Nils A. Røhne
Politisk rådgiver / Political advisor
Administrasjonsdepartementet / Ministry of Government information

Division of tasks and cooperation between state and local government in Norway

Seminar for Hungarian municipal leaders, Budapest, 19.09.95

First of all I want to express my thanks for the invitation to this seminar. My name is Nils A. Røhne and I work as the political advisor for the Minister in the Ministry of Government Adminstration.

I am in this respect asked by my Minister, Nils O. Totland, to send his kind regards to the representatives from the Ministry of the Interior and to the participants of this seminar. In a time where the geo-political, technological and economic developements present us with new, demanding challenges - we face an international arena in constant change. In this situation it is decisive - very important - that the different states in the european continent cooperate - and it is especially important that the small states cooperate in finding their way into an uncertain and unknown future.

This challenge is especially demanding when we speak about our own continent - Europe. To quote the well-known Czech novelist and poet, Milan Kundera, (born 1. april 1929) the author of "The book of laughter and forgetting", a series of witty, ironic meditations on the moderne state's tendency to deny and obliterate human memory and historical truth:
"Europe", says Kundera,"is a maximum of variety in a minimum of space."
From Spain to Poland, from Scotland to Hungary it circulated during the Middle Ages and since, through the centuries of the modern age, a stream of connections and developements, of styles and phases, of art and literature, of philosophic and political ideas, of unity and diversity.

It is in this political environment that the idea of democracy as an important part of our common European civilization has developed.

In his book "A History of European Integration", professor Walter Lipgens at the University of Saarbrucken, identifies four basic principles for our civilzation and our democracy:

1. Respect for the human personality, the freedom and dignity of the individual.
2. Respect for small communities and their right to self government.
3. Respect for the objective truth.
4. The sense of social responsibilty for the weak coming from the respect of the individual.

And it is on this principles that we both in Norway and in Hungary must build and develope our democracy and our system of governing, both on state and local level. I will in my introduction, "Division of Tasks and Cooperation State - Local Government in Norway" give a brief outline of how we try to accomplish this in Norway.

In a paranthesis I also want to remind You of another under-current in the European political context. Our continent has not only given important contribution to the concept of Human Rights and Democracy, but also to agressive nationalism, totalitarism and fascism.

The small states of Europe has a responsibility to protect and promote the positive values of European political culture.

Norway and Hungary both belongs to the group of small states in Europe. But there are of course big differences between our two countries. Hungary with its population exceeding 10 million people, compared to Norways little under 5 million people. However, as Hungary has more than the double of Norways population, Norway is more than tree times as large. The population density in Norway is low - 13 persons per sq km - compared to ca 110 persons per sq. km. in Hungary

In this vast, but sparsely populated area, we have three levels of administration and government - central/national, regional and local levels.

We have 435 municipalities (communes) and 19 counties. The size of the municipalities varies, ranging from below 500 inhabitants and up to the municipality of Oslo, the capitol of Norway, with 450000 inhabitants. Half of our municipalities has less than 5000 inhabitants, but 80 percent of the people lives in municipalities where the number of inhabitants exceeds 5000.

Following the second World War the number of municipalities was about 700, and the number has been reduced with about 300 since that time. The fusions of municipalities always causes a lively political debate, with much emotions involved. Change in technology and communications, pattern of settlement and the demographic pattern, and the overall change in the Norwegian society as such, indicate the necessity of a reform of the municipality and county structure. But in this question the local communities almost always have the opposite view of the central government and administration. This is actually one of the main themes in the Norwegian internal political debate in these days.

The Government has just presented a Report to the parlament, the Storting, about the municipality structure. One of the intentions behind this report is to start a process, where central and local politicans and communities discuss the municipality structure. At the moment the discussion focus on what body is going to have the power of final decision in fusions between municipalities and consequently about changes in the municipality structure- the parliament or the local municipality assembly. The final decision lays with the Storting to day, but a majority in the Parliament wants to give this authority to the local communities, against the will of the governing Labour party ...

When the discussion about the administrative structure of the public sector is so central, it can be traced back to a very strong feeling of local identity and local patriotisme in Norway. Some say that even if - according to historybooks - it is thousands of years since the Viking-king, Harald Hårfagre, accomplished the uniting of the different small kingdoms in Norway into one nation, we still aren't finished with that job !

The interest surrounding the administrative structure is not least due to the fact that the public sector in Norway is very important in the norwegian economy and society. In figures we speak about public expenditure in 1995 of 450 billion kroner of a total gross national product, excluding oil industry, amounting to 665 billions. This is equivalent to 68% of the GNP.

Norway - as the other Scandinavian countries - is characterized by having a relatively large public sector. This is due to the post World War Two development of a welfare state, a policy put forward especially by the Norwegian Labour Party and different Labour Governments. As the functional scope of the welfare state has increased, the provision of welfare services have been closely connected to processes of decentralization from central to local levels of government. Thus it can safely be said that local government has been the main instrument in the post-war implementation of the Norwegian welfare state.

I think that the Scandinavian model of local government represents two equally important dimensions: Local Government being both a vital service provider and an important local democratic institution.

Decentralization is often said to challenge national equality and a fair distribution of costs and benefits. To balance this, a lot of instruments can be applied. Norway is a large and sparsley populated country. Regional policy has therefore allways been an important factor in Norwegian politics. Its aim is to ensure redistribution between different parts of the country, development and settlement in rural areas, especially directed towards northern Norway.

Incidentally I want to remind You of the special shape of Norway. When you look at the map you will see the country constitute a long and narrow part of the Scandinavia peninsula. Actually the nothern part of Norway is just as far from the capitol of Oslo, as Rome from Oslo. The far distances between the north and the south of the country constitute a special challenge for our regional policy.

In a recent Government Report to the parliament - 'the Storting' - state policy on local government is being reaffirmed (St.meld. nr. 23, 1992-93). Local government values such as autonomy, democracy, participation and effectiveness is being balanced by national government values such as equality, national economic control, public security and sustainable development. To succeed in building democracy and good public service provision, it is absolutely necesary that the state and local government work together. It is thus of immense importance to have well accepted division of tasks and accepted ways to regulate the relationship between national and local government.

There is also another question of even greater importance than agreement concerning the divison of tasks and regulations between local and central government. Democracy and citizen participation is dependent on the willingness to take part in the elections and in the political life as such. Among other indicators the share of the population participating in the elections (voter turnout), can be a measure of the political interest and the vitality of the political system. And here we have danger signals in Norway: In the elections for municipality assemblies and county assemblies last week there was lower than 60 % voter turnout. That is the lowest figure ever after the second world war. If this tendency of falling voter partisipation continue, our democratic system has a lack of success threathening the democracy itself. It would be interesting to hear about the developement in Hungary in this respect, and discuss what can be done to turn this tendency the other way around.

Anyway, we have just now elected 435 different municipality assemblies and 19 county assemblies. The party or parties that form a majority share the positions among themselves - the central positions is of course the mayor and the leaders of the different political bodies or sections in the municipalities: Most municipalities has the following sections: An administrative body, an education sector, a health and social service sector, a cultural sector and a technical sector. In the county, on the regional level, we find four main political bodies: One for education, one for health and social service, one for culture and one for communications and industrial policy.

The members of the municipality and county assemblies fill the positions in these different political steering bodies.

On the regional level there is both a regionally elected county municipality and several regional state offices, among which the county governor is the most important. Next to the County Governor is the Deputy County Governor. The County Governors office is furtherwise generally organised into five sector departments: Environment, Agriculture, Social and Family, Municipal affairs and Civil Defence, In addition it is common to have two staff units: One for administrative functions and one for coordination tasks.

The Ministry of Government Administration has the responsibilty for the county governors. And to put it short: The county governors are important in the state control of, and dialogue with, local government.

Division of Tasks

The municipalities and county municipalities have the responsibility for important welfare sectors such as education, health and social services in addition to planning and development.

About two thirds of local government expenditure is being spent for primary education, primary health and social services. In the county municipalities more than three fourths of the expenditure is being used for secondary education and hospitals.

Looking at employment figures we note that there is about three times as many local government employees as there is state employees. Almost all the growth in public employment in the last three decades have been in local and regional government. This is mainly due to reforms in the education system and the provision of health services. In accordance with the prognoses the growth in the number of public employees will be about 10000 persons a year in the years to come in the public sector - mainly in local and regional levels. To day the municipalities has more than half a million employeesand the state sector about 180000 employees. The big challenge for Norway in the years ahead is to maintain and sustain a growing public sector - at the same time as the income from oil-production is declining.

The growth of the local government sector is also seen when we compare consumption figures. In 1950 state consumption was 5,5 percent of gross national product (GNP), while local government consumption was 4,5 percent of GNP.In 1988 state consumption had risen to 8 percent of GNP, while local (and regional) govenment consumption had increased to 13 percent of gross national product. These figures show that public consumption as percentage of gross national product has risen from 9 to 21 from 1950 to the late 80's, and that this development is mainly due to the growth of local government expenditure.

The following gives an impression of the developement in the later years; the tendency is to transfer more and more of the welfare provisions and other tasks to the regional and especially the local level. We therefore have a never ending debate between the state and the regional and local level about the transfer of resources to the local and regional levels. At the time being the municipalities and the state discusses the cost of an educational reform that adds a year to the length of the primary scool. The local municipality will after this reform have the responsibility for the school-system from age six til 16. The nexts three years of secondary school is the responsibility of the county municipality.

Because the different municipalities have different financial situation and their different priority to education, the conditions for pupils from one municipality to another may differ.

This of course focus on the principal on equal opportunities for everybody in the primary school, which is a national political goal. On the other hand You have the right to local self government...This is of course a never ending debate between different principles and the authority between central and local government.

Two days ago one of the central Norwegian newspapers had this article: Where You live decides what Your children learns. In this article we can read that the little municipality of Utsire uses 198 "teacher-hours" per pupil on the primary level - while Oslo on average uses 61 hours.

This, among other things this raises the question of how we finance the local and regional government and administration in Norway.

Before I go further into this topic - I want to emphasize once more the important role the municipalities and counties play in our national economy. The figures from 1993 tells us that the local government sector accounted for 12 % of the GNP. In additoin, nearly 20% of the total labour force were local government employees.

County and municipal services are dependent upon the amount of income received. Expenditure by individual counties or municipalities must be less or equal to their income. Local councils are permitted to take up loans for investment purposes, but the payments (instalments (repayment -avdrag) and interest must be covered by revenues. (revenues = income, especially of a large amount, from any source.)

The central government lays down the framework for total local government revenues each year in the State Budget. A complicated system this total is being distributes the budget between individual counties and municipalities.

We can seperat the sources of income into three groups:

1. Taxation - approximately about 50% of total income.
2. Central government transfers - counting for aproximatly 40%
3. Fees and charges - which counts for about 10 %

In the last ten to fifteen years there has been a change in the method of distributing central government funds to local authorities. Earmarked grants have been replaced by a block grant.

To make local democracy prosper within the states is noot and will never be easy - democracy itself is also a difficult and demanding process. Even if I don't agree completely with Winston Churchill's judgement about democracy:
"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried form time to time."

And for my conclusion I want to lend another picture from Winston Churcill - it is from his book "My young years".

Building a democracy is "not unlike building a house, planning a battle or painting a picture. The technic is different, the materials are different - but the principle is the same. The foundation has to be laid, the data assembled and the premises must bear the weight of their conclusions, ornaments and refinements can be added later."

Our foundation is our common European culture, the premises are respect for the rules of democracy and the right to self-government. Even if the conclutions in the local assemblies and the results of the local government from time to time differs with national goals.

Ornaments and refinements is the different national experiences and traditions that gives the local shape of the democratic system its national flavour.

It is a common resposibilty for the European people and their politicans to develope and protect democracy - it is just as important a task for the national and local adminsitrations all over the continent to ensure that the democratic system works. And that the national, regional and local democratic bodies function together as a whole !

Thank You !!!