Orphanages are to be handed over to the Special Provincial Administrations. This brings to mind the localization of the Directorates of Rural Services.

We will understand in a couple of years whether this was a good thing or not. We will conduct an impact assessment and see the outcomes like we have done before. Who gets harmed will be the children trying to grow up in the orphanages. It appears that in concentrating on the debt crisis and contingency effects, we are missing out on the authority with which the government was entrusted before the elections to restructure public administration via decree. The bureaucrats in Ankara are currently trying to figure out in which ministry they work. What decrees imply becomes clearer every day. As it does, we need to figure out how to solve the problem. Let me tell you how.

The Turkish Social Services and Child Protection Institution (SHÇEK) performs an important service in the field of social assistance. With the decree law on the organization of the Ministry of Family and Social Policy dated June 3, SHÇEK's provincial organizations were handed hastily over to the special provincial administrations. This way, the orphanages that had operated under the body of SHÇEK were localized. The special provincial administrations now have orphanages to run. These orphanages used to be remembered only when they appear in the third page news. They could make it to the first page only if they could attract the attention of the British royal family. The current question about how SHÇEK will execute the handing over of orphanages implausibly resembles the handing over of the Directorates of Rural Services to the special provincial administrations. Ok, you made a mistake. But why are you repeating it? You made a mistake in the field of localization. Why don't you learn a lesson from that mistake? Today, I would like to share with you the lessons the TEPAV governance team has drawn from the localization of the Directorates of Rural Services. The study, completed in 2008, shows the "not-to-do"s of the localization process; that is, the steps that should be avoided.

Let us set the framework first. Debates on the localization of the provision of public services and debates on autonomy do not refer to the same issue. They are not even different aspects of the same issue. They are not related at all. The first aims to improve the economic efficiency of public service provision whereas the second has political objectives about providing field control to a political cadre. The first one seeks to reduce the bureaucratic procedures in service provision for economic efficiency purposes. The second, however, inflates the bureaucracy. This is what I understand from the ongoing debates. In this context, Diyarbakır needs localization in the public services provision process as much as Manisa, for instance, does. Concerning the provision of public services, localization aims to ensure the wider participation of local bodies in the decision-making process. Autonomy, on the other hand, builds a new political control bureaucracy between the center and the local administration. This is problematic concerning the harmonious operation of the single market since it is not economic but political. The localization of the management of orphanages is correct in principle, but the method used is wrong. Turkey lacks a strategy for the localization of public services provision, among many others. This is the first point to stress.

Let us assess the outcome of the hasty localization of the Directorates of Rural Affairs from this perspective. Carrying out the localization before establishing the necessary public service provision infrastructure at the local level suspends the provision process in the short term. This is what we witnessed years ago during the localization of rural services. Similar problems might be expected also considering the orphanages. In the case of the Directorate of Rural Services, this problem delayed the provision of services to rural areas. In the case for the orphanages, however, any problem in the service provision will directly gamble with the lives of the children living there. This is bad. And the third point: efforts were made to overcome the problems about service provision by the Directorates of Rural Services with the devotion of directorate officials. Now, the future of children living in orphanages will be left in the hands of local administrators, to their insight and the righteousness of their daily decisions. But this was what we tried to change in the first place, wasn't it? Now, the daily decisions of officials are to shape the future of children even more directly. This is bad. The kids at the orphanages are almost completely abandoned. The economy administration must take a more active role in the localization of public services.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 12.08.2011