Abstract / Excerpt:

The central government of Thailand has always been interested in local authorities as vehicles of delivering services to people. However, it is common knowledge that the local authorities never had sufficient capacity to deliver; hence, the constant government efforts at filling the gap by delivering services directly to the people or building the capacity of local authorities so that they would deliver effectively. This research traces the rationale and nature of reforms undertaken in the rural local government sector and the reason for the differences in municipalities in the province of Songkhla. This research study used the cluster analysis in order to group the 13 municipalities in two. The first group was composed of municipalities with better administrative performance and a high level of revenue collections. The second group had poor administrative performance and low level of revenue collections. The discriminant analysis was then used to determine what variables can significantly distinguish the two groups. Te results of this study show that local administration and the governing body are what distinguish the two groups. It was evident that the municipalities that have better administrative performance also have high revenues compared to the municipalities with poor administrative performance and low revenue collections. This difference was evident in their local administration and the way the governing body ran the affairs of the local government. An intervention program becomes necessary for those municipalities that are exhibiting low administrative performance and love revenue collections. It is clear that the local government management management is unique in that it has numerous objectives and provisions fro public answerability and political awareness from the process of public services, The paper concludes by exploring the best practices established, lessons learned and recommendations for the future of local government in songkhla, Thailand.

Info

Source Institution	Ateneo de Davao University
Unit	Business and Governance
Authors	Soysonth, Sorasak
Page Count	166
Place of Publication	Davao City
Original Publication Date	March 1, 2005
Tags	Dissertations, LOCAL GOVERNMENT, Public administration., Songkhla, Thailand

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