In most municipalities, the administrative function is structured into separate functional departments. In relation to service delivery, engineering departments may be responsible for network services (although this may be further sub- divided into a construction arm and an operation and maintenance arm). Public health departments are typically responsible for solid waste management and also frequently for on-site sanitation services. Social welfare or community development departments are responsible for a range of poverty reduction activities; planning departments are responsible for planning and enforcing regulations; revenue departments are responsible for billing and collection.
This compartmentalisation has resulted in (and is also reinforced by) the tendency for municipalities to create a hierarchy of departments which behave as independent entities without due concern for integration. They compete for status and power, and often lack a cooperative spirit for common development. At the same time, the hierarchical nature of the departmental structure results in limited managerial devolution or slow decision-making: all key decisions are referred upwards. Engineering departments are often at the top of this hierarchy. The largest municipalities may have very senior town engineers - sometimes more senior, in administrative terms, than the town clerk/commissioner. The department obtains its power through this seniority, its relative size and the allocation of financial resources. It manages large capital budgets for infrastructure development, significant operation and maintenance budgets, and a large unskilled workforce.
When partnerships of any kind are introduced - be they with large-scale service operators or with communities - the impacts and characteristics of separated functions are accentuated. The barriers created by compartmentalisation will need to be removed if partnership arrangements are to become sustainable. For instance:
• The lack of integration has a marked impact on poverty reduction initiatives, and efforts must be made to work towards common goals if a partnership is to achieve a poverty focus.
• The low level of collaboration between departments means that communication channels have often not been established, and officials are unfamiliar with team-working even within the municipality. This is a critical issue in partnerships focused on the poor, as many design and process management functions require a combination of skills and expertise found in different professions and organisations.
• The limited spans of authority and low levels of decentralised decision-making mean that frequently, technical officers with responsibility for managing service delivery do not have sufficient authority to execute their responsibilities. In a partnership arrangement, senior technical officers may be unable to take initiatives without gaining approval from the municipal administration. This also results in many routine management decisions concerning operation being delayed as decisions are referred upwards. This problem was experienced in Biratnagar in Nepal, where all key decisions relating to the solid waste partnership are made by the mayor or deputy mayor (see Box 7.7).
Moreover, the typical departmental structure of municipalities in terms of technical competencies and functions has meant that, in terms of staff allocation, the engineering and public health departments tend to employ by far the greatest number of staff. These are precisely the areas that are most susceptible to change resulting from a new partnership arrangement. The nature of the work undertaken in these departments means that significant numbers of labourers work within each of these sections or departments. In a larger municipality serving a population of 1 million or so, one might expect to see up to 500 labourers involved in water and waste services. Changing service delivery approaches has a considerable structural impact on these departments and the workforce within them. Human resource policies will need to be formulated to address the specific labour issues in these departments.