Improving local democracy through ELoGE: Time’s good governance journey in Norway

So, what is the state of local democracy in Norway? At first sight, an average national voter turnout of 60% at the last local government elections in 2011 seems to suggest that Norwegian municipalities are still doing well, at least compared to most other OECD countries (and certainly compared to the UK). However, for the municipality Time (18,000 inhabitants) in the beautiful Stavanger Region on the South-West coast of Norway, a local voter turnout of 67.4% was not seen as good enough. Therefore, the local council decided to pilot the European Label of Governance Excellence (ELoGE) of the Council of Europe to get a full picture of the state of local democracy in in the municipality.

Read this case study to find out how ELoGE works and what Time learnt from working with this tool.  

ELoGE stands for the European Label of Governance Excellence, an initiative of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg to promote the ‘Strategy for Innovation and Good Governance’. The tool was launched in 2008 to provide the 48 Member States of the Council of Europe with an assessment framework to promote good governance in local government. ELoGE is based on a common vision of good governance which is expressed in 12 good governance principles agreed by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. These principles are:

1. Fair conduct of elections, representation and participation
2. Responsiveness
3. Efficiency and effectiveness
4. Openness and transparency
5. Rule of law
6. Ethical conduct
7. Competence and capacity
8. Innovation and openness to change
9. Sustainability and long-term orientation
10. Sound financial management
11. Human rights, cultural diversity and social cohesion
12. Accountability

Based on these 12 principles, the Centre for Local Democracy of the Council of Europe developed three sets of questionnaires to assess the state of good governance from the perspective of three stakeholders, including:

• Local officers
• Citizens
• Local councillors

Local authorities wishing to obtain ELoGE certification have a site visit by external evaluators to verify the results provided by a self-assessment done by the local authority. If the scoring of the external assessment meets a predefined minimum standard for each of the 12 good governance principles, the ELoGE certificate is awarded.

For Time municipality the key objective of piloting ELoGE was to gain new insights from working with such a comprehensive tool. At the same time, gaining the external certification was seen as important in motivating everybody involved to invest time, resources and commitment in delivering the resulting improvement action plans.

The involvement of Time municipality with the Good Governance Strategy of the Council of Europe was triggered by a national pilot project. Having a strong reputation as an innovative local authority, Time was invited to participate in the first Norwegian Local Democracy Survey in 2010, designed by the Norwegian Local Government Association based on the 12 ELoGE principles, with the aim of providing Norwegian local authorities with a tool to assess the quality of local democracy. Interestingly, the tool included a survey targeted at citizens and a slighted adapted survey targeted at elected members of the municipal council.

The surveys included questions on perceptions of the state of representative and participatory democracy and how respondents saw the possibilities of influencing political issues and administrative decisions. For example, one key question was: “Are you satisfied with the opportunities to affect municipal decisions that are important to you?” Other questions focused on issues of accountability, transparency and efficiency of public services.

In Time municipality, 300 residents participated in the survey. Furthermore, all of the 27 local councillors filled out the survey.

The analysis revealed many strengths in local governance – for example, most respondents agreed with the statement “In Time municipality, elected members of the local council take the views of local residents into account”.  However, the citizen survey also showed the need to strengthen communication between the municipality and citizens and to improve social cohesion in the local area. 

The mayor of Time wished to respond to this challenge and therefore welcomed the invitation of the Norwegian Local Government Association to pilot the European Label of Governance Excellence in 2011, supported by the Norwegian Local Government Association.

Given that the ELoGE pilot had to be carried out within a short time period, the assessment had to be organised in a lean approach. Time council set up an assessment team led by the mayor, which included two officers and two local councillors. The team members were provided with evidence by local officers to assess each of 12 good governance principles of ELoGE thoroughly. The assessment team also considered the results of the recent citizen survey. For each of the 12 ELoGE themes, roundtable discussions were organized in the team, to discuss the assessments and agree on improvement actions.

The fact that Time municipality received the external ELoGE certification in February 2012 sparked off a lot of interest in the report of the assessment team, both among the political parties represented in the local council and the officers.

After the first survey among citizens and politicians, a wider working group was set up, on which all the political parties were represented. The working group met for six months to evaluate the results of the survey and to agree on actions to strengthen local democracy in Time.

The discussion in the local council that concluded with the improvement action plan took into account the ELoGE assessment, the evidence from the surveys, the council’s own self assessment and the expert advice of the experts from the Norwegian Local Government Association

The action plan for Time municipality was approved by the local council on 6 November 2012 and published on its website to ensure full transparency.

Key actions included:

• Strengthening of involvement of local councillors with specific client groups, with a particular focus on ‘disadvantaged’ citizens.
• Making public on the council’s website relevant information about complaints made to the municipality and the council’s response to those complaints, including any changes made.
• Development of a long-term sustainability strategy with the involvement of local people.
• Strengthening inter-municipal co-operation to make local public services more efficient.
• Strengthening of internal audit to reduce the risk of fraud and corruption
• Improving social cohesion in the local area – for example, Time municipality has used pupils from the local Norwegian language school centre as a reference group in city planning.

Following an invitation from the Council of Europe, Time council also presented its action plan at an international conference in Strasbourg in June 2013.

In January 2014, Time undertook a mid-term evaluation to assess how well action plans had been implemented and whether local democracy in Time was going in the right direction. All elected members of the municipal Council participated in this evaluation, together with the CEO and corporate management team. After this mid-term evaluation, Time carried out another citizen survey in April 2014. The results are currently being analysed and, after a new ELoGE self-assessment by the council, will shape a new action plan, to be submitted to the council in autumn 2014.

Two key questions in the 2010 and 2014 citizen survey reveal the progress made since the first action plan:

Question: Please indicate to which extent you agree with the statement: Time Municipality provides me with good opportunities to have influence on local decisions.

Survey 2010 
good (3-4 points): 47.6% 
bad   (1-2 points): 44.7%  
don't know: 7.7% 

Survey 2014 
good (3-4 points): 52.7& 
bad   (1-2 points): 36.7% 
don't know: 10.7%

Question: Please indicate to which extent you agree with this statement: I am well informed by Time municipality about the issues that are discussed in local politics.

Survey 2010 
good (3-4 points): 63.6% 
bad   (1-2 points): 31.3 
don't know: 5% 

Survey 2014 
good (3-4): 70% 
bad   (1-2 points): 26.7%
don't know: 3.3% 

Because the Norwegian Local Government Association designed and carried out the citizen surveys in 2010 and 2014, Time municipality had no direct costs deriving from ELoGE. Of course, the assessment process involved the co-ordination of meetings and report writing by a local officer but this did not exceed more than four days in each assessment. Obviously, ELoGE also requires elected members of the local council to engage in additional meetings. In Time this involved, in addition, a meeting with citizens after the first survey. However, our councillors would say that this was time well spent.

While the mid-term evaluation did not include a cost-benefit analysis, there is evidence that the action plan has helped Time municipality to make public service delivery more efficient. The municipal Facebook page has forced the municipality to focus more on which information to publish on the municipal website, news stories to follow up and what stories are suitable for a dialogue with citizens. It has, moreover, given the municipality the opportunity of making a fast response to, and correcting errors in, stories published about it elsewhere. Citizens, from their side, now have the opportunity of asking both the municipality and each other for information. This provides both municipality and inhabitants with a more efficient communication system, which also gives more capacity for innovation.

As the Mayor of the local authority of Time, Reinert Kverneland, perceives the benefits of ELoGE: “This tool has helped us to define an action plan for improving local governance and to increase transparency and public participation in Time. 

The action plan resulting from the ELoGE assessment can be downloaded in English at www.time.kommune.no.

Readers are also encouraged to join Time on the Time Facebook Page.