Local and Regional Democracy and Good Governance

General

European Committee on Local and Regional
Democracy

Centre of Expertise
for Local Government Reform

Strategy for Innovation
and Good Governance
Reform

Programmes for Democratic Stability

Resources in Local and Regional Democracy

 

Committee of Experts on the Legal Framework and Institutional Structure of Local and Regional Government (LR-FS)

Former subcommittee

Composed of governmental experts from Council of Europe member states, the Committee was set up in 2000 initially to consider the relationship between the size of local and regional authorities and the effectiveness and economy of their action. Broadening the committee’s scope for reflection, a subsequent activity examined the difficulties and obstacles incurred by member states when implementing territorial reforms to create new territorial communities or authorities. This led to the adoption by the Committee of Ministers of Rec(2004)12 on the processes of reform of boundaries and/or structure of local and regional authorities. The conclusions pointed to the importance of the initial territorial design and the need to pay particular attention to the size of the territory and its population, the tasks and competences to be assigned to the territory’s governing body, the extent of that body’s autonomy, and whether it would operate via public or private entities. More recently the Committee commissioned an expert consultant to analyse the scope of local authority responsibilities.
 		  

More information
   Achievements
 
Last Terms of reference
 

 
Information:

   Working documents from the last meeting

   Last meeting report
 

The Committee also met in October 2005, to discuss its more recent terms of reference to consider state-of-the-art developments in regional self-government in member states, to identify good practice in the relationship between central, local and regional authorities, as well as in inter-municipal co-operation, and to promote Recommendation Rec (2004) 12 on the process of reform of boundaries and/or the structure of local and regional authorities.