Purchaser-provider model

Customer-oriented Services Emphasised in the Production Model of Social, Health and Culture Services

The Production model of City Planning and Infrastructure Services

Boards in Charge of the Political Management of Providers

The purchaser-provider model will be implemented throughout the whole of the municipal administration from the 1st of January 2007 onwards. In this model the purchaser committees specify the services to be provided, choose the service provider and finance the production of the services. The committees are also responsible for the necessary official action. The budget accepted by the City Council is at the purchasers’ disposal in full.

The committees will be entirely restructured. The new structure will be based on process thinking rather than the present sector-based assignments. The objective of the new system is to ensure a more customer-oriented approach and to clarify the political nature of the planning.

The New Purchasing Committees

- Child And Youth Services
- Expertise and Economic Development
- Services Promoting Health and Fitness
- Services Promoting Culture, Arts and Quality of Life
- Services for Senior Citizens
- City Planning and Infrastructure Services

All tasks related to the provision and ordering of services that are currently the responsibility of the present committees will be transferred to the purchaser committees. When the division of labour is based on the needs of the client rather than the organisational structure of the producer, some tasks that are currently the responsibility of only one committee will be divided among several committees.

The purchaser committees will be made up of the members or deputy members of the City Council. This will increase the power and responsibilities over service provision of the representatives elected directly by the citizens. The new system will also ensure that the committees are committed to municipal objectives as a whole and will improve their command of the wider context. Shrinkage of the decision-making group is to be avoided by primarily appointing officials that are not members of the Council to the Boards of the production units.

The purchaser should assess the need for services and the future development of their demand, and purchase services. The content expertise necessary in purchasing can be obtained from in-house provider units. Official duties can also be purchased from provider units.

A purchaser unit will be formed within the corporate administration to assist the purchaser committees in commissioning services. A detailed purchaser organisation will be constructed by the year 2007.

Customer-oriented Services Emphasised in the Production Model of Social, Health and Culture Services

The new production model of social, health and culture services is based on the idea that the purchaser-provider split needs to be complemented by a new kind of customer-oriented productization of services in order to generate the necessary change. Social, health and culture services comprise the provision of services currently under the present sectors of welfare and health care, education, culture and arts, and recreation. Social, health and culture services will be restructured in phases between 2007 and 2010. In the first phase (2007—2008) the provider organisation of social, health and culture services will comprise two parts, each with their respective managers: social and health services on the one hand, and cultural services on the other.

Process thinking will be promoted by a joint development unit for social, health and culture services to co-ordinate the operations of provider organisations on a customer-oriented basis and to develop service processes and resource planning of social, health and culture services.

The development unit will steer municipal processes providing for the planning and developing of service entities for the combined processes of welfare, health care, education, culture and the arts. Joint processes crucial to the production, as well as the necessary expertise, will be concentrated in the development unit. Such processes include resource planning, business development, customer relationship management, financial management and the human resources management of production.

The development of the provider organisation of the social, health and culture services is an ongoing process. Detailed decisions concerning the provider organisation and its development phases after 2008 will be made later.

The Production model of City Planning and Infrastructure Services

The purchaser-provider model will be further developed in City Planning and Infrastructure Services so that the entire production of the sector will fall under one Board in 2007. Decisions concerning the organisational details and possible corporatization will be made later.

Boards in Charge of the Political Management of Providers

The Boards are responsible for the political management of service provision. All municipal corporations continue to have their own boards. The board structure will develop continuously along with the development process of the service provision organisations.

The following Boards will be set up in the sectors of Social, Health and Culture Services and City Planning and Infrastructure Services at the beginning of 2007:

Welfare and Health
- Areal Welfare Services, Service Advice and Oral Health Care
- Institutional Care
- Specialized Health Care

Culture Services

- Children’s Daycare and Basic Education
- Upper Secondary Education
- Culture and Recreation Services

City Planning and Infrastructure Services

- City Planning and Infrastructure Production