Performance of the City Council - Essay Example

Research paper reporting results and conclusions [Supervisor’s Research paper reporting results and conclusions Introduction: The report entails to find out the satisfaction level of the people for the performance of their city councils. This report also discusses about the research that has been conducted from the community to derive their convenience level with the council’s performance in terms of their core services, infrastructure and environment initiatives. This paper would also evaluate the performance of the city council. Literature Review: Governance defined in International literature: Kjaer (2004) defines governance as the setting, application and the enforcement of rules and it focuses on both the input side, the output side with a democratic procedure. Kjaer (2004) argues that the term governance was first differentiated from the term government because governance deals with the management of networks, which specializes in the delivery of services. Networks have been defined as the informal rules, which are governing the interactions between the State and the parties of interests (Kjaer 2004). The changing nature between the citizens and the local government: Almost 25 years ago in the developed countries, the citizen’s engagement with the local government was through electoral process. The representatives were elected through and were left to do their job. But since then there has been a decline in the trend of the local authority elections and has been shifted towards postal voting and amalgamation. The declining trend has led to the decrease trust in the local government (Russell 2004). As Russell (2004) suggests that the government has to encourage the participation in elections and recommended that there should be a focused intervention between the council size and the representation ratio in order to improve the voter turnout. Recent European study suggests that the citizens may be changing their preference in engagement towards the city council. The citizens are demanding better services from the local government and they are more willing than before to act and debate because the traditional democracy is declining (Russell 2004). The changing role of city council: The changing attitudes in the attitude of the citizens has also resulted in the roles and functioning of the city councils. The increase in the decentralization and the involvement from the citizen’s part is enhancing a strong emphasis of citizen decision making. In some countries like Brazil, the council delegates the local citizens the power in making decisions and in some parts the local community advice the local government in developing the budget. The gem model: Democratic Governance Community Engagement Organization Management The GEM model defines the interdependencies of the three components, the democratic governance, community engagement, and organization management. The ‘G’ stands for the democratic governance where the decision-making by elected councilors is based on the appreciation of the community issues and fulfills their needs by making the engagement process effective. The ‘E’ stands for civic engagement in which councilor adopt effective techniques in enabling the citizens to actively implement the public policies. The ‘M’ stands for organization management in which the public values the policies by the councils and the practices are then embedded in the community. If these three components maintain a balance then it will enhance the wellbeing of the community (Australian Local Government Association 1993). Methodology: The study has been based on the quantitative approach for collecting and analyzing the responses from the sample. The methodology works as a proper procedure for the researcher as it helps in mapping the activities of the research. The quantitative approach that has been used in this research helps in linking between the numeric data and the results that are assumed. Various statistical tools have been used in making conclusive results. The present study would identify the satisfaction level of the community with the city councils on their performance (Mallette and Duke 2011). Sampling The total sample size of the respondents was 604 and they were differentiated in terms of their age, gender, urban and rural areas they live and occupation. The respondents were given a total of 17 closed ended questions to decide the satisfaction or the dissatisfaction level with the city councils. Deductive approach The approach used in this study is the deductive approach in which a generalize approach is followed by theory and it narrows down to observation and then the results. This approach requires a thorough understanding of the theory and should relate it with the results underlined (Mallette and Duke 2011). Anlaysis tool Since all the questions are close ended, therefore it was presented in a tabular for and their means and standard deviations were calculated in Microsoft Excel software. This software is used to summarize and analyze the data and on the basis of the results, conclusion is drawn. Results: The findings have been divided into two parts; the first part contains the results for the satisfaction level of the people who are living in urban side of the country. The second part of the result is based on the satisfaction level of the people who are living in the rural side of the country. Out of 604 sample size, 399 respondents were from the urban side of the country. The first question was asked about the overall performance of the council in terms of the infrastructure and core services, majority of the urban people had a neutral response, which shows that their satisfaction level was just above the red line. Considering the council performance in terms of community services and environmental initiatives, the urban people were feeling satisfied with the council’s performance. However, the performance of the council’s staff members through telephone, or a written contact and their responses in dealing with those complains was rated highly dissatisfied. This proves that the council is moderate in providing services to the community in terms of infrastructure, community services and environment initiatives but they are less efficient in handling the complains through telephone and written contacts, but the overall performance was satisfactory. Majority of the urban people were a regular contributors of charity and majority of them were involved in the neighborhood activities and they felt important to be involved in the community affairs. But these people were moderate about the council’s performance and they were moderately satisfied with the overall results. The second part of the findings from the rural areas, the total respondents from the rural areas was 196 out of 604 total sample sizes. The findings suggest that the majority of these people were satisfied with the performance of the council in terms of infrastructure, core services, community services and environmental initiatives. The findings also prove that the rural people were highly dissatisfied with the council’s performance when it came to complain handling and the services through telephone and through written contacts. But when asked about the satisfaction level of overall performance of the council, the majority of them were satisfied. These people were the regular contributors of charity and they believed it was important to take part in the neighborhood activities. But they were not satisfied that the council provided good value to the community. Conclusion: To conclude the findings for the satisfaction level of the people with the council, the overall sample size were satisfied with the performance of the council in terms of core services, infrastructure, environment initiatives but they were highly dissatisfied with the council’s services when delivered on the phone or a written contacts so the complain handling was unsatisfactory. The people that were living in the urban side of the country were more satisfied with the performance of the council than the people who were living in the rural side of the country. So this also proves that the council, which was present in the urban areas was more efficient than the council that was working in the rural areas. List of References Australian Local Government Association. 1993. A Guide to Integrated Local Area Planning. Australia: The Association. Kjaer, A. 2004. Governance. Massachusetts: Polity Press. Mallette, M, and N Duke. 2011. Literacy Research Methodologies, Second Edition. New York: Guilford Press. Russell, W. 2004 August 16. Voting Obligation and Voter Turnout: Discussion Paper prepared for Local Government Association of South Australia. [Online] Available from www.lga.sa.gov.au: [Accessed April 14, 2012]. Read More