Local authorities are diverse, with various systems of oversight, bureaucratic processes and power sharing between bodies and decision-makers. This means that no one guide can capture the exact procedure your team will need to follow to move from the commitment as it stands at the end of Step 7 to the implementation of that solution.
Consider the following questions as you navigate through these approvals:
Does this commitment fit into a particular decision-making process? This should have already factored into your efforts in the previous steps, and it is possible that the commitment covers multiple different processes. The commitment may have implications for the budget, zoning, local or regional development plans, or any number of local planning processes, such as those focused on the environment. Determine which processes the commitment relates to and use that information to revisit your stakeholder mapping exercise and answer, “Whose approval will you need?”
If resource allocations will be required, you will need to authorize expenditures and navigate financial processes such as procurement and contracting (and likely require approval from the local council to do so and will need to follow legal guidelines and regulations of transparency, conflict-of-interest, and internal auditing and fiscal controls). Consult with the finance officer on the core team or, if there is no finance officer, with the local officials (including local council committees) and civil servants responsible for drafting the budget and managing expenditures.
If the commitment or action is beyond the capacity of the local authority to implement and maintain (even if the project can be broken up into smaller pieces), how will you address it? If the local authority can borrow money, you will need to make a very serious and dedicated assessment of the local authority’s ability to pay off the debt (especially if there are cost overruns, an unexpected downturn in the economy or other shocks that undermine local revenue streams). If you take on debt and cannot repay it, there are significant consequences for residents who may face higher taxes and cuts to other existing services. Can you secure grants and other funding from sources, such as a national government body or ministry, from private or donor organizations, or perhaps from residents who have agreed to pay a fee for a new or improved service?
Whose approval will you need? This will depend on the process that the commitment is being addressed through. For example, many local councils or assemblies approve the annual budget. If your locality is divided into smaller communities or composed of neighborhoods or villages, do those smaller communities have local leaders (informal or elected) who must approve local projects (if they have not already done so)? Is the local authority limited in the kinds of revenue generation it can pursue? For example, some local authorities are barred by higher levels of government from adopting certain types of taxes (such as sales, property, income, business or corporate taxes) or must secure approval from voters in a referendum.
What form should the commitment take? This question refers to the actual form that the commitment will need to take to navigate the formal internal processes of the local bureaucracy. In some contexts, this may be an action plan or legislative proposal that will be formally adopted by a decree from the mayor or local council; in other cases, it will be a budget initiative that can be inserted into the annual budget. See Annex XIV for an example of a commitment template used by members in the Open Government Partnership.
Consider what this would look like for your local authority. Would you adopt a strategy, municipal or city development plan; create a legal entity, task force or working group within the local administration; or adopt a decree, legal initiative, or other kind of administrative work plan?