Presentation delivered during the 13th Annual Meeting of the OECD Network on Fiscal Relations Across Levels of Government, 23-24 November 2017, Paris, France.

1. ASSIGNING RESPONSIBILITIES ACROSS
LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT:
TRENDS, CHALLENGES AND GUIDELINES
Intermediate report for the report on Making
Decentralisation Work: a Handbook for Policy-Makers
Dorothée Allain-Dupré
Head of unit CFE/OECD
Annual meeting of the OECD Network on Fiscal Relations
Across Levels of Government
24 November 2017

2. Setting
- Joint activity with Fiscal Network
- Focus: lessons from Territorial Reviews
since 2005
- More broadly lessons from RDPC work
- Convergence and complementarities with
the paper on Economic Surveys
- Trends, challenges, lessons and next steps
22

3. Analysis of 19 territorial and multi-level
governance reviews

4. 44
Trends in assignment

5. Increasing asymmetric decentralisation:
the case of metropolitan governance
55
Recent waves of metropolitan governance
Source: OECD (2015)
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
1951-1960 1961-1970 1971-1980 1981-1990 1991-2000 2001-2010
5
15 new metro
structures
created
between 2011
and 2013

6. Challenges: lack of clarity in the
assignment, coordination & capacity
66
• Unclear assignment of responsibilities across levels of
government – in federal and unitary countries
• Mostly in infrastructure (transport), education, spatial
planning, health or labour market policy.
• Functional responsibilities not consistent
• Unfunded/under-funded mandates
• Lack of fiscal autonomy
• Lack of skills and institutional capacity, lack of staff
• Coordination challenges (vertical, horizontal)
• Monitoring and data collection

7. Recommendations from Reviews,
reforms and good practices
77
Clarity in assignment
• Reviews tend to focus more on the recommendations to clarify the way
functions are assigned, or strengthen co-ordination mechanisms, rather
than on recommendations to shift the level of responsibility
• Reviews make some broad recommendations in the policy areas of
infrastructure education, health or land use, for example, on how to
manage these shared responsibilities.
Strengthening fiscal and institutional capacities of SNGs
• Strengthening subnational fiscal capacity & autonomy
• Better measuring institutional capacity in SNGs
Vertical & horizontal coordination
• A number of OECD countries – in particular federal countries or Nordic
countries – have made progress toward better vertical co-ordination -
11 countries in the OECD have put in place structures of co-ordination
• 17 OECD countries have incentives to foster cooperation across
municipalities

8. 10 guidelines for policy-makers
88
1. The way responsibilities are shared should be explicit, mutually
understood and clear for all actors.
2. Equally important is the clarity in the different functions that are
assigned, within policy areas – financing, regulating, implementing, or
monitoring.
3. It is important to ensure balance in the way various policy functions are
decentralised, to allow for complementarities across decentralised
policies and integrated policy packages, for effective territorial
development approaches
4. The responsibilities assigned to SNGs should be aligned with their
revenues.
5. Capacity development at the subnational level must be actively
supported with resources from the centre, and require long-term
commitment.

9. 99
10 guidelines for policy-makers
6. Since most responsibilities are shared, it is crucial to build adequate
co-ordination mechanisms to manage these joint responsibilities.
7. Support cross-jurisdictional co-operation through specific incentives:
8. Allow for pilot experiences and asymmetric arrangements
(metropolitan areas)
9. Make room for complementary reforms at the national and
subnational levels: Effective decentralization requires complementary
reforms in the governance of land-use, subnational public employment,
and regulatory frameworks.
10. Enhance data collection , improve transparency and strengthen
performance monitoring.

10. THANK YOU!
Dorothee.allain-dupre@oecd.org