Local Government Capacity Building
Decentralisation support at district and sub-county level, covering the functions local governments are actually assessed on.
District and sub-county administrations, and programmes working through them.
What the work covers
- Functions and mandates under decentralisation
- Procurement and tendering practice
- Education, health and community services management
- Financial management and revenue mobilisation
- Planning, budgeting and reporting cycles
- Council and committee effectiveness
What you are left holding
- Capacity assessment report with prioritised gaps
- Trained officers with attendance and assessment records
- Installed templates, registers and procedures
- Follow-up review report
The work in detail
Local government capacity building supports district and sub-county administrations in the functions they are actually assessed on: mandates under decentralisation, procurement and tendering, education and community services, financial management and revenue, and the planning, budgeting and reporting cycle.
We assess capacity against the statutory functions and against the same assessment instruments the district is measured by, so gaps are named in terms officers already recognise. Priorities are then agreed with the accounting officer and weighted by compliance risk and service impact, because a district cannot fix everything in one financial year.
Delivery mixes workshops at district and sub-county level with on-the-job coaching of the officer who actually holds the function, and it installs the templates, registers and procedures the practice depends on. A follow-up visit in the next quarter confirms whether the practice held once we left, which is the only honest measure of a capacity building assignment.
Local Government Capacity Building
Scenarios, for reference
Procurement queried at audit every year
A district was repeatedly queried on the same procurement steps. Coaching the officers through two live procurements, with the registers installed and used, closed the finding in the following audit cycle.
Sub-county plans that did not add up to the district plan
Planning happened at both levels with no reconciliation. We ran a joint cycle with a common template, so sub-county submissions could be consolidated without rework.
A new council needing to understand its own mandate
After elections, a council was operating outside its remit in some committees and under-using it in others. A short programme on functions, committee roles and reporting settled the boundary.