#8 Bordeaux

Innovation and funding of public services

Innovation and funding, two topics that are related in many ways. Administrations are innovating to simplify administrative procedures provided that the cost of the public service is also substantially reduced. For communities facing increasing financial pressure, innovating means imagining new revenue, reducing costs, or moving towards new sources of funding.


Above all, this meeting gave us the desire to permanently open up to the international sphere. The experiences presented were of great interest and our meetings allow us to briefly escape the pressures of our daily work and to take home new perspectives for the future.

The work of the OECD suggests that local investment is not only a means of urban development, but also a way of improving the overall well-being of our citizens. This is quite stimulating, especially since some of the presentations reminded us that innovation works mostly from the bottom up and not from the top down.

Agence France Locale is a perfect example of this, since it was created by local authorities for local authorities, largely inspired by a model that has long been proven in Sweden, and without expecting anything from the State. It is through this type of bottom up movement, open to the world, that public service can become flexible and resilient.

The meetings of the BEST network operate exactly on these principles and, in this sense, make a real contribution to innovation in our professions. Let’s continue to act locally and think globally.

Éric Ardouin
Chief Executive of Bordeaux Metropole and the City of Bordeaux

PROGRAMME

Innovation in the regional public sector

Developing a culture of innovation in the public sector
How administrations can gain from new technologies, innovative partnerships, agent participation and feedback from users to simplify their procedures and modernize public action.
> Françoise Waintrop, Head of the “Methods of Listening and Innovating” team at the Secretariat-General for the Modernization of Public Action, a unit of the French Budget Office.

Agile management for innovative regional administration
Organizational agility as a condition and impetus for innovation in our local authorities.
> Michel Vayssié, Chief Executive of the City of Lille

The Innovation Observatory in the public sector
Analysis of the various forms of innovation in the public sector of OECD countries and examples of results.
> Paqui Santonja, Policy Analyst at the Directorate for Public Governance and Territorial Development at the OECD

The pooling of Bordeaux Metropole’s services
Presentation of the process to create shared services between the Metropole and the member towns with a dual hierarchical and functional relationship.
> Éric Ardouin, Chief Executive of Bordeaux Metropole and the City of Bordeaux

Challenges and methods of funding public investment in regional authorities

Regional development and public investment policies in OECD countries
Comparative analysis, challenges and areas for improvement
> Claire Charbit, Head of Dialogue with Local and Regional Authorities at the Directorate for Public Governance and Territorial Development, OECD

The Juncker Investment Plan
How it can help European regional authorities. Requirements to obtain funding.
> Stéphane Viallon, Signing Officer at the European Investment Bank, Head of Relations with Regional Authorities at the Paris office

Challenges and methods of funding public investment by French local authorities
Volume of investment and analysis of its current reductions. Means to strengthen local authorities’ investment capacity: alternative bank funding, public or private co-financing, new revenues and cost control.
> Benoît Quignon, Chief Executive of Lyon Metropole and the City of Lyon

Funding agencies for regional authorities in the European Union

Kommuninvest, the Swedish agency for funding local authorities.
A banking institution founded in 1986 to facilitate local authorities’ access to credit, Kommuninvest serves 280 of Sweden’s 310 local authorities. Its history and success have made it a model around Europe and worldwide.
> Maria Viimne, Deputy Managing Director of Kommuninvest, in charge of Investor Relations

AFL, the French agency for funding local authorities
Agence France Locale, founded in 2013, is an online bank owned by French local authorities aiming to jointly raise funding on the bond market to meet shared needs. It facilitates their access to financing with attractive terms.
> Yves Millardet, Chairman of Agence France Locale