Reorganising local public utilities : where and why we can argue for the remunicipalization trends?

Petkovšek, Veronika (author), Hrovatin, Nevenka (author), Pevcin, Primož (author)

The paper is based on the use of evidence to scrutinise the effect of the Public-Private Partnership Act on the local public utility providers, where the context of the water and wastewater sector in Slovenia serves as an example. The Act affected the legal status of public enterprises, where solely public ownership was prescribed, and therefore demanded the reorganisation ofexisting public enterprises. The paper aims to evaluate the reorganisation process and the trend of remunicipalisation, the motives of reorganisation (political, pragmatic or transformative) and the advantages and disadvantages of the reorganisation process. A detailed, structured online guestionnaire was designed and pretested for primary data collection to reach these aims. The questionnaire was sent to the Slovenian local public utility providers in water and wastewater management. The data was collated from 2018 to 2020. It was used in the analysis to provide evidence about the outcomes of the reorganisation process. The results show that new legislation contributed to increased public ownership in local public utility provision. The results also reveal that pragmatic motivating factors contributed to increased municipal buying out of private investors from (public) enterprises. The reorganisation process led municipalities into remunicipalisation, meaning that full municipal ownership and control increased.

• Language: English
• Keywords: local public utilities, public enterprise, remunicipalisation, water and wastewater management
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FU - Faculty of Administration; EF - School of Economics and Business
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: Str. 122-142
• Numbering: Vol. 16, iss. 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-153111
• UDC: 352:33(497.4)
• ISSN on article: 1338-4309
• DOI: 10.2478/nispa-2023-0016
• COBISS.SI-ID: 177876995
• Publication date in RUL: 18.12.2023

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: NISPAcee journal of public administration and policy
• Shortened title: NISPAcee j. publi. adm. policy
• Publisher: Sciendo, NISPAcee, GIPA
• ISSN: 1338-4309
• COBISS.SI-ID: 520037913

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: lokalne javne službe, javno podjetje, remunicipalizacija, upravljanje z vodo in odpadnimi vodami