MANAGING MUNICIPAL SERVICE DELIVERY

Technical Aspects

 

The technical aspects of municipal services relate largely to the engineering challenges of providing local residents with basic infrastructure services such as:

• water supply
• sanitation
• solid waste management
• district heating
• roads.

Electrical power and natural gas are not included, since municipalities are usually not responsible for their provision.

The most fundamental questions here are:

• “Do all local residents have access to services?”
• “Are services delivered at an adequate quality level?”

Since there are many technical options for delivering services, each with its own price tag, it is important for municipalities to understand, when building a new or upgrading an existing service delivery system, what customers want and are willing to pay for. Questions related to customer preferences, priorities, and willingness to pay are discussed elsewhere in this document (see Community Participation and Customer Relations).

In order to formulate a technical intervention for improving services, it is necessary to know not only the profile of customer demand, but also the current condition of the service delivery system and its shortcomings. This section provides a framework for analyzing existing municipal service systems, identifying any deficiencies, and formulating operating and capital plans for addressing them.