third lesson is that in some cases the opposition is to changes to the traditional decision-making processes as much as it is to the proposed project. The fourth major lesson is that timely and effective communication is very important for determining character of the political dynamics surrounding a development proposal. Miscommunication can create problematic political dynamics. The fifth major lesson is that economic considerations are inextricably tied to the politics of planning and development.<p>This study concludes with two major recommendations. The first recommendation is that in order to overcome the negative outcomes of fragmented governance systems, formal structures and protocols must be improved to ensure that municipalities continue to communicate effectively with one another in difficult circumstances created by increasing development pressure, especially when they are likely to disagree on a particular development proposal. The second recommendation is that given that there is no guarantee that neighbouring municipal governments can always reach agreement between them, legitimate and efficient dispute settlement mechanisms are required both at the regional level and at the provincial level.