Management Improvement in Twin Cities

The five twin-cities Hjørring (Denmark), Kerava (Finland), Kristiansand (Norway), Reykjanesbær (Iceland) and Trollhättan (Sweden) are developing an arena for mutual exchange of experience and learning from one another.

Initiated by Mr Erling Valvik, the municipal chief executive of Kristiansand, the first stage of project was to evaluate the municipalities in view of the criteria used for the Bertelsmanns Prize - the award given to municipalities for outstanding performance in 1993. The second stage has been to organise this project where members from the administrations in the twin-cities have exchanged experiences on chosen issues. The project manager, Mr Terje Fjellvang, for what is called the "Nordic Practice" is also from Kristiansand.

The criteria and the methods in The Bertelsmanns Prize were developed by a cross-national group of experts. The methods have been somewhat modified for a Nordic setting, but the data are generally comparable with those produced in 1993. The Bertelsmanns benchmarking was carried out in Kristiansand in September 1999. Hjørring, Trollhättan and Kerava carried out the evaluation in May 2000. A group of professors and experts from The University of Oslo and The abo Academy were responsible for the evaluation. The results of the evaluation showed that Kereva in Finland turned out to be «the winner» with 509 points. This "competition" has been welcomed as a vitalisation of the cooperation between the cities.

The second stages work is recently fulfilled and the reports are published on the projects own website www.kristiansand.kommune.no/nordic. The Nordic Practice project consists of 3 working groups. The municipality with the highest score on each given criterion is mainly responsible for this part of the project. Kereva is in charge of the working group responsible for criteria 3 and 4 (Decentralised management and Controlling and reporting), Hjørring for criterion 2 (Citizen and customer orientation) and Trollhättan for criterion 6 (Employee potential).