Three Stage Reform

Since 1992, the State Capital has been carrying out administrative reform, which was designed for 3 stages.

In Stage 1, those elements (methods, procedures, regulations, etc.) were examined, which were directed towards improvements within the administration. The objectives were efficiency, decentralisation of responsibility for resources, simplification of procedures, qualification of staff, etc. The measures proposed have to a large extent been implemented in the administration.

Stage 2 is concerned with collaboration between policy and management. This involved improvement in political control, an assurance of discretion allowed by the City Council to the Management Board, whereas in return the Management Board is required to submit informative reports.

The core feature of Stage 3 is external orientation of municipal services:

Customer satisfaction. It is important for the City Council to know what the citizens expect from the products on offer. To this end, a new method of citizen participation was tried out with the support of the University, for assessment by the citizens of administrative performance. Around 16,000 citizens of Kiel over 16 years of age were asked for their opinion. A number of suggestions were presented to the Management. The overall result was a positive assessment.

Provision of information to the citizens. The impact of services, as well as the quality of the service provided, can be made more effective, if the customers' wishes can receive attention at an early stage in the design of the product. This set of instruments, also employed by private businesses, can be transposed to the provision of municipal services. For example, early participation and involvement by citizens in finding solutions to problems in the service design process was investigated.

Citizen participation. Active participation by citizens in general in political life or by the assumption of honorary tasks is important for the work of the Councillors. As part of Stage 3, therefore, instruments for intensive participation by citizens in several sub-projects was tested.

An important aspect also at this stage of the project was achieving improved quality of municipal services using the available resources.

The State Capital of Kiel has, in the implementation of the administrative reforms, adopted a path of clearly realisable small steps and has developed all the reform and modernisation steps as far as possible from the standpoint of amortisation. All reports by the State Capital of Kiel are published in German language under www.kiel.de.