0w2010 01 RESUM EJECUTIVO 03 DEFcarta ang
26/10/10
19:49
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 42
United Cities and Local Governments
Figure 6: Local Government Expenditure and Revenue as part of the General Government Budgets in Europe
70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0
revenue expenditure
responsibilities that are in general under the purview of local governments include the supply of urban amenities and planning, waste collection and treatment, distribution of drinking water and treatment of waste water, payment of social benefits, and the provision of social services, including child care and income support for the elderly and the disabled. Because the services delivered by local governments tend to be intensive in labor, payroll accounts for the lion’s share of local government outlays in most countries.
governments to make the most of economies of scale to reduce delivery costs. This problem is being addressed in some cases through the amalgamation of small jurisdictions (as in Belgium, Finland, Netherlands and Norway), the joint provision of services by neighboring local governments (as in Finland, France, Italy, Luxembourg and Poland), often in the form of inter-municipal consortia, and in some extreme cases a recentralization of financing and provision (as in the case of health care in Norway).
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Local budgets are also affected by cost shifting between different levels of government and the creation of unfunded mandates by higher levels of administration. A case in point is when services are delivered locally, and norms and
Local governments are grappling with the need to contain the costs of service delivery
Since local jurisdictions are relatively small in many countries, it is difficult for local