General overview:

The mayor shall appoint and dismis all directors of the directorates. Directors manage and direct their departments in accordance with the mayor's strategic and political guidelines and report to the mayor on regular basis on issues that are under their authority. Directors shall on regular basis report to the mayor on issues under their authority and provide him with all the information and reports that are necessary in the decision-making process.

The mayor should ensure to appoint competent persons in director positions, persons who are knowledgeable in the performance of duties in the designated sectors.

Lack of capable directors leads to failure to carry out the foreseen works but also causes tensions in the relations between civil staff and directors. Directors should be able to transform the political vision of the mayor into the vision of the work of the administration so that they can provide services to citizens, so they should recruit professional people in the administration sector to strengthen policies.

Good governance in these relations is required because:

It happens that due to political agreements for coalitions, positions of directors of directorates is part of the bargain, therefore appointing political persons without professional background would seriously damage functioning of the particular sector.

The opportunity for policy-led directors to politicize the work of the administration so that recruits in the civil service are political is too great. The political appointment of directors makes them busy with their party engagements, especially at the time of the campaigns, municipalities may be virtually empty.

For a sound relation there should be some prerequisites in place:

• Competent professional persons should be appointed as directors
• In exercising their functions directors should be non-partisan
• Recruitments to the civil service should have no political background
• Directors should be held accountable for their work by the mayor