On Monday 25 March, an overview of the progress made in the economic adaptation process was submitted to Joensuu City Council. The Council was presented with options for organising the City's services and the city concern.

The overview submitted to the Council is part of the economic adaptation process. The City must permanently balance its finances by more than EUR 20 million annually. The range of measures for achieving this is being prepared by office holders, with FCG Oy as consultants. The Council is to decide on the adaptation measures on the 17th of June.

Organisation of services

A reorganisation of the City's service provision was proposed to the Council as a new way of achieving savings. A working group examined various options, including centralising the City's own activities, expanding service purchases, turning outsourced services into the City's activities, or outsourcing services. This work aimed for a model where services are provided as cost-effectively as possible using modern tools.

The report noted that in outsourced services, potential for savings could be found in the payroll administration as well as IT services as a whole, and regarding the City’s own activities, in the organisation of public amenity services, such as the maintenance of streets, parks, sports facilities and premises.

IT services, payroll management and infrastructure supervision

The report found that by reorganising payroll management and IT services, potential savings of approx. EUR 350,000 could be achieved. Among other things, the reorganisation would mean adjusting prices and replacing outsourced work with the City’s activities.

In addition, the working group investigated the possibility of carrying out infrastructure supervision as the City’s activities, but due to its seasonal nature, no clear savings potential was seen in it. Infrastructure supervision refers to the supervision of works contracts, for example.

Public amenity services

In the context of public amenity services, including the maintenance of streets, parks, sports facilities and premises, operational mergers were investigated. The Welfare and City Environment sectors currently partly have very similar functions. The report found that combining such services would bring potential savings of approx. EUR 660,000.

Summary: organisation of services

According to the report, the total savings potential of service organisation is approx. EUR 1 million. At this stage, outsourcing the City's activities was not seen as a potential option.