Municipal shared services may reduce administrative burden at towns and villages. (source: Unsplash)
Back in 1990, a group of villages in the Bardejov district, northeastern Slovakia, joined forces and created a body to deal with some of their municipal agenda. Named Bardejovská Úradovňa, it currently serves more than 80 municipalities, including some outside of the district, helping with building, environmental and HR issues, as well as accountancy.
“The idea came from the villages,” said Zuzana Germanová, former mayor of the village of Richvald and ex-head of Bardejovská Úradovňa. She was a guest at an annual conference held in September 2022 by the Business Service Center Forum (BSCF), a sectoral organisation for business centres active in Slovakia that operates under the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Slovakia.
Germanová noted that the mayors of smaller villages often have no capacity to deal with all administrative processes, which is why they decided to join forces and share the processing of some agendas.
“It’s a mystery that similar offices are not a matter of course in other parts of Slovakia,” she said.
Slovakia’s capital, Bratislava, now wants to adopt a similar principle for its municipal organisations and institutions. In order to unburden them of activities that have nothing to do with their core agenda, and thus improve the quality of services provided and cut costs, it aims to create Municipal Shared Services for Bratislava in the coming years.
To achieve this goal, it has teamed up with the private sector and is consulting on various problems with companies active in the business service centre (BSC) sector.
“The concept of shared services in the business environment works great all over the world, and there is no reason why it shouldn’t work in public administration,” said Peter Rusiňák, senior policy manager and BSCF coordinator.
Pilot testing to set standards
Bratislava has already taken the first steps towards launching municipal shared services.
