The strategic vision of the City of Tampere by the year 2016: Tampere is an international growth centre characterised by expertise, creativity and an excellent service structure.
The purpose of the reform of the management model of the City of Tampere is to help the local authorities rise to the challenges that will soon be testing the system of municipal management and services.
These challenges include an ongoing growth in service demand, the ageing of the population, the rapid retirement rate of municipal employees and a need to reassert the citizens’ confidence in the political system.
The reform is based on developing municipal service production,improving efficiency and looking for new solutions, either by making better use of existing markets or by generating new ones.
The actual remodelling will be carried out in phases in the form of a number of separate projects. The reform work began in 2002. In January 2003 the City Council accepted new principles for the municipality’s corporate structure and management, aiming at a more diverse mix of service production, improved channels of civic participation, reasserted political decision-making and stable conditions for strategic management. The central administration was restructured early in 2004 and introduced three steering groups for strategic processes: Administration and Personnel, Economic planning and Strategy, and Business Activities and Finance. The steering groups are complemented by three expert units: Information Office, International Relations and Internal Auditing.
The purchaser-provider model of service production was tested in the years 2005 - 2006 in City Planning and Infrastructure Services, Daycare Services and Basic Education.
On the 18th of May 2005 the City Council made the following decisions concerning the management reform:
- The City Council will elect from among themselves a Mayor and four Deputy Mayors to govern the municipality in the capacity of elected officials from the 1st of January 2007 onward.
- The purchaser-provider split will be implemented throughout the whole of the municipal administration from the 1st of January 2007 onwards.
