Assessment of Local Administrative Organizations with Good Governance

Abstract

The research project titled ‘Assessment of Local Administrative Organizations with Good Governance’ has the objective to assess local administrative organizations (LAOs) by using the \ template for evaluating the operations of the assessed LAOs, assessing the projects or activities that are considered as local innovations, and checking the ranks of LAOs that pass the assessment and deserve the award. The assessment methodology incorporates a field study on LAOs of each province. These LAOs have to pass the assessment of their operations. The total number of the participating LAOs is 404. The assessment is a documentary one that focus on 6 aspects, namely, 1) the assessment of the information center of each LAO, 2) the assessment of public relations channels through which the news is publicized, 3) the application of the assessment results to the improvement and development of operations, 4) the assessment of grievance reception, 5) the assessment of the determination of steps included in the one-stop service, and 6)the assessment of the listing of received grievances and report on solutions to problems in the grievances. The assessment focuses on the projects or activities that are local innovations invented or created by the locals or expanded or developed from existing ideas until they are publicly beneficial and accepted by the communities. The results from the assessment of LAOs in the provincial level by the core team of each province in 2014 reveal that 204 of all the 404 LOAs are ready for the assessment and express their requests for receiving the assessment of their operations. The findings from such assessment of the operations on the bases of the 6 aspects indicate that 47% of the assessed LAOs provide services to facilitate their people by establishing their information centers with computers and internet access for the users to search for information, publicize news and information through various channels, evaluate themselves in order to use the results from the evaluations to improve their operations, have many channels through which people can file their grievances, and list the received grievances and solve them. Some of bid LAOs also establish one-stop service centers. However, there are 53% of the assessed LAOs that show weaknesses that need improvements. Such weaknesses concern the prompt functionality of equipment /tools in their information centers and the out-of-date publicized information. Some LAOs do not evaluate their operations nor do they apply the findings from the evaluation to the improvement of their operations. Concerning the receipt of grievances, it is discovered that although all of the assessed LAOs make the received grievances lists and solve them, the problem solving operations do not tackle the problems reported in the grievances. As for the one-stop service centers, it is found out that small LAOs scarcely provide one-stop services due to the limitations of the space in their offices and budgets. The assessment of projects or activities that are considered as local innovations leads to the discovery that LAOs’ operations that concern local innovations can be classified into 3 groups. The first group is the group of LAOs with projects to create innovations such as the Goodness Village for Community’s Self Management Project by Maehongsorn Provincial Administrative Organization and the Sculpture to Support Tourism by the Municipality of Krabi. The second group is the group of LAOS that expand the projects they have already initiated in order to create new things such as the University for the Elder project by the Hua Ngom Tambon (Sub-District) Administrative Organization which is the expansion of the School for the Elder project, and the Complete Development for the Elder project by Nonthaburi Municipality. The third group is the group of LAOs with routine projects which reflect that they have misunderstood the concept of local innovations such as the projects that concern annual festivals or merit making ceremony. The first suggestion for the assessment of Local Administrative Organizations with good governance of 2014 are that this assessment should be deemed as the lesson through which LAOs can learn about their self assessment in order to understand their strengths and weaknesses. This understanding can be applied to the developments in latter years. It is also suggested that the internal operational systems of LAOs need improvement that can boost the effectiveness of LAOs efficiency and effectiveness. The other suggestion is that LAOs should develop their projects in order to expand their operations, or design and initiate new projects that are unique and widely accepted.