[logo: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway eea grants] [Polish national emblem; Ministry of
Infrastructure and Development]
Project implemented by
[logo of the Association of Polish Cities]
[logo of the Polish Association of Rural Communes]
[logo of the Association of Polish Poviats]
[logo of Let’s Decide Together project]
Competition
Local government management leader 2014
Inter-local governmental cooperation
Together for development
Project “Building Competences for Inter-municipal and Inter-sectoral Cooperation as Tools
for Local and Regional Development”
Financed by the funds of EEA including Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway as well as by
Polish funds;
[KS logo]
[logos of: EEA Grants, Ministry of Infrastructure and Development, Association of Polish Cities, KS,
Association of Polish Poviats, Polish Association of Rural Communes, Let’s Decide Together Project]
Competition
Local government management leader 2014
Inter-local governmental cooperation
Together for development
We announce the first edition of the new competition series “Local government management leader”,
implemented by the Association of Polish Cities, in partnership with the Association of Polish Poviats
and the Polish Association of Rural Communes and the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional
Authorities, under the auspices of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development, entitled Together
for development.
The competition is a part of a pre-defined project implemented by the Association of Polish Cities
with the funds of EEA Financial Mechanism entitled Building Competences for Inter-municipal and
Inter-sectoral Cooperation as Tools for Local and Regional Development.
The subject matter of the Competition concerns the cooperation of communes, poviats and
voivodeships in:




programming local/regional development,
joint implementation of development projects,
planning and implementing joint projects associated with the provision of public services,
stimulating local activity with the use of public participation tools.
Aim of the competition
The aim of the competition is to select and popularise the best examples of cooperation between
communes, poviats and voivodeships. The selection board will evaluate submitted proposals with the
use of the tool elaborated under the pre-defined project that will assess the quality of cooperation and
the stage of development of LGU partnerships. What will be evaluated is the manner of cooperation
employed by partnerships (subjects of cooperation) and not the object (domain) of their cooperation.
The organisers intend to achieve this aim by:


selecting local government unit partnerships, which thanks to the cooperation of
communes/poviats/voivodeships and possibly also entities from other sectors, implemented:
a) actions geared at programming and implementing local/regional development, and/or
b) joint projects to improve the quality of provided public services;
popularising the awarded solutions among other local government units.
The competition is dedicated to all partnerships of local government units, including those that
cooperate with entities outside the public sector. Scores will be given in two categories (to which the
organisers will assign the submitted proposals):
-
inter-local governmental cooperation,
inter-local governmental and inter-sectoral cooperation
Message of the competition
The management of development has been subjected in recent decades to profound changes,
characterised by ever increasing diversity. On the one hand, it signifies the diversity of solutions, on
the other hand, it constitutes a hurdle, especially from the perspective of monitoring and control of
public spending. The concept of New Public Management (NPM) which was taken from business and
which dominated by the end of the 20th century, has now been superseded by the so called Public
governance, which includes Multi-Level Governance (MLG), whose foundation is a partnership of
various, not only public, entities – inter-sectoral cooperation.
The authors of both of the Polish systemic reforms (1990, 1998/9) sensed this trend well, and proposed solutions
which they referred to as a partnership model of local government, to which there was added a partnership
with non-government sector, and sometime later – with the private sector (PPP).
In the relations between the respective “levels” of local government, the principle of strict separation of
competences (though not necessarily of tasks) was consistently observed, thus there is no formal dependence
between communes, poviats and regions. At the same time, no tools of effective cooperation were created,
especially related to creating and implementing development policy. The existing tools are inadequate, and the
new ones which are today indispensable (metropolitan areas, commune-poviat associations) cannot break
through the thicket of egoisms, particularisms and plain misunderstanding. There are also no effective
coordination mechanisms, because those which were being built with great effort at the beginning of the 2 nd
stage of the reform, were shortly afterwards eliminated, with delight of defenders of ministerial Poland.
Nevertheless, it often happens that good will and imagination are sufficient to define and implement joint
undertakings in these difficult external conditions.
It is necessary to stress, that this atmosphere has changed recently. What influences it are, on the one hand, the
requirements set in a new perspective of programming of the European Union development, and on the other
hand, ever more numerous good examples in various places in Poland, strongly supported by the Ministry of
Infrastructure and Development. Changes made recently to the TAOP, as well as the “pre-defined project” and
the “regional programme” under the EEA Financial Mechanism, have allowed to substantially support the
initiative of partnership cooperation, undertaken by various local government units for local and regional
development, often in cooperation with entities from other sectors: non-governmental and private.
The features of the undertaken cooperation may be summarised in the following way:






it concerns a territory considered as a common functional area by the partners,
it aims at defining and achieving common goals (solving common problems),
it involves joint implementation of tasks that enable to achieve the set goals,
it involves various entities and other participants, often outside the public sector, including the
inhabitants,
it involves various (available) legal frameworks, although there are also known the examples of good
cooperation outside formal structures,
it involves the use of resources (including funds) from different sources.
In the numerous scientific publications devoted to MLG, the word most often used to describe the character
of this cooperation is “coordination”. Ever more often there is also used the gerund “networking”. Both of
these terms reflect well the manner of conducting cooperation between LGUs to foster development.
Legislative acts provide for three basic forms of cooperation between LGUs:
a) purposeful commune or poviat relationships, created in order to jointly implement public tasks,
b) agreements regarding entrusting one of the parties with particular public tasks,
c) associations, created to defend common interests, subject to Law on Associations.
Despite numerous demands (e.g. regarding commune-poviat relationships) and projects (e.g. regarding
metropolitan or agglomerative structures), the state of affairs has remained largely unchanged.
Communes started from early on to use other organisational and legal possibilities of cooperation, including
first and foremost commercial companies. In two particular acts there have been included new legal
possibilities: local tourist organisations (LTOs) and local activity groups (LAGs), based on the formula of
association (both forms) or of foundation (LAGs), which enable the participation of other than LGUs
entities (including natural persons). Local government units today also use other forms of cooperation,
including consortia, clusters and other networks of voluntary cooperation (agreements).
The Together for development competition is to indicate the most interesting cooperation experiences of
inter-local governmental and inter-sectoral partnerships whose aim is to apply development policies in
functional areas of local, subregional and regional significance. We would like to identify good examples
of cooperation, innovative organisational solutions, interesting forms of relations with inhabitants and other
entities, innovative development coordination and planning methods and methods of supplying services, etc.
Competition rules
Regulations:
I.
Formal conditions
1. The condition for entering the competition is to simultaneously send an application in two versions:
(a) electronic version together with attachments at the address [email protected];
(b) written version, i.e. 1 copy of filled out form, signed by an authorised representative of the
partnership, to the address:
Association of Polish Cities (Związek Miast Polskich), ul. Robocza 42, 61-517 Poznań, with a note
“Together for development” Competition,
no later than on 7 March 2014.
2. Incomplete applications will not be considered.
3. The subject of assessment will only be such partnerships, which were created until 31 March 2013
(document establishing a partnership1) and whose practical activities can be evaluated.
4. If the partnership has a non-formal character, application for the competition may be submitted by a
local government unit or other legal person, which is able to prove that it is the leader of the
partnership.
5. Submitting an application for the competition is equivalent with declaring that one is ready to undertake
active actions to share one’s experiences with other interested entities.
6. Additional information can be obtained in the Secretariat of the Competition, phone No.
+48 61 633 50 53.
7. Costs of preparing an application and supplementary documents are borne by the entity applying to take
part in the competition.
8. Materials sent for the competition will not be returned.
9. Documentation of partnerships submitted for the competition may be used to popularise exemplary
solutions among other entities, with the reservation that the source of origin and author of the materials
are provided. If some of the documents are confidential, please mark them explicitly as such in the
document header.
II. Evaluation procedure
1. Evaluation of the submitted proposals and the selection of winners will be made in four stages:
1.1. Formal assessment – Secretariat of the Competition – verification of completeness of the application
and its conformity with the subject matter of the competition.
1.2. Substantive assessment – Selection Board. On this phase of the competition procedure the applications
which will have successfully gone through the formal verification stage, will be subjected to an
evaluation according to substantive criteria (see “Criteria” below). Partnerships with the highest scores
will go to the final of the competition2.
1.3. Visit in the partnerships qualified for the final – representatives of the Selection Board, who after a
meeting with the members of the partnership will make a final evaluation of the proposal and will
present it to the Board. During the visit there will be verified the reliability and the information included
in the application; if needed, the information in the application will be supplemented.
1.4. Selection of winners – Selection Board, made up of strategic advisors of the pre-defined project3 and the
representative of the Association of Polish Cities, partners and the patron – the Ministry of
Infrastructure and Development. The Board will strive to make a consensual decision, and in the case of
lack of consensus, they will vote. Board’s rulings are final.
1
Letter of intent, cooperation agreement, statute of a relationship or an association, inter-municipal agreement, etc.
2
Note: What will be subjected to evaluation by the experts is the electronic version of proposals and attachments, sent to
the email address of the Secretariat of the Competition (as specified above ). We expect that the basic supplementary
documents will be directly attached to the electronic version of the proposal. If some of the attachments are of significant
size (e.g. it includes pictures, scanned press articles, research results, etc.), then we allow to place them directly on the
applicant’s website and to provide a precise link to this address in the right place of the application – so that the expert
could access this document during the assessment process. The hard copy of the proposal will only serve documentation
purposes in the competition procedure. If at any stage there should occur a discrepancy between the contents of the hard
copy of the proposal and the materials sent electronically, then the electronic version sent for the competition will prevail.
3
Composition of the team of strategic advisors: Jan M. Czajkowski, Ph.D. (Zgierz), Grzegorz Kaczmarek, Ph.D. (Bydgoszcz),
Ewa Kipta (Lublin), Jarosław Komża (Żyrardów), professor Jacek Nowak (Poznań), Janusz Szewczuk (Szczecin).
III. Evaluation criteria
The evaluation criteria in our Competition will be based on the scheme involving a set of criteria for
evaluating partnerships, which we propose to use in the future by both the experts evaluating the
development of a partnership from outside and the partners themselves, as means of self-assessment. This
last application is of particular significance: self-assessment should be conducted regularly by the partners,
so that the conclusions could be constructively used for the development of the partnership.
We decided to divide the partnerships into two categories: inter-local governmental partnerships and
inter-local governmental and inter-sectoral partnerships. Of course we realise that the partnerships
oriented towards programming and creating development (strategic partnerships), out of their very nature
will strive to involve various entities which participate in the development processes, and thus they will be
inter-sectoral. Due to the time of announcement of the competition, however, when the multi-level
governance is in many places in its initial stage of development, we believe that such division is justified.
Perhaps it will remain in the future as well, as it is possible to imagine such sectoral LGUs partnerships
which are valuable, or even constitute a model, even though they do not include partners from other sectors.
Our partner in the category of inter-sectoral partnerships is the Cooperation Fund Foundation, in the name of
a well-known Ministry of Infrastructure and Development systemic project Let’s decide together, which
involves the participation of many local government units.
Evaluation criteria have been divided into two groups, related to:
a) substantive dimension of a partnership (methods and tools of programming development):
-
diagnosis of the status of resources and competitiveness of the partnership functional area (PFA),
analysis of functional connections of public services in the PFA and the extent to which they are
integrated,
PFA development programmes and the extent of their mutual integration,
monitoring and evaluation of the functioning of the partnership.
b) formal dimension of a partnership (organisation of cooperation between partners):
-
composition of the partnership from the point of view of its needs,
informational policy of the partnership and its implementation,
space for dialogue and debate within the partnership.
IV. Awards and honours
1. The award in the competition will be a diploma and a title of “Local government management leader
2014” – Together for development. Representatives of the winners in the Competition will also take
part in a study visit to Norway.
2. All finalists of the competition will receive a diploma confirming their participation in the final part of
the competition (The Finalist of the competition Local Government Management Leader 2014 –
Together for development.)
3. Descriptions of the experiences of the partnerships qualified to the final of the competition will be
included in the Local Government Database of Good Practices, which is conducted by national
organisations of communes and poviats (www.dobrepraktyki.pl)
4. Experiences of partnerships which during the substantive evaluation are indicated by the Board as
practices worthy of wider dissemination, will be described in an after-competition publication Together
for development, as well as on the website of the project.
5. A list of the winners and finalists of the competition will be announced during the 1st Congress of
Local Government Partnerships, during the celebration of the 25th anniversary of regaining freedom
by Poland, under the auspices of the President of the Republic of Poland.
6. Experiences of partnerships will be used by the partners of the project when elaborating legislative and
programming conclusions.
Schedule
Announcement of the competition and sending out individual invitations to
all local government units (email)
Deadline for submitting applications
Selection of finalists
Visits at the units
Selection of winners
Conference summarising the competition – announcement of results
11.02.2014
until 07.03.2014
until 28.03.2014
from 31.03.2014 to 09.05.2014
until 30.05.2014
02.06.2014
Competition application form
with filling in instructions
Please download this application form from the website of the Association of Polish Cities
(www.zmp.poznan.pl), Polish Association of Rural Communes (www.zgwrp.org.pl), Association of Polish
Poviats (www.zpp.pl; www.partnerstwa.jst.org.pl) or from the Let’s decide together project portal
(www.decydujmyrazem.pl), fill it in and send it back with attachments to [email protected], together
with a hard copy which must be sent to the following address: Association of Polish Cities (Związek Miast
Polskich), ul. Robocza 42, 61-517 Poznań, with a note “Competition – Together for development”.
Subjected to evaluation will be all applications whose originals together with an electronic version reach
the Secretariat of the Competition on 7 March 2014 or before (postmark date).
Note: the electronic version must be sent to the following address: [email protected]
Before starting to fill in the form, please see the instructions.
1. Partnership: ……………………………………………………………………………………
2. Legal form: ……………..……………………………………………………………………...
3. Members / signatories:
a)
LGU:
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
b) Other entities:
-
non-governmental organisations:
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
-
businesses:
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
-
research sector:
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
-
public sector:
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
-
other:
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
4. Date of founding the partnership (establishing document): …………….. / ……………………
5. Contact information:
Address: ………………………….……………………………………………………………..
Telephone No., e-mail: ………………………………………………………………………….
www: …………………………………………………………………………………………….
Contact person: …………………………………………………………………………………..
6. Additional information:
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
First name, surname and signature of a representative ……………………………..; date: ……….. 2014
abbreviations: PFA – partnership functional area; DS – development strategy
No.
Criterion / subcriteria (guiding questions)
YES NO
Notes
SUBSTANTIVE DIMENSION OF A PARTNERSHIP
1.
Diagnosis of the status of resources and competitiveness of the partnership functional area (PFA)
1a
Has the diagnosis of socioeconomic situation of the PFA been performed?
if yes, please
attach
Attachment(s) or link(s) to web pages:
1b
Has a joint team for the analysis of this situation been appointed?
if yes, please
describe
Description:
Have conclusions been drawn from this analysis? How were they
1c
implemented?
Description:
up to 1000
characters
1d
if yes, please
attach
Have these conclusions been used in the joint development strategy?
Attachment(s) or link(s) to web pages:
1e
Whether and how do these conclusions facilitate the monitoring and
updating of PFA development programmes and projects?
Description + list of attachments, if any and link(s) to web pages, if any:
Whether and how other entities/subjects (which?) have been included in
1f
these works?
Description:
2.
Analysis of functional connections of public services in the PFA
2a
Whether and on which basis the analysis of functional connections of at
least one public service in the PFA has been performed?
up to 1000
characters +
attachments,
if any
up to 1800
characters
if yes, please
attach or
describe
Description or a list of attachments (or links to web pages, if any):
2b
Is there a joint team which analyses these connections?
if yes, please
describe
Description:
Have conclusions been drawn from this analysis? How were they
2c
implemented?
Description:
up to 1000
characters
2d
if yes, please
attach
Have these conclusions been used in the joint development strategy/plan?
Attachment(s) and link(s) to web pages, if any:
Whether and how other entities/subjects (which?) have been included in
2e
these works?
Description:
3.
The extent to which PFA public services have been integrated
3a
Whether and on which basis the decision about joint implementation of one
or more public services has been made?
Short description:
3b
Whether and how has this cooperation been coordinated/institutionalised?
Description + link(s) to the web sites of involved institutions, if any:
3c
Whether or how has this/these service(s) been reorganised?
up to 1000
characters
up to 500
characters
if yes, please
describe
if yes, please
describe
Description:
Whether and how have the joint investments in services been
3d
planned/implemented?
List + short description:
if yes, please
describe
3e
if yes, please
describe
Whether and how is the quality of joint services being monitored?
Description:
4.
Development programmes for the partnership functional area (PFA)
4a
Has decision been made to elaborate a joint development strategy (DS) of
the PFA?
4b
Have the partner development programmes been inventoried?
if yes, please
attach
Attachment (or a list, if any):
4c
Whether and on which basis the common priorities/development axes have
been set?
Description:
if yes, please
describe
4d
if yes, please
attach
Has a joint PFA development strategy (DS) been elaborated?
Attachment(s) and link(s) to web pages, if any:
4e
Have sectoral strategies/programmes also been planned/elaborated?
if yes, please
enumerate
List (with a link to a website):
4f
Is the PFA DS monitoring and evaluation of its implementation conducted?
if yes, please
describe
Description (+ attachments: reports, + links to web pages, if any):
Whether and how other entities/subjects (which?) have been included in
up to 1800
4g
characters
these works?
Description:
Which particular activities have been undertaken to implement the PFA
if yes, please
4h
enumerate
development strategies/programmes?
List of undertaken/implemented activities + dates of implementation + short description, links to web pages, if
any:
5.
Degree of internal integration of PFA development programmes
5a
Have the local strategies/programmes been updated according to PFA DS?
if yes, please
enumerate
List of updated strategies/programmes + date of updating + Public Information Bulletin (PIB) links:
5b
Whether and when was the land use plan updated on that basis?
Land use plan update list + PIB links:
Whether and when was the Multiannual Financial Plan (and possibly the
5c
Multiannual Investment Plan) updated on that basis?
MFP (and possibly MIP) update list + PIB links:
Whether and how was the partners’ personnel familiarised with the PFA
5d
DS?
Description:
6.
Monitoring and evaluation of partnership functioning
Whether and how were the partnership’s goals and way of their
6a
implementation specified?
Description:
6b
Whether and how is a regular evaluation of implementation of the goals
conducted?
Description:
6c
Whether and how are the conclusions of this evaluation formulated?
if yes, please
enumerate
if yes, please
enumerate
up to 1000
characters
if yes, please
describe
up to 1000
characters
if yes, please
describe
Description:
Whether and how are these evaluations and conclusions published?
if yes, please
describe
Description or a list + link(s) to publications:
6e
Whether and how are these evaluations and conclusions a subject of public
debate?
Description:
if yes, please
describe
6d
FORMAL DIMENSION OF A PARTNERSHIP
1.
1a
1b
1c
1d
1e
1f
1g
Composition of the partnership from the point of view of its needs
Do only communes participate in the partnership?
Do poviats also participate in the partnership?
Does a voivodeship also participate in the partnership?
Do NGOs also participate in the partnership?
Do entrepreneurs also participate in the partnership?
Does a research sector also participate in the partnership?
Do other public entities also participate in the partnership?
1h
Do natural persons also participate in the partnership (who)?
Description:
Please write a short justification of the composition of the partnership
up to 500
characters
up to 1800
characters
Justification:
2.
Partnership’s informational policy and its implementation
2a
Is there a joint informational policy (if yes, please describe)?
up to 1000
characters
Description – link to a web page (if any):
2b
Whether and how is it integrated with partners’ informational policy?
Description:
2c
Scope and target of the joint informational policy (please describe)
up to 500
characters
up to 1000
characters
Description:
2d
Is the exchange of information bilateral (if yes, please describe)?
up to 1000
characters
Description:
2e
Information tools and channels used (enumerate and evaluate effectiveness)
up to 1800
characters
List + possible short description + links to web pages + effectiveness assessment:
3.
Space for dialogue and debate within a partnership
3a
Does the joint informational policy involve dialogue and debate?
3b
Whether and how are ongoing consultations conducted between partners?
Description:
3c
Whether and how are public consultations of partnership’s activities
conducted?
Description:
3d
Whether and how is the opinion of inhabitants about partnership’s activities
surveyed?
Description + a link to a report with survey results (if any):
3e
Whether and how are the beneficiaries of services included in the debate?
if yes, please
describe
if yes, please
describe
up to 500
characters
if yes, please
describe
Description:
FILLING IN INSTRUCTIONS:
1. If any of the materials which may illustrate you answer to a question are featured on web sites, please
include appropriate links.
2. If any activity (process / elaboration / report, etc.) took place more than once (e.g. a diagnosis has been
elaborated again, there has been a new evaluation of DS implementation, a strategy of a programme has
been updated, service quality has been assessed, inhabitants’ opinion has been surveyed, etc.), please
list (attach, link to) each of them.
3. Please send only the filled in form for the Competition organisers. All attachments in electronic form
(CD, e-mail) or linked, after ensuring that the link is correct and active.
4. Please write an e-mail or call the Competition organisers should you have any questions.