Briefing Paper

Local Government Councils’ Performance and Public Service Delivery in Uganda Soroti District Council Score-Card Report FY 2013/2014

This policy brief presents findings from the 2013/14 assessment of Soroti District Local Government under the Local Government Councils’ Score-card Initiative
(LGCSCI), an evidence based project implemented by ACODE in partnership with ULGA with support from GAPP/USAID and DGF. The following recommendations were made from the Soroti District Council Scorecard Report: 1. Broaden Local Revenue Base: The District focusing more on local economic development should broaden the local revenue base to support the local revenue streams. 2. Stakeholders should be sensitized on the involvement of UPDF in NAADS: The stakeholders need to be sensitized on the new guidelines for the implementation of NAADS in LGs to avoid role conflict and confusion. 3. Civic Awareness and Engagement should be improved: Citizens need to be sensitized about the statutory roles of their leaders in order to hold them to account. 4. The Monitoring of service delivery should be strengthened: Individual Councilors, committees of council and the district technical team should increase on frequency of their monitoring of services and provide feedback from such visits. 5. Follow-up of identified service delivery challenges: All stakeholders involved in monitoring should ensure that they follow-up on reported service delivery deficiencies from monitoring visits until they are addressed by service providers. 6. Clarity of roles in functionality of local Governments: District elected leaders need to understand the boundaries of their roles and responsibilities to avoid unnecessary administrative clashes with the technical team. 7. Need for official communication: Communication with the different stakeholders in the district should always be in writing for purposes of easier follow-up and reference.