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Pawel Swianiewicz
Local Government System The local government structure in Poland is a result of two waves of decentralization reform. The first wave took place in 1990, when the local government system was introduced on a municipal (gmina) level. Local government reform was one of the main priorities for the first postcommunist government, which was formed in September 1989. Quick but intensive preparations allowed the passage of the new Local Government Law in March 1990, which was followed by local elections in May 1990 and a radical decentralization of financial regulations in January 1991. The 1990 reform introduced elected local government on the municipal (gmina) level only; upper tiers of territorial divisions remained managed by the state administration. This solution was treated as a provisional one. It was argued that the division into 49 small regions (województwa) introduced by the Communist administration in the mid-1970s was dysfunctional and required modifications. It was assumed that new, elected regional governments should be introduced with the reform of the territorial division. However, for a number of reasons that are not discussed in this chapter in depth, the introduction of upper tiers of local governments was postponed for several years. The second stage of the reform introduced two new tiers of elected subnational governments in 1999: powiat (county) and województwo (region).
Territorial Organization Currently there are three tiers of territorial governments: almost 2,500 municipalities (gminy); 315 counties, plus 65 cities with county status; and 16 regions, which replaced the earlier 49 smaller units. On both a municipal and a county level, self-government is the only form of public administration. State functions, such as registration of births and marriages, are delivered by local government as delegated functions financed by specific grants. On a regional level, there is a dual structure—elected self-government and a governor (wojewoda), appointed by the prime minister, with his or her own administrative apparatus. However, functions of regional state and self-government administrations are clearly separated, and there is no hierarchical subordination between them. The size of local government units is presented in table 9.1.
Autonomy and Constitutional Protection The goal of the reform was to clearly separate functions and policy areas between tiers of government and to eliminate vertical (hierarchical) dependency of the lower tier on the higher. This goal has been achieved
