Administrative structure and human resources in municipalities

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ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE AND HUMAN RESOURCES IN MUNICIPALITIES

Ruben Hayrapetyan,

Armenian State University of Economics, Doctor of Sciences in Economics

Summary

The analysis of local self-government system in Armenia comes to prove that professional capacities of local governments are not satisfactory for delivering public services in their entirety and in a due quality, and the budget resources are so scarce that are mainly satisfactory for maintenance of administrative staff. This scarcity of resources leads to a number of serious issues. There are still a number of priority issues in municipal service sector. The issues on the list include the low level of municipal service, drawbacks in selection, certification, training and professional promotion procedures of municipal servants, ineffectiveness of rewarding systems, etc. Without finding a solution to the above issues, the further development and improvement of local self-government system will be impossible. The necessity of continuous improvement of the system of municipal services is conditioned by the ongoing reforms in the local self-governance system as well as the development of civil society components.

There is a lack of highly qualified staff. The personnel reserve, which, above all, is called to fill temporary vacancies, is still unable to fully perform its functions in this system.

Problem statement

Analysis of local self-government sector of the RA reveals that professional capacities of the majority of municipalities are not sufficient to deliver public services fully and in a due quality and scarce budget resources are only sufficient for maintenance of municipal staff. The scarcity of budget resources leads to a number serious issues. Driven by the abovementioned the LSGs are not able to fulfill completely their important role in public administration sector. The need for reforms in administrative structures of municipal management and lack of qualified human resources in municipalities require respective solutions based on systematic and comprehensive approaches.

Data analysis

In the RA local self-government system municipality mayor exercises his/her powers through the municipal staff (specialists, structural and separate departments), municipal budget institutions as well as commercial and non-commercial organizations. Meanwhile, the mayor submits for the approval of council the charters of municipal staff, and municipal budget institutions, as well as structures (in case respective units are designed), the number of employees, staff lists and rates. After the approval of the above mentioned, within a month's time the mayor makes appointments in discretionary positions under his/her own responsibility. The staff ensures complete and effective execution of powers by the municipality mayor and council. It is a municipal management institution, without a status of a legal entity, the management of which is reserved to the mayor. The current functions of the staff are managed by the secretary within the powers reserved to him/ her. The functional structure of the staff (with the exception of Yerevan, Gyumri and Vanadzor municipality staffs) may include structural and separate departments in the form of “units”[1, Article 33].

The indicators on education level of mayors did not undergo any significant changes either. Irrespective of the fact that the RA legislation does not define any education level for mayors, the considerable part of mayors has a higher education. As of 31 December 2016, 483 mayors had a higher education, 9 of them did not complete their higher education, 215 mayors have secondary vocational education, 92 of them have secondary education and only 1 mayor has 8-year educa- tion[2].

Previous years' tendency in terms of gender inequality and low representation of women in elected local self-government bodies persisted in 2016. In particular, only 18 out of 792 municipalities had female mayors. Only 45 female deputy mayors were appointed. Number of male council members prevailed and the share of female council members was only 9.6%. Instead, gender equality is observed among secretaries of administrative staffs, 414 of which are women and 403 are men. The same applies to members of administrations, where the share of women is 47.5%. Thus, the tendencies of previous years mainly prevailed.

Municipal service

Municipal service is an individual type of public service. The RA law on Municipal Service defines it as a professional activity aimed at fulfillment of tasks and functions reserved to the LSGs by the RA legislation [3, Article 3]. The Law on Municipal Service establishes main principles of municipal service, regulates relations associated with classification of positions and class ranks, appointments to positions in municipal service, appraisal and training of municipal servants, human resource databanks, legal status of municipal servants, organization and administration of municipal service, and other related issues. Development of municipal service sector is one of the most important factors of improvement of LSG system in Armenia. It should be noted that following the adoption of the law on Municipal Service a lot of work has been done to develop municipal service sector and make it more sustainable. This relates particularly to creation of general legislative-normative framework, procedures of municipal service organization and human resource management, main principles of municipal service, legal status of municipal servants, etc. Irrespective of the abovementioned efforts, there are still a number of issues requiring urgent solutions. The issues on the list are the low level of effectiveness municipal service, imperfection of selection, appraisal, training and professional promotion procedures of municipal servants, ineffectiveness of rewarding systems, etc. Without finding a solution to the above issues, further development and improvement of local self-government system will be impossible. The necessity for continuous development of municipal service system is driven by local self-government reforms, as well as by development of various components of civil society.

There is a lack of highly qualified specialists both in public and municipal service sectors. A solution to this problem is the introduction of human resource databanks and trainings for municipal servants. However, reserve for human resources, which is primarily meant to solve the issue of filling temporary vacancies, is not able to fully perform its function yet. This is driven by the fact that reserve for human resources is not yet able to solve the issue of filling temporary vacancies, for municipal servants, who were released from their positions because of staff reduction, occupy other positions without any competition, yet the ones who win the competition, but are not appointed to any position, are reluctant to get registered in human resource databanks.

The RA municipalities vary in number of population and living standards. There are also border and remote municipalities and the ones that are in high mountainous zone. Based on these differences, the fulfillment of provisions of the law on Municipal Service requires differentiated approach to assist the stabilization of municipal service sector in municipalities, which vary significantly.

In 2016 the MTAD attempted to ensure fulfillment of requirements prescribed by the law on Municipal Service. According to unified data registry of municipal servants, as of 31 December 2016, the number of municipal service positions was 6477[4, page 6]. A total of 921 competitions for open positions were announced, the half of which - 477 were held. With a view to ensure publicity, the announcements on vacancies were posted on the announcement board and website of the MTAD. Also, they were made public through the State Employment Agency of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.

With a view to provide an opportunity for the municipal staff to constantly upgrade their working capacities, an appraisal procedure is held for municipal servants every three years. In the course of 2016, 806 municipal servants were appraised.

Ratio of municipal servants to population

To have an insight into the number of municipal servants, besides its absolute value it is necessary to consider its relative value dependent on the number of population. In this regard the ratio of municipal servants in administrative staffs of municipalities to the number of population in Yerevan and regions should be discussed. As it can be seen based on the Table the indicator is the highest in Aragatsotn and Vayots Dzor regions, i.e. 0.36% and 0.33% respectively. Meanwhile, the relative value of the number of municipal servants by regions exceeds the same indicator (0.15%) for Yerevan by over 2.5 times (see Table 1). This comes to prove the existence of excess staff positions in municipalities of respective regions.

Table 1. The ratio of municipal service positions in administrative staffs to the number of population in Yerevan and regions, as of 31 December 2016