NEWS | Wednesday, 17 September 2008
Our comments below have been drawn up with the aim of enhancing the scope and effectiveness of Local Councils by: Improving their structure and organisation; Extending the scope of their responsibilities, and; Providing them with the resources to fulfil the tasks which they are set.
Structure and Organisation
The introduction of local councils has been an undoubted success. While it is inevitable that some councils have performed better than others, the overall result has been to give local communities a greater voice in their own affairs, to foster local pride and, within tight financial constraints, to enable them to set their own priorities for improvement.
We welcome the government’s decision to place local councils under the Office of the Prime Minister. This was a long over-due move which directly reflects the important part played by councils for the state of the environment in their communities and the crucial contribution they make to building successful communities.
With 68 local councils in Malta and Gozo, varying in size from less than one thousand to 21,000 inhabitants, covering both urban and rural areas, there has, not surprisingly, been a veritable patch-work of results as well as needs. The human talent which has come forward to run local councils has also been mixed, ranging from dedicated individuals content to operate at the local level to ambitious future government or opposition politicians. Some have been very good, while others have been light-weight. While it is vital that the quality of those willing to give public service on local councils should be high – and this must be encouraged – we must accept that in reality one of the limitations placed on future development of devolved local government will lie in its capacity to cope in human resource terms with any extension of its responsibilities.
We make three proposals for improvement in local councils’ structure and organisation. The first concerns the length of tenure of local councillors in office. Currently, this is for three years, a period which in our judgement is too short for effective implementation of a sustainable programme of work. The three-yearly rolling programme of local elections is also disruptive to the country’s political rhythm. We therefore propose that councillors should be elected to fixed four-year terms of office and that the current ‘staggered’ system of local council elections should be discontinued by arranging for all council elections to take place together on a set date every four years. We agree with you that Mayors’ terms of office should be subject to a time-limit. In our view this should not exceed two successive terms of four years each.
The second proposal is to ensure that local councillors – but most especially the Mayors – should be provided with solid support and regular training (for example, through conferences, seminars and briefing sessions) in public administration and finance. On the job learning alone is insufficient, inefficient and, by its nature, haphazard. A structured programme of instruction under the Office of the Prime Minister should be put in place.
The third proposal concerns the need for a central government support structure to be established with the role of thinking constructively about particular projects of national importance having an impact across council boundaries which local councils would be encouraged to implement within their four-year term of office. This would ensure greater coordination of national effort – for example, in supporting tourism – as well as the full involvement of local communities as stake-holders in major projects of national importance. The place for this central government support structure lies with OPM under the Director General for Local Government whose role should be strengthened accordingly.
Extending the Scope of Local Council Responsibilities
Local Councils are in the front line on environmental matters. Waste collection, cleanliness, litter and dumping, vehicle emissions, planning abuses, waste management, land use, the local cultural heritage and historic monuments are all environmental aspects which directly affect Local Councils and the people who live in them and in which they are – or should be – involved.
As the next step in the successful evolution of local government it would make sense for regulatory authority in many of these areas to be devolved directly to Local Councils. This would reduce central bureaucratic control, lead to more local involvement by those whose lives are directly affected and greater responsibility and accountability by local councillors to the people they represent. The concept of sustainable communities should be encouraged, by devolving responsibility and authority to those best placed to exercise it. Although regulatory authority in waste management, including waste collection and keeping areas clean, has already been passed to Councils, they have failed fully to match their responsibilities to the necessary actions.
However, it is pointless to devolve regulatory authority in these fields unless it is backed up by the necessary human and financial resources and direct access to the means of implementation. This affects especially such areas as cleaning, litter and dumping and waste management, as well as enforcement which is discussed in paragraphs 25 to 28 below.
The cleanliness of our islands is a particular weakness. It manifests itself throughout Local Council areas. None is exempt. The shameful dumping of rubbish and litter all over our islands is a national disease. Successive governments have failed to find an antidote. Despite the considerable efforts of the former Ministry for Resources and Infrastructure to clear up rubbish, illegal dumping continues to scar all areas of these islands. We find dumps and litter in open countryside, in our much abused valleys, some of our prime heritage sites, on the peripheries of our villages and towns, in our industrial estates and wherever a building is under construction.
We have an excellent free service for the collection of bulky waste items from households. Yet the apparent preference to dump unwanted items – preferably into somebody else’s backyard – remains uncontrolled. Although the responsibility for keeping most of these rural areas clean rests with the Local Councils, last year some sixteen thousand tonnes of dumped material, ranging from complete bathroom and bedroom suites to the carcasses of animals, construction waste and every other form of detritus, was collected from the roadside, valleys, countryside and industrial areas by the Cleansing Services Department. The admirable efforts being made by the Environment Landscape Consortium, through contractors, to keep road verges and traffic islands tidy and to add a splash of colour are negated by the litter which is gratuitously chucked out of passing cars.
A new Litter Act laying down stiff fines against those caught transgressing has had little tangible effect, although your recent commendable efforts to wage a concerted effort on litter louts will hopefully have the desired effect. This will only succeed if it is sustained. The recruitment of ‘under-cover’ plain clothes wardens to apprehend litter louts appears stalled. The introduction of security cameras at dump sites which are habitually used by litter louts has not been implemented.
Yet we are convinced that the only antidote to this national disease which will work is the strict and effective application of the rule of the law. We shall not overcome this cultural malady unless the government matches its determination to deal with the problem by willing the necessary law and order resources to counter it.
The introduction of stiffer fines may look good on the statute book, but will do little to stem the dumping of rubbish unless there are the manpower resources necessary to back it. This means the introduction of ‘Green Wardens’ in Local Councils – both under-cover and uniformed.
But in parallel to the enforcement structures, Local Councils must also be given adequate means - and full responsibilities and accountability - for ensuring the cleanliness of their areas. At present, Local Councils are given budgets which are simply not sufficient to cover adequately all areas – a short-sighted economy which leads to the current shabby state of so many areas. It would make eminent sense not only to review the level of funding allocated to Councils for cleaning, but also to administer this at a Regional level. We strongly consider that to achieve better economies of scale it would be sensible for management of such funds to be handled at the Regional level which would lead to the better establishment of priorities and a more equable and even allocation of funds across all areas. This organisation would also fit more comprehensively with the structure of enforcement which is proposed in paragraphs 25 to 28 below.
Although the countryside, or ‘non-urban areas’ as they are called, falls under the responsibility of Local Councils for their upkeep and cleansing, other areas, covering large swathes of the Island, are excluded. To give just a few examples, they include, inter alia, all the industrial areas, the crafts villages, the Freeport and power stations, the airport, all industrial installations, social and health centres and hospitals, Marsa Sports Complex and other Sports stadiums, the shooting ranges at Pembroke, all cemeteries, all park and heritage sites, including all the fortifications and major forts, the bus terminus and City Gate, all archaeological sites, all public gardens and historic monuments and all arterial and distributor roads. None of these fall under the relevant local council in the area. Ownership of and responsibility for all these sites and areas is scattered. For example, it is obvious that Heritage Malta is responsible for a number of historic sites and the Ministry of Social Policy is responsible for hospitals. But it is unclear where responsibility for cleanliness begins and ends. Is it just at the site itself or is the surrounding area also included? Accountability can only come with clarity of responsibility.
The current arrangements are a recipe for inaction. Too many areas of the country fall between a number of stools with nobody being held responsible for them or, if responsible on paper, not given sufficient resources to cope. Although it has not been possible to investigate how much money has been allocated to the former Ministry of Investments for the cleanliness of the industrial areas, for example, it is clearly inadequate – else why would our industrial areas be the target for so much litter and dumping which is left untouched? The same goes for the other areas – for example, the area around the Marsa Sports Complex or the Crafts Village.
The answer we advocate is to devolve responsibility to Local Councils where it is best exercised for all these areas and to provide the necessary resources for high standards of cleanliness to be set. This is at the Local Council level whose geographic boundaries include all the non-urban areas. If Local Councils were given the resources - including the ability and backing to invoke ‘the polluter pays’ principle with those who are causing the damage - and held accountable, these areas could be transformed.
The government, through the Cleansing Services Department, currently employs personnel which it contracts out to Local Councils on a commercial basis on urban roads cleansing work. The Cleansing Services Department also deploys personnel to clean about 500kms of arterial and distributor roads on behalf of ADT. It also undertakes work on behalf of government in, for example, clearing dump-sites in non-urban areas – a responsibility which formally rests with Local Councils but which they fail to carry out effectively, presumably through lack of resources, or lack of proper over-sight.
What is the best long-term solution? The answer rests essentially with central government. There seems no reason, either in principal or in practice, why a consortium arrangement, based on similar contractual terms to the Environmental Landscapes Consortium (ELC) cannot be drawn up using at its core the government employees currently in service together with other private sector employers. A number of private cleaning contractors already operate on behalf of Local Councils cleaning the urban areas. It will be a matter of extending the scheme to embrace a large enough consortium (ELC consists of four companies) already in the public cleansing field, acting in partnership with government. However, the monitoring controls and the drawing up of tenders for such services will need to be very tightly drawn to ensure that clear bench-mark standards are laid down and, most importantly, adhered to. Monitoring, regulating and enforcing good practice and quality service delivery by the private sector will be essential to the success of the new public private sector way of operating in this field.
As to the structural arrangements for such a consortium, the Local Councils are already organised into nine regions for the purposes of law enforcement services in connection with traffic and parking offences in Local Councils. They have their own Joint Committees and Tribunals and Commissions for Justice. A new ‘Clean Environment Consortium’ should operate through the Local Councils on a regional basis. The consortium would be subject to bench-marks set and monitored on a monthly basis by a Monitoring Board in either the Ministry of Infrastructure and Communications or with the Office of the Prime Minister. Such a scheme would fit well with the government’s desire to have more public-private initiatives of this kind, would – with the addition of the extra resources needed – make all Local Councils responsible for every part of their geographic area and, most importantly, improve the standard of cleanliness and tidiness of our country, not simply the so-called core area.
In parallel with the setting up of a Clean Environment Consortium and the full delegation of responsibilities for cleanliness to Local Councils must come a proper set-up for enforcement of the laws on littering and dumping. Enforcement of the law is crucially important to the protection of the environment. But to do so effectively will require a conscious re-direction of resources to this area of government business, as well as the organisation and political back-bone to make it happen.
The current organisation and arrangements for enforcement in the environmental field are inefficient as well as ineffective. There is a need for a single ‘Environmental Enforcement Agency’ to be set up which will be answerable to the ‘minister for the environment’. This will entail the concentration of all the Enforcement Officers in MEPA, ADT, MRA (when these are allocated to them), as well as ‘Green’ Wardens, into one Agency. They will be answerable to one Agency head who will deploy the resources available to him as deemed fit within priorities laid down by government.
The establishment of an ‘Environmental Enforcement Agency’ on the lines outlined will be more cost-effective (in exactly the same way as has happened with the payment for traffic wardens, the income from fines should more than compensate for the costs of sub-contracting the role of Green Wardens to the private sector) as well as being better targeted, organised and controlled. The current blurred responsibilities and lines of accountability will be removed and all enforcement – for whichever authority, including local councils – will be carried out by the one Enforcement Agency. Action on this aspect lies with central government, but Local Councils stand to benefit hugely from it.
One of the short-comings of the current arrangements is that collection of fines for environmental offences – especially those for littering and dumping – has proved difficult to apply. While traffic offences and parking offences are under-pinned by the fail-safe arrangements of the annual vehicle registration license to ensure compliance (ADT will not issue the car license until all outstanding fines have been cleared), no such arrangement currently exists for littering or dumping offences. This is a lacuna in the law which must be corrected. This can be done by adopting one of two options: either that the provisions of any government service – whether the issuing of a passport, medical or hospital treatment or a car license – will be conditional upon payment of all outstanding fines including those for littering, or tied to the annual tax return (which would include a section for outstanding fines of any kind to be subject to the same regime as any tax outstanding, including interest on the amount outstanding or undeclared). Again, action for this lies with central government.
We make no apology for dealing at length with the matter of cleanliness and the environment in local council areas, a subject which we covered comprehensively in our report, ‘The Environmental Deficit: The Reform of MEPA and the Other Regulatory Authorities’ of which you have a copy. It is such an important aspect of local councils’ responsibilities which has a considerable impact on the goal of building sustainable communities.
Nevertheless, we also acknowledge that although cleanliness of council areas and the state of the environment generally must feature highly in any discussion of greater delegation of responsibilities to local councils, there are other related areas where local government should be given a greater role. If the encouragement of sustainable communities is to have any real meaning in practice, then there are also good arguments for allowing local councils a greater say in planning applications affecting their areas. The reform of MEPA, currently under way, should examine ways of involving local councils more meaningfully in the planning process. It may be feasible, for example, for planning applications of a minor and straight forward nature (those only requiring a Development Notification Order, for example) to be considered at the local council level without the need for the MEPA Board to be involved. Such delegation will not only give councils greater involvement in the process, but also reduce the work-load on MEPA.
Allied to this, local councils should be given a greater role – and responsibility – for dealing with any planning abuses in their areas, especially where ODZ (Outside Development Zone) applications or other planning contraventions are concerned. Local councils should be treated as the eyes and ears of MEPA on the ground for ensuring the enforcement of any contraventions of planning development permits.
Local councils have a useful and positive role to play – not simply a consultative one – in all land use issues. MEPA should recognise this potential strength and turn it to their advantage in the battle for sustainable development. When the National Commission for Sustainable Development has been re-constituted the local councils should become an obvious important participant in it.
In a similar way, the Malta Tourism Authority should find ways of delegating responsibility to local councils on tourism-related matters. Local councils are often better placed than the MTA not only to boost the local tourism product, but also to identify or enforce abuses by establishments which fall under the responsibility of the MTA
The Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture and Heritage Malta, too, should explore the possibilities for greater involvement of local councils in the development and preservation of Malta’s cultural heritage and local crafts and traditions.
If ‘sustainable communities’ and ‘sustainable development’ in the face of the challenges of climate change are to have any real meaning, it will be most important, as said above, to involve local councils fully in national plans to achieve these objectives. The need for energy-saving measures and the reduction of air pollution, especially through sensible traffic schemes in built-up areas, must be central to the development of sustainable communities.
We should aim to make the local community environment more people-friendly (especially in the newer residential areas) so as to encourage more street-socialising (still thankfully evident in the smaller, more traditional villages), to encourage greater bicycle use for local errands and to make streets safer for young children, thus promoting greater community spirit – the essence of sustainable communities. We have already set out comprehensive proposals for this in our recent report, ‘Towards a Low Carbon Society: The Nation’s Health, Energy Security and Fossil Fuels’ (paragraphs 41 to 43 and 63 to 75), of which you have a copy. These are areas where local councils should have an important – perhaps even a leading – role to play. An annual ‘sustainable locations’ competition should be introduced which would serve to encourage local councils to approach sustainability challenges imaginatively and to spread best practice among all councils.
Local councils should also be given a greater role in encouraging the promotion and strengthening of small and medium-sized enterprises in their locality through the setting up of commercial associations to promote a better infrastructure for business, as well as to sharpen up the competitive edge that the locality has to offer to business in general, bearing in mind both the domestic and export markets.
In social and socio-economic matters, too, local councils can play a larger role than they do at present. There is a need for planning and understanding budgeting as it affects the genders. An important approach for achieving this is through ‘Gender Responsive Budgeting’ which, besides introducing the principle, can also serve as a pilot project for government before full national implementation is effected. This approach will ensure that local funds are used according to gender needs and will therefore include everyone. It will involve both genders in the discussions at the community level and will cater for the whole population. When such approaches are pitched at the local council level, greater value for money in the area of full population participation will be achieved. Capacity-building on such principles should also be included in the planning. Other aspects of social services may also benefit from being delegated to local councils where a more direct and personal relationship can be established with recipients.
The Provision of Adequate Resources
When we met on 24 May you highlighted the need for a review of the budget-setting formula for local councils. We strongly endorse that need. While we naturally understand the constraints on central government finances, there must also be the recognition by central government that efforts to improve local government and to build sustainable communities cannot be achieved without a more realistic level of funding.
The impression given - rightly or wrongly, since we do not have access to local council accounts - is that over the last fifteen years, expenditure on local councils has in the main been done on the cheap with less than 3% of government expenditure being devoted to it. The budget has never been sufficient to meet needs - as highlighted above where cleansing operations are concerned. If the role of local councils is to be expanded in a meaningful way - as the intention to build sustainable communities implies, and as we advocate here - then central government must be prepared to back this initiative with an increase in the overall funding budget for local government and a revision of the budget formula to reflect more realistically the roles placed upon them. It would be misleading for government to embark on a programme of expanding the role and responsibilities of local councils if it failed to back them up with new resources.
We do not believe that the ability for local councils to raise money from local taxation is yet opportune, although this is an idea whose moment may one day come. There must also be, as indicated above, a greater willingness by councils themselves to cooperate and operate together at the regional level in order to achieve economies of scale to ensure the most cost-effective allocation of resources and to avoid the budget on some major aspects being allocated in sixty-eight small, or relatively small, penny-packets.
The current practice of transferring roads to councils before they have been properly surfaced and laid should be reviewed in order to ensure that they are rehabilitated by central government before being handed over. The existing arrangements unfairly transfer a central government cost to the local councils’ hard-pressed budgets.
Your idea of awarding ‘an annual wind-fall’ to local councils which might compete to qualify for the implementation of particularly worth-while projects was also one which the think-tank welcomed. This would not only encourage greater creativity and ambition among local councils, but would also send a clear message that good projects would be rewarded.
Conclusions and Recommendations
To sum up, we welcome the governments’ intention to improve the role of local councils and to use them as the basis for building sustainable local communities. We believe that this should be an evolutionary process which builds on the good work which local councils have achieved in the last fifteen years. Fundamental to its success will be the need to ensure that local councils are given the additional financial and human resources necessary to enable them to implement their existing and future responsibilities.
We make the following specific proposals:
1. Councils should be elected to serve four-year terms of office and the current ‘staggered’ system of local council elections should be replaced by elections for all councils at a set date every four years;
2. Mayors’ terms of office should be subject to a time limit. This should not exceed two successive terms of four years each;
3. Local councillors should be provided with a programme of regular training in public administration and finance;
4. To ensure greater coordination, the central government support structure should be strengthened in its role of seeing through projects of national importance with impacts across council boundaries which local councils would be encouraged to implement;
5. Regulatory authority in many environmental and cultural heritage areas should be devolved directly to local councils. Specifically, we envisage greater regulatory authority being devolved in the fields of waste collection, cleanliness, litter and dumping, the control of vehicle emissions, the processing of some planning applications and countering planning abuses, land use, local cultural heritage and tourism-related initiatives. Detailed examples of these are set out in paragraphs 30 to 35 above;
6. Local councils must be given adequate means and full responsibility for cleanliness in the whole of their geographic areas. Local councils should be held directly accountable for achieving targets set for cleanliness by central government and the budget-setting formula for this should reflect council’s performance in meeting their targets;
7. ‘Green Wardens’ should be introduced at the local council level;
8. A new ‘Clean Environment Consortium’ (matching the successful concept employed with the Environmental Landscapes Consortium) should be formed by central government. It should operate through local councils on a regional basis;
9. Enforcement of the law on littering and cleanliness should be exercised by local councils through a central, government-controlled ‘Environmental Enforcement Agency’ to be formed by government which would include ‘Green Wardens’ within local council areas;
10. Local councils should be fully involved in national plans to achieve sustainable development in the face of the challenges of climate change;
11. The Local Councils Association should become an important participant in the National Commission for Sustainable Development when it is re-constituted;
12. The role of local councils should be extended to include elements of social and socio-economic services, such as ‘Gender Responsive Budgeting’ and other social services where a more personal relationship can be established with recipients, as well as the promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises in their locality;
13. Central government must recognise, however, that efforts to improve local government and to build sustainable communities on the lines proposed in this Note can only be achieved through a more realistic level of funding allocation to local councils. An upward revision of the budget-setting formula is over-due;
14. Councils should also recognise that they must be prepared to cooperate at the regional level to ensure greater economies of scale and the most cost-effective use in the allocation of resources;
15. We are not in favour of the introduction of local taxes at this stage of local government development, though this is an area which should be kept under regular review;
16. The current practice of transferring roads to local councils before they have been properly surfaced and laid should be reviewed;
17. The introduction of an annual ‘wind-fall’ which would be made available to local councils based on a competition to identify particularly worthwhile projects for support is welcomed.
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17 September 2008
ISSUE NO. 550
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