Health Systems Research Unit

The impacts of local government transformation
Linking health and environment in Cape Town, South Africa: The view from local government, July 1998

Theme 3.3.A: Effects of restructuring
Restructuring of local government in the CMA has involved the transfer of some 10 000 people and effects a total of some 30 000 staff in the sector. As one senior official noted, it was " a logistical exercise that you can’t imagine", and, perhaps more colourfully:

"It’s pretty unique what’s happened in this country in terms of local government. When you think of the number of employees, I mean, you read stories about multi-national corporations that have re-engineered their organisation and moved a few thousand people around. You’re talking tens of thousands of people that you’re moving around in this metro area. In a highly, highly volatile political climate. Really, it's not just business climate you're operating in, and it hasn’t been easy."

Three main effects of restructuring were apparent from the data: effects on organisational structure and functioning, effects on organisational ethos and morale, and implications for policy making. The extent to which restructuring is being used to achieve equity, or at least greater parity, in access to services between the rich and the poor is also examined. To avoid oversimplification, it is important to note, however, that one organisation or even one department may represent a mosaic of positive and negative factors impinging on the actors.

Effects on organisational structure and functioning:
Firstly, restructuring has had an enormous impact on local government structures. Although restructuring has resulted in the creation of seven local government bodies, it was clear that many stages of the process were yet to be finalised. For instance, in most cases, municipalities had not yet put all their staff in place:

"It has really affected the efficiency of local government … The problem is that we have been able to appoint CEOs [Chief Executive Officers], directors and the top layer of management, but there is no staff to help that management or to implement the discussions we are discussing. That is one problem."

Within the councils environmental management and health functions fell within different directorates, and during the course of the study some of these functions were shifted between directorates. Furthermore, MLCs were all at very different stages with respect to appointment of staff. For instance, heads of environmental management were not yet in place in all the MLCs and the CMC, currently engaged in developing in collaborative fashion an environmental management policy for the CMA, was having to link up with the closest person, which in some cases was a planner with little environmental experience. For various reasons moratoriums had been placed on hiring staff:

" … we’ve had to form two new directorates … with no staff because that’s the other battle I can’t get staff, and we will not be able to some of the things we are meant to do because we can’t get the staff - because central government are saying we’re not approving your budget because you are spending too much on staff."

"the problem is we would like to employ more staff but we’re not going to be able to and one is going to have to look at the micro design as to how best we can use the resources at present."

Local government restructuring has also been tremendously disruptive to efficient functioning, as the following remarks made by senior officials indicate:

"Service delivery has been a second class citizen for the last three years in this metropolitan area, no two ways about it. The major emphasis of resources has been committed to the restructuring process. We’re still in that restructuring process."

"Now the logistics of that operation weren’t easy. When you think of the files - they cover more than an entire rugby field. It was mind boggling."

During the course of this study, there was still much fluidity with respect to structure and development of organisational design of local government bodies. While all MLCs had completed their macro design, they were at different stages of their micro design:

"[That] MLC [referring to another municipal council] is more or less a finished organisation, here we’re basically building an organization out of the ground and therefore it’s a very difficult situation to have … But as I said, the difficulty is that we haven’t moved beyond the perimeter of managers or directors. We haven’t even completed our organisational design yet, but we hope to be finished that by the end of this month."

Where staff were in place, many were not formally "in their correct functions", and thus reportedly unable to function efficiently:

"… because we haven’t done the micro design in the organisation, people are not fixed, they are floating. There aren’t any direct lines of communication or authority. So people have the job description but they’re not fitting into the job."

"the whole micro design hasn’t gelled … we’re still doing the appeals of people who are not happy with where they’ve been placed, and you ask them, what have you been doing for the past six months, ‘well, actually nothing’ . It’s as if, the guy goes to work every day, goes into his office and goes back and you can see that now we want just to drive this thing to finality. So, I think, it’s not going to happen overnight."

Ensuring that important actors were "on board" as the restructuring process proceeded was also seen to be important. Respondents commented that the micro design processes were seen to have been protracted by actions of the unions:

"Of course, on the other hand because of the fact that there are unions who want to make sure that things are done in the proper way. That has really affected the efficiency of local authorities."

This was not seen as negative by officials, who appeared to be cognisant of the need to ensure these important actors were "on board":

"There have been a number of problems. Obviously they’re concerned about the rights of their members and because of the short time frames that people are working with, there’s been a bit of miscommunication. In other words, something’s been decided at a central level with union management and there hasn’t been enough time to indicate it to all the shop stewards before the process starts, and you try and start the process and not everybody’s been informed..... you have to step back and say, ‘okay let’s slow down, let’s go in and inform everybody that ...’We’re now waiting for the official corporate work - micro design process to start and in that process as well, the unions will be involved in monitoring the situation, they would be at each workshop to see what’s going on. They’re very much part of the whole process."

"It’s also very advisable to have them [the unions] board all the time. Not only for the micro design process but for all other issues, to get them on board right from the initial stages."

Finally, restructuring was perceived to have impacted on organisational liaison structures. In most cases, formal liaison structures had reportedly not been put in place yet:

"I am concerned that within the metropolitan area there is no vehicle set up currently to talk to other MLCs. I know it's still early days in this whole restructuring/transformation process, but there is a very big gap at the moment."

Perhaps more significantly, restructuring had severed the network of personal contacts through which officials achieved intersectoral collaboration. As one official noted: "The effective contacts were direct links on a personal basis. Restructuring has broken up that network." Additional comments on linkage between different government bodies are made in the section on environment / health linkages and CMC/MLC relations.

Despite the negative influences of restructuring on the structure and efficient functioning of local government, a number of respondents pointed out the positive side, with respondents commenting:

"After major transformation, the pieces are beginning to come into place" and "I think the re-structuring will, in the long term, be tremendously beneficial to the metropole. Give it two or three years to sort itself out and to get everything back on track. I believe the whole metropole should then run much more efficiently, but there’s going to be a settling down."

In a number of cases, it appeared as though opportunities had been harnessed during restructuring to provide for an increased profile for environmental management. This was the case where senior politicians and management were increasing their support for such moves. In this respect local government appears to be some way ahead of provincial government. However, it is unclear whether restructuring had served to improve the status of environmental health to the same degree, perhaps due to the historical bias within the health sector on curative health, and the deepening financial crisis in that sector within the province.

Clearly local government has become more manageable with the rationalisation of the former approximately 19 local government bodies to the current seven. However, additional restructuring looms on the horizon in the form of the megacity option outlined in the newly released White Paper on Local Government. While this is further discussed in the section on ‘New Challenges’, it should be noted that there were serious concerns among respondents regarding the negative impacts of further restructuring on local government structures. The ‘megacity’ debate raises the question, firstly, of whether restructuring is being seen as the status quo - something to be done on an ongoing basis - and, secondly, whether the current restructuring has resulted in the envisaged transformation of local government? If not, the answer may not be further restructuring, but rather a more careful exploration of the barriers to transformation in local government and how these could be overcome. Without this, there is a danger that restructuring will simply result in ‘churning’, with deleterious effects on the provision of basic services to urban communities in Cape Town.

Effects on organisational ethos and morale:
A second major area of concern linked to restructuring was the effect on organisational ethos and morale. A general observation that can be made is that while restructuring has undeniably occurred, transformation has yet to take place. In the words of a senior official:

" ... so it's those dynamics, it’s the unbundling, restructuring, we haven’t got into the transformation yet and you believe me that is the big business. It has to be. The organisational cultures from the administrations that we’ve inherited are so significantly different."

"You know, in as much as one shares these ideas, we still very much a traditional will-bound organisation, typical old style local authority in large respects. But one is in the process of transformation really, it’s not change, it’s transformation, and although we have transformed structurally through amalgamating a whole lot of different administrations, we’ve still got to transform systemically and in terms of mind set."

While respondents did indicate that restructuring has resulted in the demoralisation of staff, this was patently uneven, for a number of reasons. Firstly, size of the council appeared to be a decisive factor in good relations between staff, leading to a positive working atmosphere: "This is a small municipality, so there is good interaction between environmental planning and environmental health."

Secondly, where municipalities had the most to lose prior to restructuring - in the case of large established structures - there appeared to be the most severe effect on morale. Where there was a sense of a structure being created "from scratch", there appeared to be a higher degree of motivation:

"Now I can compare because I'm working on two councils. I go to X council, I ask for something, in fact I don’t follow up, it just gets done and there is a bit of demotivation coming in now because round two and we’re looking at other issues where we’re not getting the staff and that’s starting to chip away at the motivation. But other than that you’ve got a motivated staff and you’ve got to say: what’s the difference?"

Thirdly, it appears that ‘champions’ are an important factor in improving morale. In some instances, researchers observed positive motivation of staff in the context of the most extreme resource constraints. This, it is suggested, may to some extent be due to the presence of dynamic and committed individuals heading up these sections. However, motivation at the top level may not necessarily be enough to transform an unhappy bureaucracy:

"So, we’ve actually got a very, very delicate situation there: a very highly focused and motivated top management governing a bunch of very, very unhappy people with archaic and useless, virtually useless systems that don’t have any - they do have some value …"

The quotation points to the need to ensure that administrative systems are re-designed to facilitate efficient governance within resource constraints.

A fourth factor lies in the difference between hierarchical and egalitarian management styles, with the latter providing opportunities for lower levels of staff to have easy access to senior managers and to make significant inputs from their perspective "in the field". Where people felt that they had easy and direct access to senior managers, and that their concerns and suggestions were heard and acted upon, morale was high. In departments where management still occurs largely in the hierarchical manner of the past, many feel paralysed or helpless, while even self-motivated staff are experiencing frustration and implementation of progressive ideas is being delayed.

Restructuring effects are not restricted to the local government level, but have been felt in the provincial government as well. Restructuring of the latter has been exacerbated by the extreme financial pressure experienced by the Western Cape Provincial Government due to decreasing allocations from central government. A provincial official noted that this had been "very demoralising for many", as resultant severe understaffing means that people are not able to make any impact due to heavy workloads; staff are not able to take holidays; and provincial government officials have had to take salary cuts. Local government officials tend to receive higher salaries, and better benefits and working conditions.

Effects on policy-making:
The third major area of concern related to restructuring investigated in this study is the effect on policy making. An obvious conclusion is that the lack of capacity to effectively carry out routine functions means that capacity for policy making is limited too. The following statement by an official refers to the capacity to participate fully in the current metro environmental policy process driven by the CMC:

"There is an involvement of MLCs but I think the involvement of many of the MLCs really is very superficial … we are running ourselves ragged at the moment just trying to attend meetings and there’s a tremendous capacity problem - we have only appointed the top three levels of our staff, - we’re going into our micro-organisational structure at the moment and perhaps in six months time we will have a better capacity … and you’re just trying to slot in people, and it’s often people at the wrong level to attend these meetings"

Thus a general feeling was that while the importance of developing relevant and implementable policies was recognised, emphasis on policy making was premature as MLCs needed to first focus on their micro design:

"I think the micro design is top priority … I think once we’ve got that out the way we’re going to have to spend a day or two to actually strategise: where we’re going, what are our priorities and if coming out of that we feel one of the priorities is to develop that type of policy then - we would look at it then, but to be quite honest we haven’t thought about it."

One response differentiated between the capacity to take part in policy formulation, as opposed to the capacity to actually implement that policy:

"So we’re not in a situation that is easy at the moment, maybe in 18 months time, but it’s not a context in which something like environmental policy - you may be able to draft the policy, but .... putting it into effect, very difficult."

Creative approaches are required to make full use of available capacity, in order to be able to carry out policy functions. The following quotation highlights the opportunity provided by restructuring for developing more efficient and appropriate institutional arrangements:

"… there isn’t a policy capacity … Perhaps if X piggy-backs on layers elsewhere in the organisation ... it says that’s the only way how we establish a department, or a collaborative department, depending on what’s available, and what’s available is very thin. But it does exist in different forms, and it allows for revisiting institutional arrangements... so I would think that would be the route. So there is a major opportunity."

Restructuring to achieve equity:
An early step towards achieving a developmental outlook is the reprioritisation of resources towards attaining greater parity between the poor and the rich in delivery of infrastructural and environmental health services. Within the context of time constraints and finite resources, the restructuring process has unfortunately not been able to address inequity in resource allocation between areas. For instance, with respect to EHOs, in one of the large black areas, consisting of both formal and informal housing, the ratio of EHOs to client base is reportedly 1:150 000, whereas in other, presumably more wealthy, probably white areas, the ratio is 1:10 000. Reprioritisation as a starting point may require a step into unknown territory for some in council:

"Historically, we’ve got quite a good idea of what we should be doing in a developed area like this are where we are now, but it’s much harder to know how to compare that with a developing area like Khayelitsha."

Councillors from disadvantaged areas clearly vocalised the need for reprioritisation of resource allocation. Thus one councillor noted that service delivery was still carried out in diametrically opposed ways in different areas:

"There’s still a apartheid system of application even to a thing as easy as garbage removal. Because if you look at how the garbage is collected in Manenberg, as opposed to how the garbage is collected in Constantia, you know there’s a vast difference between rich and poor. In Constantia they won’t even leave a sweet paper behind, here they leave half the bag falling out, and they just push on without knowing about it."

Another councillor commented on the need for greater expenditure on short term projects that will make an immediate improvement to quality of life:

"If you talk to the community out there you will find out very quickly that nothing has changed tremendously. I think, from talking to various people, that too much money is going into the capital budgets and very little into the operational budget. The more money that is in the operational budget the easier it will be. It would give us the capacity to deliver that service much more efficiently. And that is what people want."

Reprioritisation is also compounded when the unequal situation with respect to community participation is factored in - "on the other hand, the most vocal sectors of the population are the ones who have been most served in the past. Now we are faced with this host of complaints, letters and pressure from councillors, to operate there from one place and detract from our ability to place the emphasis where it is needed." This was described by another official as "a dilemma we have to face".

With democratic local government, the constituency base of municipalities has broadened to include a range of socioeconomic areas and many people who lack experience in interacting with the local government system. A number of councillors pointed out that expertise and experience on the part of local government officials to engage in a positive manner with their new and divergent constituencies is not yet present:

"I must say that one would have hoped a better relationship, between community level and local government, than what it is at the moment. I don’t think that local government see that they, in a lot of cases see the role that they have to play, in a) capacity building the local communities around in helping environment issues … what responsibility has local government got? I think they have got a major responsibility around educating the communities, and especially in this area, because they are the landlords of this rental stock estate, and any landlord won’t allow, if you have private owned property, they won’t allow you to dispose of dirt the way it is done here."

In summary, restructuring has had major impacts on almost all aspects of organisational functioning. While restructuring may, and was certainly implemented in order to, improve local government functioning in the medium and long term, respondents identified a number of negative impacts on morale, efficiency and capacity to engage in policy-making in the short term. The generally negative attitude towards further restructuring may reflect a strong need, among senior decision-makers, to get the current structures, which are only now being put in place, functioning effectively. The study did not set out to examine whether the goals of the local government restructuring process have been met, but it would seem important to examine that question before embarking on further changes.

Theme 3.3.B: Relations between different spheres of government
One of the objectives of this study was to explore and map the network of relationships and communication between actors in the policy and decision making processes. Although the primary focus was on relationships between local and metro council officials, relations between local, provincial and national government spheres are also salient. Additionally, the network of relationships between actors within a council is of crucial importance for policy making, and this is dealt with in the section on environment / health linkages. Exploration of these relationships indicated that they have been greatly affected by restructuring, as discussed in this section.

Division of functions:
A major preoccupation for officials was achieving clarity on the allocation of responsibilities and functions to the different spheres of local government, as set out in the Agreement on Powers and Duties (noted earlier in this paper). All MLC respondents were aware of the distinction in broad terms and of the policy/coordination functions of the CMC, with the following response highlighting the collaborative nature of governance that would be required:

"I think the CMC in a lot of the powers and functions has an over arching and policy function. Metropolitan local councils are actually the functioners, so catchment management, for example, air pollution is dealt with by the CMC, although we assist them. So, there is quite a bit of cross pollination."

Unsurprisingly, however, within this period of transition, there was a general feeling of uncertainty amongst MLCs with respect to the division of functions as set out in broad terms in the Agreement. It was felt that these broadly stated roles would require testing in specific situations, as well as buy-in from MLCs:

"In respect of planning generally it’s unclear. It’s clear to the extent that it provides a co-ordinating role throughout the metropolitan area. The big debate which is still to be resolved is what level of detail planning do the metropolitan council go down to? And I’m sure there’s going to be lots of bumping of heads in that whole process to determine where those cut off points actually are. But again, I think the Constitution, collaborative government, we need to work together."

Response from councillors endorsed this perceived lack of precision about respective roles:

"Up until now to me it is not [clear] and I even come to question what the role of the CMC is. But I am also able to say that the CMC has got a role to play, the role is just not clearly defined. That is one problem."

"… we’re actually trying to find our way because we’ve got problems doing things on housing, you’ve got us trying to find our role and you’ve got the local authorities who are also doing their thing, I’m now trying just to see what province should be doing …"

The following response from a senior official stressed that the broadly stated functions were open to different interpretation:

"My personal opinion - I don't think it's clear. Other people think it's crystal clear but, I just want to use the example of air pollution. Air pollution or pollution monitoring/co-ordination has been given to the Metropolitan Council as a function. How they see that function is different to how I see it … So, yes, I think there are some differences of opinion."

CMC respondents tended to feel that division of powers and functions was clear, but did concede that while the agreement clearly states CMC's responsibility for issues of metropolitan significance, the distinction between metropolitan and local significance would not always be unambiguous.

Given the current degree of lack of clarity within the minds of officials as to the exact nature and extent of CMC/MLC powers and duties - referred to as "a minefield" by one official - one cannot expect the public to be well-informed regarding different responsibilities. One MLC councillor stressed the importance for political accountability, and, one may assume, for re-election purposes, of public comprehension of the differing roles, and stated:

"If their role were clear, then every ordinary man on the street would know that the CMC exists. Because the ordinary people on the ground do not know that there is that body -whenever they talk they will refer to their particular council, not know anything about the CMC, so that to me is one problem."

As mentioned earlier, local councils saw a role for CMC in developing overarching policy to ensure consistency across the city, but felt that locally developed policy would be required to address the specific local concerns:

"In other words whatever policies the MLCs come up with need to be consistent with and then be integrated into the broader policy framework, say formulated at metro level. But, I think also, there needs to be consistency, at least to some degree, policies must take account of this contextual situation and therefore it is not possible to have exactly the same policies."

" … even though the Metro is there to do overall co-ordination, one of the main functions must be to capacitate the MLCs to do local things there. And I see their major role as setting those guidelines at a Metro level. In other words, that they should have established relevant structures where they consult with everybody and then develop guidelines that each MLC buys into those guidelines."

However, not all local council officials appeared to be agree that policy should come from the CMC:

"I tell you another approach might be that, given that people in this MLC, as opposed to the CMC and the province, are in the field, so to speak, maybe we should find the time and the resources to propose a policy, rather than someone …"

The specific nature of the relationship between the two spheres of local government will necessitate collaborative policy making for metro-wide issues, as the CMC, while playing an overarching coordinating role, does not have authority over the MLCs:

"Well, I think as long as they are participative about it and I think if the structures feel that they’ve played an adequate role in development of that policy, nobody will argue. The danger is if CMC go ahead and create ... or any policy with environmental implications which impacts on the local councils and they don’t feel included … and I think there will be very different environmental issues to the different structures."

However, developing a metro wide policy would require a great deal of cross-sectoral and between council collaboration which may not be easy:

" … it might be a bit difficult because, there might be a bit of politics into it as well because the local authorities obviously at this stage are fighting for their autonomy and they see the CMC as Big Brother. So, one has to be sensitive on that. Then also getting ones own colleagues to agree on something …"

Interaction observed at a planning meeting raised the question of whether the CMA could afford to spend two years developing a metro environmental policy when significant decisions were looming and would have to be taken in the absence of an overall framework. Clearly the advantage of longer time frames for policy development is that there can be greater involvement and buy-in from a wider range of actors. A balance clearly needs to be found between the need for rapid and large-scale service delivery and the need to contain environmental impacts and involve stakeholders in planning.

Within the environmental health sector there was much discussion on the respective roles of provincial and local government, as noted previously. Clarification of these roles was currently under discussion. The same was true for environmental management functions, particularly with respect to who should be the competent authority to implement the new environmental impact assessment regulations:

"The competent authority is the MEC [Member of the Executive Committee] responsible for Environment in the provincial government. There are provisions for local authorities to become competent authorities on application to the provincial authority and authorisation by the national minister. So a local authority would have to show us they have the competence to administer the regulations. There’re all sots of issues they’d have to have …"

Establishing trust between organs of government:
In addition to the lack of clarity regarding functions, a certain level of sensitivity, and in some cases mistrust, was discernible between the two local government spheres. From CMC's side, a concern was expressed that the metro council should not be seen to be interfering with the autonomy of the MLCs. On the part of the local councils, a certain amount of hesitancy with respect to the motivation of the metro council was apparent, although responses indicated that tensions were decreasing and working relations were improving:

"I think we’re still finding our feet to a certain extent … In the last month or two I have discerned a much better working relationship. The first time everybody spoke with one voice and a lot of that former mistrust I think was sort of brushed aside. I think things will improve. I think there was initially quite a bit of distrust and quite a lot of uncertainty as to .... actual functions, powers and duties, who did what - things were put together and in the end , well the whole agreement was put together in the last month and we said, right, that’s it. Deadlines were tight …"

Tension was apparent to provincial government officials interacting with local government: "… and I picked up tension immediately because CMC … they've not really clarified their powers, relations …"

The above responses need to be seen through the filter of the context of differential resources - as one CMC official noted: "The CMC has the financial weight now". Reportedly, support for the MLCs from the CMC was R209 million in the past tax year. In the face of this tension between dependence on the CMC and the need for autonomy, it is not surprising that local councils perceive the current context as conflictual.

Vehicles for communication, co-ordination and integration:
Good relationships between local councils and with the CMC require that appropriate and effective channels of communication are established. The restructuring of local government has indicated that large-scale movement of staff may set back communications when too much reliance is placed on ad hoc and personal links. Although it is early days, steps have been taken to set up liaison structures to provide for better communication between all seven CMA councils. For instance, a monthly meeting of the heads of Environmental Management has been instituted, which, in recognition of time constraints, is also to serve as the connection point for involvement in the current metro environmental policy formulation process. Within the health sector, the Cape Metropolitan Municipal Health Liaison Group, chaired by the CMC, meets regularly. However, with the focus on curative health compounded by the crisis in funding, environmental health forms a tiny component of the business of this structure. The Metro Environmental Health Forum is an advisory body which is supposed to link up with the Provincial Environmental Health Forum, which in turn links with a national forum. Respondents mentioned several more liaison/coordinating bodies within the municipal health sector - "there’s a number of them. As a matter of fact, sometimes I think there’s too many of them" - but noted the drawback: "But they’re not formal, they don’t have any official standing."

Thus, across all sectors, better structures that allow not just for liaison, but for coordination and integration required for collaborative government are largely still to be instituted:

"I think there’s going to have to be a number of vehicles set up to allow effective communication, co-ordination, integration, of not just policy issues, strategy issues and I think at a political level there’s been a recognition of that because the old Metropolitan Restructuring Forum has now been done away with and a new body, they call it the Metropolitan Co-ordinating Forum, is being set up in its place. So, there’s recognition at a political level that there needs to be co-ordination. And then we have what we call the CEOs Meetings where the chief executive officers of the seven local authorities do meet on a monthly basis and I think that will start to begin to trickle, as we get better organised and we get additional resources on board that you’ll find more of those vehicles for communication, co-ordination, integration coming into being."

Implementing policy:
Given the agreement on CMC's broad role concerning policy formulation, and the need for some degree of consistency across the metropole, both for norms and standards that are perceived to be fair, and as the best way to deal with environmental issues that transcend boundaries, one needs to question how a metro policy would be enforced? Within the context of cooperative governance, it is hoped that enforcement will not be necessary. However, an official foresaw possible problems with implementing a metro policy:

"This is the big problem because the CMC does not have that authority. Its role is co-ordinating and facilitating and I think that’s a very valid comment but I don’t know how, because this is the whole thing, each local authority is autonomous and they are looking ultra sensitive at this stage. Possibly later on it might get better…"

As councils are at differential stages in their organisational design and are not currently equally resourced, there is a danger that councils not yet up to speed may not be able to ensure that their interests are adequately represented in a metro-wide policy. In recognition of the greater capacity of the CMC at the moment, MLC officials suggested a capacity building role for CMC. For instance, it was suggested that local councils should be empowered by the CMC to deal with minor local air pollution matters:

"…what I’m saying is that with something so local, why can’t they teach our environmental health people to go and do the necessary investigation and only if there is a problem, would you call in the CMC for their assistance. And if CMC is going to do everything, how are we going to ensure that there isn’t a time delay? How do we ensure, if we want something approved within a week, that they aren’t up in X doing some other survey and what concerns me is that CMC will be putting so many staff in there and maybe it’s not really necessary. Maybe their focus should be more on training and developing the local council environmental health officers."

The comment above can also be seen within the context of the "current high level of sensitivity and suspicion with respect to the division of functions", with, in the words of a metro council official, CMC "facing accusations of 'empire building' from the MLCs".

Lack of clarity at local and provincial level is compounded by lack of clarity at national level. With respect to the above example of the new EIA regulations, a local authority official voiced these concerns:

"That’s a very difficult atmosphere in which to operate. ... For us especially in environmental management, it’s problematic, because also the national legislation with respect to impact studies is so poorly written, that it is not a good sense, of who is the authority that manages a particular study, whether it’s the province, the city or the CMC."

In summary, the nature of relations between different spheres of government, with high levels of uncertainty, compounds an already complex context shaped by restructuring, thus providing a challenging environment for policy making.

Theme 3.3.C: Party politics and transformation
Responses from councillors highlighted the adversarial nature of party politics, with at times negative effects:

" … but they are still in the majority. So most of the time, they just push things through. But I think that we could agree on many issues, it's just that people sometimes make political issues out of ordinary issues. I think that is the problem."

Party political differences and point scoring, present in any parliamentary democracy, are complicated in South African local government (as indeed at the national level) by a system where councillors are either directly elected (ward councillors) or elected from the party list (proportional representation). Problems arise where MLC ward councillors are also councillors at the metro level CMC. In this case, councillors are required to wear two often contradictory hats - taking decisions in the interests of their local constituency, or taking decisions in the metropolitan interest. This can lead to decisions being taken at the metro council that are contrary to the interests of the local councils:

"X is a case in point where their own representatives voted against what they voted for in council so they vote one way in the local authority and they come to the CMC and they vote another way."

Legal opinion on the role of MLC councillors at the CMC is not felt to resolve the problem:

"There’s a debate at the moment: X municipality got a legal opinion on what the role of a councillor from the local authority is at the CMC. Is their role to represent the view of the council or is their role to represent the party that sent them there? And the opinion was they represent the party not the local authority … I actually do believe it’s the wrong view and a lot of other people do believe it’s the wrong view."

Thus extra complexity is introduced into an already complex "two sphere" system of local government where actors believe that division of functions between the CMC and the MLCs is not sufficiently clear-cut. A number of other factors that may constrain the effectiveness of councillors in promoting community decision making were identified. In the larger local government structures, the workload for councillors prevents them being able to do their own research and they are therefore more reliant on the information supplied by officials:

"When I look at X municipality I find that a councillor can only make a decision on information that is given and therefore his decision can obviously be influenced by what the officials feed him."

A number of comments made by councillors pointed to the power exerted by officials, as well as to a certain amount of polarisation between councillors and officials:

"So the officials, I believe often, and I've got many cases where the officials have taken decisions which they don't have the authority to do … I think sometimes they assume authorities that they don’t have and I’m finding that over and over again. The trouble is that too few councilors bother about that sort of thing …"

"The officials have a tremendous amount of power, tremendous."

"… this has been my second term of office in council. And it is only now that one knows how to get information out of them, and what are the kinds of information that is available. You know they can give you information that is irrelevant, and you know they insist but this is what you want for that meeting, and so on."

The converse is that officials believe that motivation of councillors is "largely vote catching - if they can get into the press and print a story about it". The somewhat adversarial nature of the relationship between officials and councillors is perhaps inevitable in the democratic system, and may at times be in the public interest. However, it is clear that the rhetoric of local government as a partnership begins to be realised where a relationship of trust is developed between officials and councillors.

Theme 3.3.D: The megacity - a solution?
As mentioned earlier in this report, further restructuring for local government may be in the pipeline in the form of the ‘megacity’ approach. Most respondents appeared to be emphatically opposed to changes which might result in further restructuring:

"We are very much getting into the trenches on the megacity arena. Megacities will mean mega bureaucracies, which may have more to do with career aspirations of bureaucrats than with good governance. Big bureaucracies will not be able to reach communities and councillors will be able to distance themselves from what should be their constituencies. It is always the disadvantaged who suffer in such cases. Politics of patronage also becomes a factor."

"Now there is talk of restructuring again, the goalposts are being moved again, and this has negative implications for the morale and commitment of local government."

" … there's a big thing regarding that megacity story. I tremble when I hear this … they've got a problem in Gauteng, now they want to force it on to us here …"

One of the lone voices in the wilderness in support of the megacity concept was that of a councillor, who highlighted the redistributive role proposed by supporters of the megacity model:

"That is why, when people speak for instance of the concept of the megacity, I think that local government is one of the most dynamic organisms to be found in the world. It changes continuously … We have now broken it down to seven (structures) and we are still not in touch with people on the ground. People say that it’s closer to the people, but that is the big question – is it really? I would say that there are major principles that we need to look at. One of the principles is what we call redistribution. How do we start to be able to ensure that we bring all of the communities to a similar level? … It is a traumatic change but I if you look just three years back and ask yourself what the metro system, the two tier system, delivered for us, it didn’t really …"

Redistributive potential and reduced costs of governance notwithstanding, the question as to whether local government in the CMA, already suffering "transition fatigue", could withstand a further round of major restructuring is a significant one. As one participant to the workshop stated:

"Goodwill is rock bottom. Experienced personnel will leave and take experience and skills with them."

Theme 3.3.E: Innovative strategies
Notwithstanding these constraints towards a new orientation, interaction with local government has revealed the beginnings of innovative solutions, from the attempt to draw participatory initiatives into the Khayelitsha Development Vision:

"The vision will include a framework of priority actions with special target programmes. There are many initiatives in Khayelitsha, but the challenge is to synergise a vision and implement programmes, and to establish a robust management framework."

to innovative and positive moves in the face of severe resource constraints faced by a provincial government department:

"I’m starting a bit of an NGO network, using e-mail. Interesting stuff that comes across my desk, I’m e-mailing - I’ve got a whole list of people - say our legislation comes up for comment - hey guys, do you know that the draft Planning Bill came up, do you know that there’s a new Bill, comment by so and so, you can get your copy from this department … In the ideal world, I would like a web page, with a little data base, where people can print out the last month’s applications that have come in. … but there are a lot of people out there who would like to know and make input … so there are people out there we can use, but we’ve got to work clever."

Integrated Development Planning is seen as a tool for transformation by some:

"And for those of us who are keen on transformation we see the IDP as a tool for achieving precisely that. Because it starts taking otherwise sort of neutral bureaucratic processes, and measuring their performances in terms of outcomes of their communities and the real world, and therefore provides a framework for improvement and adjustment."

However, it must be noted that many feel the necessary skills are lacking and that the IDP will place greater pressure on an over-stretched council. Additionally, carrying out the integrated development planning process within the restructuring context outlined above may not be simple:

"… and the major labour relations problems involved in different cultures in terms of work ethic, management styles and so on. So doing an integrated development plan in that context, it’s not easy to know where to start."

As a potential positive step, the IDP must include integration of environmental considerations, together with commitment of budget to achieve this:

"The local authorities will be responsible for putting in place an integrated development plan for their area, be it a town or a District Council, and tying it to budget, so if there are environmental issues in the integrated development plan, they’ll have to be tied to a budget, so the local authority will have to develop environmental capacity and the budgetary capacity to deal with those environmental aspects in their integrated plan. That’s the way that planning’s going to be moving forward …"

Even restructuring was seen by some as an opportunity to make use of the flux to improve institutional arrangements: "outside everything I have said, I will say that the opportunity does exist to improve, to revisit, to restructure all of that you need …"

In conclusion, it remains to be seen exactly how environmental considerations will be integrated into the overall planning. Clearly a major challenge is ensuring that policies are implemented:

"Policy, to me, is a good thing. I won’t deny that. We should have a basic framework within which to operate, but what I would see as being much more useful is how you start to implement that policy. And we haven’t come to grips with it."

Further potential lies in the fact that programmes such as the Healthy Cities initiative and the Local Agenda 21 Model Communities Programme have been linked up in the CMA, and the CMC has recently appointed coordinators for these initiatives. It is hoped that these initiatives will play a role in attaining the " effective synergy between state and society required for creation of the trust necessary to allocate resources" (USAID, 1998). As a final visionary statement, a senior official noted:

"If local government in the CMA forms effective partnerships, there is potential for it to be at the leading edge of environmental management in the developing world."