Anti-corruption measures are put forward as a panacea to effective procurement system, among other things, which ultimately improve service delivery. Corruption has demonstrated remarkable durability and flexibility to survive in all socio-economic systems with the conception of a corruption-free economy in reality, is hardly possible. Given this background, this study sought to evaluate the efficacy of the already implemented anti-corruption measures in the procurememt procecesses of Marondera municipality. To understand their effectiveness, relevant literature was reviewed. Different scholars point against the ineffectiveness of these measures, with Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from previous research showing devastating results in Zimbabwean local institutions. A further discussion of corruption cenception, different anti-corruption measures and legal frameworks gave a greater understanding of the area under study. In this study, a sample of 80 respondents was identified and data collected from them using both snow ball and purposive sampling methods. Thirty-five of them were females respondents and forty-five were male respondents from Marondera municipal community, with different demographic characteristics which was used for comparison of responses. Questionnaires and interviews were used as research instruments. Both the Quantitative and Qualitative research methods were used in the anaylsis of the data, to increase validity and reliability of the feelings.

This thesis contains an analysis of the QMS in municipal government, specifically in the municipal office of the city of Třebíč. It involves a defining a customer in municipal government and state administration, performing gap analysis of the city of Třebíč and recommending steps for implementation of QMS in accordance with ISO 9001:2000.

The main aim of the diploma thesis is to demonstrate different views on transparency and on instruments of strengthening transparency. Using my own developed methodology of evaluation the transparency of municipalities based on criteria analysis the thesis seeks to find out an answer to the research question: How much are municipalities transparent by themselves in the publishing of information to citizens and how easy or difficult is it for citizens to control the administration of the municipality? The thesis is structured into four chapters. The first one deals with theoretical definition of transparency and its instruments, the second one with functioning of municipal government and its possible control mechanisms. The next chapter represents the developed methodology. It served to analyze and evaluate the transparency of the three monitored municipalities in the case study of the Pribram micro region, the last chapter. For processing the case study and followed analysis I used the open data accessible for public on the municipal web portals of Pribram, Dobris and Sedlcany.

This thesis evaluates the preparedness of the professional staff in the municipal planning team for programs of administrative decentralization. Administrative decentralization is defined as the delegation of policymaking and programming authority from the central administration down to subunits or field offices. Its use in professional planning today is local area planning. The impetus behind this thesis is the problem presented by what is called the paradox of desenixsalization. That is, two contradictory motions, the irresistable force and the immovable object, are observed in modern local public administration. On the one hand, the citizen participation movement is refocussing its energies on the civic bureaucracy, demanding that it decentralize its decision-making authority. On the other hand, these civic bureaucracies are, on all accounts, resistant to such reform and incapable of handling these new demands. This paradox suggests that a reconditioning and reorientation of staff competence in the planning organization is required. The thesis is structured in tw© parts: first, the construction of an ideal set of new competencies required of the planner for decentralization; second, the application of this ideal set to a local planning organization. The first dtep is accomplished from a study of past experience in decentralizing planning services, current social planning theory, and administration-organization theory. Prom this analysis, eighteen qualities for the professional planner are concluded and organized into attitudes and values, knowledge, and skills and techniques. The second part of the thesis consists of the application of the ideal set. - A questionnaire containing the model's qualities is developed and applied to the professional staff of the City of Vancouver Planning Department. The form tests for the acceptability and availability of the new competencies as they relate to seven key personnel characteristics of planning organizations. These characteristics are: organizational position, service within the planning profession, personal age, professional background, professional allegiance, organizational allegiance, and experience with decentralization. Two conclusions from the model's application in the case agency stand out. First, organizational position, allegiance to the profession, and experience with decentralization are prime personnel characteristics in staff preparedness for decentralization. Second, the model's themes of politics-intervention and humility contain the crucial qualities for administrative decentralization in contemporary planning organizations inasmuch as they are both unacceptable to and unavailable in the case agency. With these discoveries, the research ends with some general anticipation of the evolving local area planning program sponsored by the City of Vancouver Planning Department. The ideal set of new competencies is also refined, and the paradox of decentralization is re-evaluated. The thesis predicts that future local area planning in Vancouver will be faced with the dilemma of matching policy and goals with program and delivery, that new approaches in planning style will meet with intra-departmental oonflict, and that there will be a tendency to follow the path set by the centralist-traditionalist counterpart. In the refinement of the model, the themes of politics-intervention and humility are reconsidered in view of their importance to decentralization. In the former theme, three new levels of intervention for the planner are distinguished, along with their respective competencies for the professional. In the latter theme, the distinction between professional and personal humility is sharpened. Lastly, the paradox of decentralization, upon reconsideration, appears to be overstated. The planning organization, as represented by the City of Vancouver Planning Department, is not the immovable object depicted in current commentary and theory. Rather, it appears to be in a state of transition between the inanimate bureaucratic form and the innovative organization implied in the ideal set of new competencies. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

This is a study of the involvement of small municipalities with the British Columbia Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) system. The analysis focusses on how the system operates to resolve differences between the province and localities over use of agricultural land. Case studies of five municipalities are presented. The thesis concludes that municipal priorities in use of designated agricultural land have usually prevailed, sooner or later, through operation of Reserve system procedures. Part I develops the implications of the ALR system, established in 1973, for small communities. On one hand, the Provincial Agricultural Land Commission (PALC) was mandated to slow the conversion of agricultural land to urban uses, and was impowered to exercise a form of zoning control for this purpose even within municipal areas. On the other hand, municipal governments with different priorities, such as creating new housing or industrial space, have typically wished to continue patterns of conversion of the agricultural lands within which they are situated. The Reserve system includes procedures, such as block exclusion applications, through which local governments can seek to have ALR land converted to urban purposes. Chapter 1 raises four questions about the experience of small municipalities with these procedures: 1. Are outcomes reasonable in the local situation? 2. Do small municipalities play an active and significant role in the process of deciding applications? 3. Is the ALR system subject to "regulatory capture" by municipalities? 4. Does "official community planning" supplement the formal Reserve system as a means of resolving provincial-local conflicts over use of agricultural land? Chapter 2 outlines the procedures and policies of the PALC for dealing with municipal applications and community plans. In Part II, case studies are reported for the municipalities of Keremeos, Armstrong, Salmon Arm, 100 Mile House and Merritt. In each case, all municipal transactions with the PALC from 1974 to 1979 are described. Information was obtained from Commission files, supplemented by interviews, site visits and local files. Community plans are also reviewed for their stance toward Agricultural Reserve land. Part III summarizes the experiences of the five municipalities and draws conclusions. Outcomes of municipal PALC relations are found to have been "reasonable" for the localities, inasmuch as the PALC has ultimately acceded to most exclusion applications, and these decisions have caused no evident "hardship" to local interests. The procedures suited the needs and resources of small municipalities well. Indeed, there is some indication of "capture" of the PALC and cabinet in the general success of initiatives from regulated communities. Community planning has rarely served as a means of resolving provincial-municipal differences, since the PALC has played a passive and pro forma role in assuring that the provincial interest in agricultural land preservation is expressed in key sections of plans which designate future land uses. The final chapter reflects on the implications of these findings for the balancing of provincial and municipal interests within the existing regulatory framework. Procedural changes are suggested which would offset factors which have tended to tilt the balance in favour of municipal preferences in this sector of the British Columbia agricultural land use regulatory regime. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

This study develops a model of collaboration choice among city governments. The theoretical model suggests that collaboration is a function of transaction costs that vary with different institutional arrangements utilized in cities, as well as the degree of competition between cities. This study argues that cities facing high transaction costs and high competition are less likely to participate in collaboration and to participate less deeply. Underlying these environmental factors are resource factors that create incentives for cities to collaborate for efficiency gains, which affect both the decision to collaboration and the depth of collaboration. Eleven hypotheses are presented to explain why cities choose to participate in collaboration in the first stage of the analysis and how deeply they collaborate in the second stage. Utilizing a Heckman model of this two-stage process, I find broad support for a number of variables that measure each of these theoretical constructs.

Magister Legum - LLM / This thesis attempted to examine the enabling conditions of existing South African water law and its implementation by the appropriate authorities. The Cape Town Municipality's management over water supply and services is included in this study. The research attempted to expose any shortcomings that might be prevalent in the new water law. The water allocation mechanism of the transformed water legislation and the water demands within various competing water user sectors of the community, such as those pertaining to agriculture and industry, was also explored. / South Africa

Peri-urban expansion patterns typically aggravate inequality and environmental precarity. Planners attempt to improve the quality and location of development by employing new tools that connect semi-private entities, national policies and non-governmental coalitions. Along the way, they overlook how action in the ongoing operations of local government offices employing the ‘old tools’ of land use regulation, zoning and the issuance of building permits often fosters the very patterns they are seeking to change. Using a sociological-institutional lens, this collection of essays examines how municipal land use staff create and sustain practices that interact with the growth pressures driving expansion, and the related spaces of possibility to improve outcomes. The information and data for these essays was drawn from field work undertaken in municipalities across metropolitan Guadalajara, as well as a review of official and other documents. The results are presented in a series of four essays that explore varying aspects of the institutional threads driving ongoing land use planning action. The first essay, "Ground rules: When daily practices among land use officials repeat to become 'gray institutions' of planning" examines the role of review by municipal employees and the presence of institutions. The second essay, "Making the ropes: How daily practices in a booming peri-urban municipality become durable 'gray' institutions shaping land use" analyzes the way prior experience creates precedent. The third essay "From archive to checklist: An ethnographic study of a municipal land use office in peri-urban Guadalajara" identifies an array of everyday collective practices in use. These include checklists, shared spreadsheets, rules of thumb, ways of talking, and archive creation. These 'gray institutions' strategically create and sustain power inside the municipality and with developers, as well as transmit and communicate values around municipal permitting and approvals of land use development. The last essay, “Play before the rules change: Building permit issuance and administrative transitions in municipalities in metropolitan Guadalajara, 2004-2020” identifies how local election-related changes and turnover generates uncertainty and can shift regulatory application. Taken together, the essays suggest that institutional analysis can be a powerful way to foreground action in planning – and that the day to day operations inside local government matter to the immediate and long-term implementation of regulations, plans and pressures on urban land use.

The Local Government: Transition Act (LGTA) (Act No. 209 of 1993) provided an overarching framework for the transformation of local government to usher in the new democratic dispensation for South Africa. According to the then named Department of Provincial and Local Government (DPLG, 2005:22), Local Government should deliver services effectively and efficiently without bias to all individuals in society. The White Paper on Local Government proposes that municipalities must develop mechanisms to ensure citizen participation in public policy initiation, formulation, monitoring and evaluating decision-making and implementation. The White Paper further introduced the notion of integrated development planning which was described as strategic frameworks to assist municipalities to fulfil developmental mandates and engage with stakeholder groups and local communities. This study focused on Umzumbe Local Municipality to comprehend its viability of the Integrated Development Plan (IDP), recommend mechanisms to promote community participation, enhance municipal service delivery, and structure a plan to address the emanating development needs. Furthermore, the aim was to establish the roles played by community members, and effort to participate in the IDP proceedings and evaluate the integrated development planning process through establishing community public participation methods. The data collected from both the communities and Municipal officials revealed a sharp contrast in what the Umzumbe Local Municipality believes to be effective community participation, including its understanding of the place and role of an IDP. Several recommendations were made to the Umzumbe Local Municipality which could assist both the Municipality and its communities to achieve a sound IDP planning and implementation. / Public Administration and Management / M. P. A.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how four of the teachers employed in Huddinge municipality look at the language developing aspects of their teaching, and how their views relate to the curriculum and the national and local syllabi of the subject Swedish within upper level of compulsory school and upper secondary school. The municipality's ambitions and aims with language development as a prioritized area functions as a background throughout the essay. The main issues concern the teacher's views on language development, their opinions about the course syllabi, the teachers' roles in relation to language development, and their attitude towards the Huddinge municipality's ambition to prioritize language development. Information has been gathered through semi-structured interviews with working teachers, and through analysis of the syllabus documents using a modified level-analysis model. The empirical material is related to several theoretical perspectives, such as socio-cultural perspectives on learning, and curriculum theory. The main results state that teachers very much emphasize the social and communicative functions of language, and also that reading is stressed as important for good language development. The curricula and syllabi are regarded as supportive tools; however they are not used very frequently in the everyday work. The municipality's ambitions regarding language development are known to the teachers, but they would like to see coordination on a municipal level when it comes to the various language development related projects within the municipality. The teachers also request more occasions for exchanging experiences and dialogue with others.