In Search of Local Public Management Excellence Seven Journeys to Success

IN SEARCH OF LOCAL PUBLIC MANAGEMENT EXCELLENCE SEVEN JOURNEYS TO SUCCESS Julia Bosse Alexander Heichlinger Emanuele Padovani Jan Ole Vanebo IN SEARCH OF LOCAL PUBLIC MANAGEMENT EXCEllENCE SEVEN JOURNEYS TO SUCCESS ISBN 978-90-6779-217-2 © 2013, European Institute of Public Administration. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher, EIPA. For translation or reproduction rights please contact: European Institute of Public Administration, O.L. Vrouweplein 22, P.O. Box 1229, 6201 BE Maastricht, the Netherlands. EIPA’s website: www.eipa.eu Typeset and printed by the Publications Service, EIPA, the Netherlands With the support of the City Council of Bilbao IN SEARCH OF LOCAL PUBLIC MANAGEMENT EXCEllENCE SEVEN JOURNEYS TO SUCCESS Julia Bosse Alexander Heichlinger Emanuele Padovani Jan Ole Vanebo The European Commission supports EIPA through the European Union budget © 2013, European Institute of Public Administration / Institut européen d’administration publique Maastricht, the Netherlands / Pays-Bas www.eipa.eu The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and are not necessarily intended to reflect those of EIPA. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INTRODUCTION 1 POLITICAL MANAGEMENT BASED ON ECONOMIC STRINGENCY AND STRATEGIC BUDGETS 15 City of Bilbao CHAMPS2 - A BRAVE AND HOLISTIC BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION 33 City of Birmingham CHANGE2 IN THE CITY OF SQUARES 55 City of Mannheim CITIZENS’ COMPLAINTS AS DRIVING FORCES FOR CHANGE 73 City of Milan PROGRESS BUILT ON ICT, OPENESS AND TRANSPARENCY 89 City of Tallinn SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH STRATEGIC THINKING AND ACTING 109 City of Tampere A SMART, SAFE AND GREEN CITY 127 City of Trondheim CONCLUSIONS AND SEVEN STEPS LEADING TO EXCELLENCE 145 GLOSSARY 157 LIST OF THE CITY PARTNERS 159 NOTES ON THE AUTHORS 161 BIBLIOGRAPHY 163 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This publication is the result of the joint effort by several enthusiastic public sector innovators and change agents from seven European cities, as well as their equally inquisitive and academic ‘helping hands’ from EIPA Barcelona, the Universities of Bologna (IT) and North Trøndelag (NO). Similar to the seven success journeys portrayed in this book, this assignment also had its very own journey and story to tell. After being named the winner of the European Public Sector Award in 2011 under the theme ‘Smart Public Service Delivery in a Cold Economic Climate’, the City of Bilbao was very keen and open to share with others its brilliant knowledge and values on local public management, and thereby boldly entered into a deeper and broader cooperation with EIPA. Thus, this study was one of the deliverables entrusted and commissioned by them. Therefore, our sincere thanks go first and foremost to the Mayor of Bilbao, Mr Iñaki Azkuna, and his aide in this assignment, Mr Andoni Aldekoa de la Torre, CEO in the city government, without whom this project would never have been realised. In the same context, we owe our greatest gratitude to the representatives of the seven participating cities from the EPSA e-Knowledge Platform, who embarked upon this exciting journey with us back in June 2012; they not only delivered and verified with eagerness all information needed for this analysis, but also spent long hours after work to fulfil our requests, as well as participating in two project meetings in Bilbao and Mannheim respectively, thus truly becoming partners and forming a powerful network of public sector innovators – and friends. These are (in alphabetical order of their cities): Leandro Ardanza, Director, S&F, City of Bilbao Elena Martin, Business Change Manager, City of Birmingham Gill Terry, Business Change Manager, City of Birmingham Ulrich Hörning, Head of Administrative Reform, City of Mannheim Paolo Poggi, Chair of the Department of Management Control, City of Milan Maria Morena Montagna, Manager of Customer Service and Complaints Desk, City of Milan Kaarel-Mati Halla, Director of Strategic Development, City of Tallinn Toomas Sepp, City Secretary, City of Tallinn Esa Kokkonen, Director of the Baltic Institute of Finland, City of Tampere Jukka Männikkö, Finance Manager, City of Tampere Gerhard Dalen, Chief Executive’s Office, City of Trondheim Elin Rognes Solbu, Director of Management and Human Resources, City of Trondheim It was a real pleasure to have been able to rely on such a pool of knowledgeable, encouraging and inspired senior city managers and to have obtained their (co-)ownership in this work. Within the EIPA team, special thanks go to Oriol Valentí i Vidal and Marta Requeno García, our ‘youngsters’ and interns, who mastered their tasks with great dedication and professionalism and thus proved to be an invaluable help to us. We wish them all the best for a bright professional future and on their ‘journeys to success’. Last but not least, we would like to express our gratitude to the Linguistic Services and Graphic Design team at EIPA Maastricht, Tiara Patel and Simone Meesters, for their patience, creativity and the excellent and diligent job they have done regarding the language and the layout of this publication. Finally, this publication is dedicated to all local public managers embarking upon their journeys in search of excellence... Alexander Heichlinger On behalf of the authors EIPA Barcelona INTRODUCTION ‘We live in an urban world. In 2012, the 600 economic top cities Half of the world’s population generated 60% of the global GDP, whilst 1 being home to only 20% of the world’s already lives in cities.’ population. In Europe, 67% of the GDP is produced in metropolitan regions. Approximately 70% of the EU population (about 350 million people) lives in urban agglomerations of more than 5000 inhabitants2, and there is a growing tendency. Regarding economic development, these figures suggest that the importance should be shifted from countries as a whole, to cities which are nowadays the generators of wealth, innovation, creativity, connectivity, productivity and employment, and are thus often the ‘engines of their national economies’3. The development of cities will determine the future territorial, (socio-) economic and spatial development worldwide and thus also in Europe. As stressed in the recent report by the European Commission on ‘Cities of tomorrow. Challenges, visions, ways forward’4, cities nowadays face important pressures and challenges such as – to name a few – demographic change, an increasingly culturally diverse population, economic stagnation or decline, the impact of new technologies, growing income disparities, social polarisation and segregation, urban sprawl and environmental threats to the urban ecosystems. These issues will affect cities to a varying degree. Major cities such as London, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Athens, Vienna and Berlin will experience further 1 McKinsey Global Institute, Urban World: Mapping the economic power of cities. Executive Summary, March 2011, p. 1. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/urbanization/urban_world_cities_and_the_rise_ of_the_consuming_class. 2 European Commission, Directorate General for Regional Policy, Cities of tomorrow. Challenges, visions, ways forward, Brussels, October 2011, p. 2. http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/ docgener/studies/pdf/citiesoftomorrow/citiesoftomorrow_summary_en.pdf. 3 See http://www.oecd.org/regional/regional-policy/urbandevelopment.htm. 4 European Commission, Directorate General for Regional Policy, Cities of tomorrow. Challenges, visions, ways forward, Brussels, October 2011. http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/ studies/pdf/citiesoftomorrow/citiesoftomorrow_summary_en.pdf. 1 growth coupled with, or due to, rural emigration; meanwhile some cities, mainly those located in the central and eastern parts of the EU and peripheral areas of Western Europe, will experience population shrinkages and a decline in economic growth. In addition, intra-urban dynamics will change: while city centres in the UK, Germany, Austria and Northern Italy develop faster than surrounding suburbs, fast growing sub-urbanisation can be observed in many countries in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe5. In addition, increasing global economic pressure and stagnation are realities for many cities due to the disappearance of the traditional manufacturing industries as well as there often being a ‘mismatch between labour market supply and demand’6. Temporarily, the effects of the economic crisis worsen the situation in many European countries. While governmental transfers have been reduced notably in countries like Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain due to the sovereign debt crisis, and while reductions were introduced at the mid-term level in the UK, only very few governments, like in France and the Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland), managed to protect local budgets. In the case of the latter, the local level was actually better off than the national thanks to automatic stabilisers built into the intergovernmental transfer mechanisms. Generally speaking, local indebtedness has increased in the majority of European countries, with the exception of the Scandinavian group7. At the same time, while the burden caused by the economic crisis is a (hopefully!) temporary phenomenon, the provision of services becomes more pressing in the long- term view based on the demographic change of an ageing society, and will outlast the

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