Report on the Survey on the Efficiency of the Delivery of Services Through the Municipal Management Information System (Mmis)
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REPORT ON THE SURVEY ON THE EFFICIENCY OF THE DELIVERY OF SERVICES THROUGH THE MUNICIPAL MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM (MMIS) LOCAL GOVERNANCE PROGRAMME SOUTH CAUCASUS September, 2016 Yerevan TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 3 2. KEY FINDINGS AND PROPOSALS ........................................................................................... 3 3. METHOD OF SURVEY ............................................................................................................... 4 4. SURVEY SAMPLING .................................................................................................................. 5 5. GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE STAFF USING MMIS ................................................. 5 6. EFFICIENCY OF SERVICE DELIVERY THROUGH MMIS ......................................................... 6 6.1. PROVISION OF REFERENCE NOTES ................................................................................ 6 6.2. PROVISION OF PERMITS ................................................................................................... 7 6.3. ONLINE DOCUMENT CIRCULATION .................................................................................. 7 6.4. MUNICIPAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT ........................................................................... 8 6.5. INFORMATION ON THE RATES OF LOCAL DUTIES AND FEES ...................................... 8 6.6. MUNICIPAL BUDGET AND ITS PERFORMANCE ............................................................... 9 6.7. DECISIONS OF THE MUNICIPAL COUNCIL AND THE HEAD OF MUNICIPALITY ............ 9 6.8. ANNOUNCEMENTS AND EVENTS CALENDAR ............................................................... 10 7. OVERALL SATISFACTION OF MUNICIPALITIES WITH MMIS ............................................... 10 Appendix 1. Sample of the survey questionnaire........................................................................... 11 Appendix 2. List of the surveyed municipalities ............................................................................. 16 1. INTRODUCTION From 14 June to 22 July, 2016 a perceptive survey was carried out in the rural municipalities of RoA within the framework of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Local Governance Programme South Caucasus. The survey aimed to find out the efficiency of delivery of eight services through the Municipal Management Information System (MMIS). Those services are as follow. 1. Provision of reference notes 2. Provision of permits 3. Online document circulation 4. Municipal property management 5. Information on local duties and fees 6. Municipal budget and its performance 7. Decisions of the municipal council and the head of municipality 8. Announcements and events calendar This report summarizes the main findings of the survey which seek to assess the functionality and major gaps of the system and improve the delivery of services; the results are based on the responses of the municipal staff. As different from mid-term monitoring, the current survey allows not only identifying the technical and content issues emerging during the use of MMIS and its level of usage by different muni- cipalities but also getting a general image of the efficiency of the service delivery through MMIS in comparison with the former experience of municipalities (prior to the MMIS introduction). However, the survey generated data on the difficulties in the system use in different municipalities and this data is included in the report as well. 2. KEY FINDINGS AND PROPOSALS1 - MMIS has a major significance in terms of organization of municipal life and improvement of electronic governance mechanisms. The overwhelming majority (93%) of the municipalities that took part in the survey consider that MMIS notably facilitated the work of the munici- palities through reducing the document flow and the time spent for their preparation, the staff workload, etc. It is worth mentioning that 97% of the municipalities stated that municipal ser- vice delivery has improved after the introduction of MMIS. The table below summarizes the results on the efficiency of the use of each service. Usage by the Assessment of the efficiency of service delivery (%) Name of service municipalities (%) excellent good average fair poor Provision of reference notes 77 62 29 7 2 0 Provision of permits 60 66 34 0 0 0 Online document circulation 95.1 74 17 9 0 0 Municipal property 44.6 63 32 0 0 5 management Information on local duties 47.6 68 24 0 0 8 and fees Municipal budget and its 58 - - - - - performance Decisions of the municipality council and the head of 93 - - - - - municipality 1 This report includes only the proposals by municipal employees. page 3 / 16 Announcements and 70 - - - - - events calendar General assessment of the efficiency of MMIS 68.1 66.6 27.2 3.2 0.4 2.6 application positive result average result negative result - The main advantages of providing the services through MMIS are as follows: speed, easi- ness/simplicity, availability/accessibility, structured system, accuracy of data, controllability, transparency, accountability, etc. - Non-provision of some services through MMIS is caused by both objective and subjective factors. Objective factors include technical issues (internet connection problems, improper functioning of computer appliances), lack of employees, while the subjective factors are the lack of knowledge and skills about MMIS among employees, adherence to the previous workstyle, etc. In order to at least partially solve this problem, frequent training courses for the municipal staff are required. Meanwhile, it would be more efficient to conduct some training courses in the municipality so that the skills of the employees are checked on spot. - According to the respondents, 83% of the municipal population does not use online services. In order to raise the productivity of the job performed through MMIS, it is necessary to work intensively with the residents and promote the use of online services thus reducing the need to visit the municipality. - In order to guarantee the functionality of online document circulation it if worth applying electronic signatures. This will save both time and material resources. - In order to secure the confidentiality of documents, it is suggested to give access to them to only one employee thus guaranteeing their security and controllability. 3. METHOD OF SURVEY The survey was conducted via questionnaires which allowed collecting both qualitative data and experimental material; basing on the latter, proposals aiming to improve the functionality of MMIS were developed. The introductory questions included in the questionnaire1 provided information about the average number, age, work experience, training courses and knowledge management events attended by the employees of the municipalities. The first group of main questions includes the services of provision of reference notes and permits, online document circulation, municipal property management and information on local duties and fees. In order to measure the efficiency of the services of this group, the employees were asked to assess the efficiency of the service delivery by 1-5 scale (5 stands for excellent and 1 for poor) and to justify the answer pointing out the advantages and shortcomings of providing the given services through MMIS. The second group includes services that aim to raise public awareness (publication of the municipal budget, the decisions of the municipal council and the head of municipality, announ- cements and events calendar on municipality website). In this case the employees stated whether those data is posted to the web-site or not and mention the reasons if not posted. The respondents were also offered to generally assess the efficiency of municipal service delivery through MMIS and submit recommendations related to both the improvement of the system and the development of e-governance. 1 See the sample questionnaire in the Appendix 1. page 4 / 16 4. SURVEY SAMPLING In total, 61 rural municipalities from 10 marzes of RA participated in the survey1. In order to ensure Chart 1. Regional allocation of the municipalities the most accurate results, these municipalities were proportionally yet randomly selected from Aragatsotn 4 10 Shirak the 130 municipalities where MMIS was introd- 5 Lori uced in 2013 or 2014. In other words, the number 5 Vayots Dzor of surveyed municipalities in each marz is directly 8 Ararat 5 proportional to the number of municipalities in the Armavir Gegharkunik 5 7 given marz which have been using MMIS since Kotayk 2013/2014. The number of surveyed municipali- 5 7 Tavush ties by marzes is presented in the chart 1. Syunik 5. GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE STAFF USING MMIS As mentioned above, the questionnaire also pro- Chart 2. Age groups of vided some demographic data about the staff respondents 2% who use MMIS. In total, 157 employees from 61 municipalities took part in the survey, including 48 men and 109 women. On average, 2.57 emplo- 18% 18-34 32% yees use MMIS in each municipality. 35-54 55-64 The survey findings (see chart 2) show that a 65+ considerable part of employees using MMIS is 48% middle-aged (35-54). Younger staff (aged 18-34) is ranked the second. 28 respondents are aged 55 to 64, and 4 people exceed 65 years. The questionnaire comprised also questions related to the work experience of the respondents Chart 3. Work experience