C H A P T E R 3
Decentralization:
Definitions, Taxonomies, and Functions
Since the purpose of this reading is rather practical, a comparative overview on the vast literature of decentralization or an in-depth academic discussion of its underlying theo-retical foundations will not be attempted. However, precisely because of the diversity of approaches and the uses of specialized terms, some clarification of the meaning of decentralization is inevitable. Apart from bringing certain intellectual order to the use of terminology (at least for the purposes of this volume), this chapter aims at offering an analytical framework that allows for “unpacking” and structuring the extremely diverse and complicated matters strategies for decentralization should concern. Also, this exercise will allow for streamlining the discussion in the following chapters by determining those aspects of decentralization that are most relevant to South Eastern Europe.
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Deconcentration
Deconcentration is considered to be the weakest form of decentralization. It refers to the transfer of certain administrative authorities to lower levels of administration that is directly subordinated to a central government agency. The purpose of transferring decision-making is simply to bring it closer to the users of the service, that is, decon-centration is aiming to increase the efficiency of central administration. However, the central agency (e.g., the Ministry of Education) remains responsible for the actual task and for the actions of its deconcentrated agent. For example, the directors of the schools are appointed in Bulgaria by the Regional Inspectorates on behalf of the minister of education. The Regional Educational Offices in Serbia (Skolska Uprava, sometimes translated as Regional Departments) are not only managed directly by the Ministry of Education, they are part of the organization of the ministry. In most cases the deconcen-trated decisions are typically implementation types of matters, and strategic and policy decisions are kept at the central level. For example, financial management, that is, the allocation of resources to individual schools, is administered by the Regional Depart-ments in Serbia. Deconcentrated agencies not necessarily organized for the different sectors are separate units. For example, in Croatia, the Ministry of Science, Education, and Sports does not operate its own deconcentrated agencies, but it is the County State Offices that participate in the implementation of educational policies. However, the typical pattern of deconcentration in South Eastern Europe is to stuff everything into one single organization; the Regional Departments in Serbia or the Regional Inspector-ates in Romania and Bulgaria are the depositories of diverse administrative, professional support, professional evaluation, and financial management tasks.
Obviously, the geographical dispersion of specified administrative functions is not a real transfer of authority among the different levels of management. “Deconcentration does not weaken the role of the state. (…) It would seem, that deconcentration is an efficiency measure that is more suited for expanding the state services than for slim-ming down those that exist” (Lauglo 1997). Due to its potential to increase efficiency of central governance of education, deconcentration is widely used even in extremely decentralized education systems. For example, in Hungary the regional branches of the Education Authority (an executive office of the Ministry of Education and Culture) perform certain external assessment-related tasks.
Delegation
Delegation is a more extensive form of decentralization. Through delegation, central governments transfer decision-making authorities to organizations that are not fully controlled by the center. Although these organizations may have a great deal of
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tion, the statutory basis of decentralization is, in most cases, rather weak. In the case of delegation, the transfer of decision-making is temporary, and the delegated task can be withdrawn quite easily. Therefore, decentralization by delegation does not create the necessary stability for medium- or long-term planning and allows little room to clearly (re)define the roles of the actors at the lower levels. The same applies to cases when certain services are delegated (contracted out) to private services; when the contract expires, the delegation decision is automatically reconsidered. It protects the higher-level agency in the case of delegating educational or professional services but might be very detrimental in the case of genuine public administration functions. Privatization is a particular form of delegation, because it does not necessarily move the actual service out from the realm of public services. For example, the owner of a private school may also obliged to implement the national core curriculum or public health and safety regulations that are set for schools at the national level.
A good example is Bulgaria, where decentralization measures so far were based on
“delegation,” that is, while keeping their responsibility for certain tasks, management actors “delegate” some of their decision-making competences to lower-level actors. This pattern applies to all relevant levels: funds and related decision-making competencies are delegated to municipalities; municipalities delegate decision-making competencies either to the directors of the schools or to submunicipal entities (the kmestvo). It creates a chain of delegation that leaves the “constitutional framework” of public administration untouched. In Bulgaria, the delegation of management authorities from the central level to the municipalities is based on the distinction between local tasks and delegated tasks.
Local tasks are those rather marginal services that are not compulsory to provide, and therefore are funded by the revenue of the self-government. All other public services that all citizens should have access to are tasks of “national interest,” and therefore kept within the responsibility of the central government. For example, it is still the ministry that is entitled to open or close a school. As a result, delegation is not based on legisla-tion; the tasks delegated to municipalities are regulated by a government decree on an annual basis.4
Devolution
Devolution is the transfer of authority over specific public functions to subnational levels or autonomous organizations. The distinctive feature of devolution is its statutory nature;
the fact that it occurs on the basis of legislation. “Devolution is the most far-reaching form of decentralization in that the transfer of authority over financial, administrative, or pedagogical matters is permanent and cannot be revoked at the whim of central of-ficials” (Fiske 1996). In most cases, it is not simply the decision-making authority that
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tasks are devolved, that are entailing certain decision-making obligations. For example, in Hungary it is the mandatory task of local self-governments to provide primary edu-cation services to children living on their territory. If the self-government decides to provide educational service by an own school, the director of the school is appointed by the council of the self-government simply because the school is its own institution.
(As it would be the same in the case of a local water supply or forestry enterprises.) Although the central government may interfere in the way devolved tasks are performed (e.g., by setting qualification requirements for directors), it is only the law that may constrain the autonomy of the actors at the lower levels. Typically, decentralization by devolution goes together with the expansion of the latitude within which autonomous actors (self-governments, schools, etc.) regulate matters that were once regulated by the central government in the centralized system. This latitude depends on the actual scope of autonomy determined by laws. As will be seen, decentralization by devolution has major implications for all other aspects of decentralization in education beyond decision-making authorities.
The Targets of Authority Transfer
As far as the targets of authority transfer are concerned, it can be any of the lower levels of management of education or any private organizations. In general, we are differentiating four major levels of public management: the national, regional, local, and institutional levels. However, the diversity of administrative divisions in different countries does not always make the comparison easy and unambiguous. For example, when we refer to regions, it may mean three different territorial units with typically different functions.
Sometimes larger territorial areas (NUTS 1) established on a historical basis, such as Dalmatia (Dalmacija) in Croatia, or Transdanubium (Dunántúl) in Hungary. The other possible regional units are the “statistical regions” (NUTS 2) that serve as statistical units within the European Union. Finally, there are smaller regional territories than the statistical ones (NUTS 3) that in most countries are called counties (oblast, judet, megye, etc.) or regions. The local level is no less ambiguous. Since in South Eastern Europe the average size of municipalities is rather large, the individual settlements often form a submunicipal level of self-government.
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Box 3.1
The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS, Nomeclature d’unités territoriales statistiques)
NUTS is a standard for referencing the administrative divisions of countries devel-oped by the European Union. The NUTS divisions do not necessarily correspond to administrative divisions within the separate countries, and it serves mainly statistical purposes. It also provides the framework for the allocation of the structural funds of the EU. There are three NUTS levels with two levels for local administrative units (LAUs, NUTS 4 and 5 levels). The local levels were officially abolished in 2003. The minimum population size requirements and classification procedural rules also were set in 2003 to ensure greater uniformity within the European Union. This may cause problems, for example, in Croatia, where the population size of five historical regions does not allow for establishing separate statistical regions for each. In other coun-tries (e.g., in Hungary) the establishment of statistical regions gradually entails the development of a new administrative unit partly by deconcentration to the NUTS 2 level, partly by the evolution of an integrated territorial development system.
Determining the actors at any lower levels is no less complicated. The identification of the decision-maker is obvious in the case of deconcentration (branches of central government agencies), and in the case of privatization (a private organization selected by open tendering). It must be noted that from the point of view of public services, all non-public types of organizations are considered to be “private”: associations, foundations, trade unions, churches, private enterprises, international organizations, individuals, etc.
In all these cases private organizations provide public service on a contractual basis—in theory—on equal terms. Just to broaden the blur around privatization, it should be mentioned that there are quasi-private organizations, such as the “public foundations” in Hungary that are organizations established by government agencies or self-governments operating under the legislation on nonprofit organizations.
In the cases of devolution and delegation (apart from privatization), the targets are very often much less obvious. The most plausible targets for authority transfer would be regional and local self-governments and schools with certain financial, organizational, and professional autonomy. Indeed, in most cases in the course of decentralization, educational management authorities are devolved to these actors. However, it often happens that the delegation or devolution of decision-making mandates evades local self-governments or the management of schools. This happens if school boards are established to govern a local network of schools or individual institutions.
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To a large extent, determining the actual target (level and agent) depends on the underlying value orientations already outlined in Chapter 1. However, there are other aspects that may distort the obvious implications of values or other strategic consider-ations. One of the most important is the perceived technical (organizational, financial, and professional) capacity of the actors. What really matters in this respect is perception;
very often, the typical argumentation is based on perceptions about the capacities of various actors without seriously considering the improvement of the required capacities.
Another typical aspect in South Eastern Europe is the lack of trust in certain actors.
For example, local self-governments are often mistrusted by professionals because of the extensive political interference or the widespread corruption that may lead to the reorganization of local school system in order to liberate school facilities for “privatiza-tion.” In other cases, school directors are mistrusted by teachers or local self-government representatives because of the potential abuse of their extended managerial power. As a result, sometimes school boards are established in order to balance “the threat” of the power of local self-governments, mayors, or school directors. Sometimes local actors seek
“protection” from the central government that is the major obstacle to decentralization initiatives. Historical experiences with certain forms of management may also distort the “logical” distribution of authorities. For example, in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, decentralization is often identified with the “self-management” system.
Subsidiarity
Due to the top-down nature of decentralization in education, the basic questions are related to the appropriate levels and actors to whom the authorities of the central government are to be delegated or devolved. However, on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity an opposite logic might be applied: what should be kept centralized and why?
Subsidiarity is an organizing principle according to which central authority should have subsidiary (supplementary) functions only. It means that central governments should perform only those tasks that cannot be performed effectively at a more im-mediate level, that is, those tasks that are closed to the actual action and where the necessary information is available. It applies to lower hierarchical relations, as well; if a task can be performed in a school, the decision should not be pushed to the local level, etc. (Subsidiarity is best known as the guiding principle of the European Union as it was established by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992.)
The promoters of decentralization very often refer to the principle of subsidiarity, but its underlying logic is very rarely applied. For example, in the discourse on decentraliza-tion, the type of argumentation that justifies why certain authorities should retain some matters for central governance is rather used by the opponents of decentralization, not by those who are seeking to define the borders of decentralization. The point of departure
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of devolving everything to institutional or local levels with certain well-justified excep-tions is an approach pursued only in historically federal states. The focus of the design of decentralization initiatives in Central and South Eastern Europe is very much the top-down identification of decision-making authorities to be deployed to lower levels.
However, the principle of subsidiarity is still relevant for a non-federalist constitutional context, too. An educational governance and management system is never clearly cen-tralized or decencen-tralized. Decentralization of certain authorities may create the need for much more clearly-defined central authorities or even the establishment of new ones.
For example, decentralized and/or privatized in-service teacher training systems may call for the introduction of a central quality assurance system. The principle of subsidiarity is a useful mental tool for the redefinition of the role of upper levels of management.
A Connected Instrument: Deregulation
There are authors who consider deregulation—by which central government control is reduced or eliminated—as a distinct form of transferring authority to lower level management (Halász 2001a). Indeed, if our point of departure is the assumption that if something not expressly prohibited or regulated can be done freely, then deregula-tion (the withdrawal of reguladeregula-tions) in fact transfers authority in an indirect way by widening the latitude of actions at lower levels. However, the underlying purpose is not necessarily weakening or eliminating central control; in several cases the justification for deregulation is the assumption that fewer and simpler regulations increase the effi-ciency of control. In addition to this, one of the typical characteristics of the behavior of lower-level actors in very centralized systems, who are overwhelmed by the huge administrative burden, is that they are doing only that which was deployed to them as a regulated mandate. Deregulation is an instrument that can be used in connection to any forms of decentralization or even without any transfer of authorities. On the other hand, devolution of decision-making authorities cannot be achieved without the removal of old regulations or without replacing them with procedural regulations. Also, decentralization may generate the need for new types of regulations, such as setting quality standards for services that are not managed centrally anymore.
Summary: Types of Decentralization
We often talk about different types of decentralization. These types are constructed partly on the basis of the underlying purpose of decentralization measures (the rationale) and partly on the basis of the actors to which former central government authorities are
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and economic (market) decentralization. Administrative decentralization simply moves the locus of decision-making to a lower level of administration without involving non-administrative actors. Political decentralization implies deploying authority to regional or local bodies that are elected through a political procedure, or to administrative actors who are appointed and supervised by politically-elected bodies. Professional decentralization (or service delivery decentralization) means deploying decision-making authorities to the professional staff of schools (i.e., to management and teachers).
Economic decentralization is contracting out certain functions to market organizations.
We will later return to the decentralization of certain functional governance instruments, such as the decentralization of the allocation of financial resources (often referred to as fiscal decentralization) or the decentralization of curriculum (often referred to as decentralized curriculum policy). All of these core types of decentralization may apply to the decentralization of these instruments, although not all of the combinations are typical or even plausible.
The major types of decentralization—with the mild risk of simplifications—can be connected with the different forms of transferring authority. The obvious cases are administrative decentralization that is achieved by deconcentration and economic de-centralization, because it is achieved only through delegation. (If the control of certain services is “devolved” to market organizations, they are no longer public services.) Politi-cal decentralization can be achieved either by delegation or devolution, but due to the constitutional nature of self-governance the previous case is rare. The primary meaning of professional decentralization is delegating or devolving authorities to schools.
Table 3.1
Targets and Form of Authority Transfer
Targets of authority transfer Forms of transferring authority
Deconcentration Delegation Devolution
Regional branches of central government Administrative — —
Regional or local self-governments — Political Political
Schools — Professional Professional
Private organizations — Economic —
It is important to note that the long process of decentralization almost never occurs according to a clear pattern. There might be phases in which political decentralization is the main goal, while the next government may focus on professional decentralization.
Also, although professional legitimacy might be the main concern in certain phases of decentralization, it is often connected with certain elements of political decentralization.
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In the case of delegation or devolution to lower levels of education management, the professional guarantees of the quality of decision-making are also considered.