YEARBOOK 2000 - Infrastructural background of the organisations

The questions in this chapter meant to collect information about the infrastructural background of the local organisations and so focused on the infrastructure available for the local programmes on the one hand and on the working conditions, in which the co-ordinators and their staff perform their tasks, on the other.

It can be stated at the very beginning that the infrastructure available for the organisations implementing the local projects can be considered quite good. There are, however, some facts that are worth mentioning.

Only 22.2% of the member towns have a project office of their own. In other member towns, the participants of the local programmes have to share the office with some other organisations. These jointly used offices usually belong to an institution whose activities are somewhat related to the Healthy Cities project, e.g. mental health project office, health education programme office, etc. The local offices of the Healthy City project can usually be found either in the building of the municipality or in a building owned by the local government - with only one exception. Nonetheless it is to be considered as a positive phenomenon that the offices are made available to the local Healthy City projects free of charge in every member town.

Possessing an infrastructure of their own and especially a separate office is an important element of the identity issue that has been referred to several times in this study before. In this respect there is room for serious improvements in the majority of the member towns. At the same time, a separate office could automatically solve several problems referred to as deficiencies: notices bearing the name of the programme could be put up on the separate office and the building which houses it; the ' separate office' would - by its own existence - physically delineate the various statuses, as well as the affiliation, the tasks and the competencies - since the persons who work in the project offices are co-ordinators, engaged in the Healthy Cities programme either working for it full time or under a special agreement.

Another important element of the infrastructural background is the availability and the quality of modern communication technology the member towns/organisations can use. The information gained about this point refers to very positive situation, because every project office has a telephone, many of them with an exchange line. All the organisations have access to telefax - although the number of sets they can use without sharing is quite small. The situation is the worst with the answering machines: not more than 33.3 % of all organisations use an answering machine.

It is, of course, not reasonable to analyse this issue in itself but in a certain context, namely its interrelationship with the level of the local project's institutionalisation experienced in the town under examination. This interrelationship can be illustrated with the following.

As it has been established earlier, co-ordinators in several towns have no separate offices, or regularly employed staff to assist them with their administrative work, many of them fulfil this function as volunteers, or in part-time employment. With all these circumstances taken into consideration, we can state that an answering machine would be perhaps one of the most important tools for them, because due to the lack of other solutions it could be the only way for people to establish contacts with the local project practically without limitations. This situation may have been recognised by several organisations, because half of the answering machines are used in member towns where the co-ordinator works on a voluntary basis. This, however, does not improve the situation in the other towns but could set good examples.

As far as the use of computers is concerned the situation can be described as very good, since 55% of the co-ordinators have a computer at their own disposal, while the other co-ordinators have to share the computers with others. It is supposed that the tender issued by the Hungarian Association of Healthy Cities two years ago, with the objective of improving the supply of computers to member towns, may have greatly contributed to this favourable situation.

It is quite hard to understand, at the same time, that although every organisation has telephone and computer at their disposal, not more than 72.2% of the member towns has Internet connection. It is really surprising that - although all the technical conditions have been fulfilled - in the early 21st century they still do not make use of the up-to-date information technology allowing fast transfer of information, all the more so, that there have been several opportunities to apply for financial support and grants to cover the cost of Internet and e-mail connection. Making at least e-mail available for all the member towns should be included among the priority objectives to be implemented in the short run in the local organisations concerned.

As to other components of the infrastructure, the situation can be rated as acceptable, because printing and copying capacity is available for every project office. In some cases they actually own the equipment.
Summarizing the above-detailed analysis of the infrastructural background we should point out that the independent infrastructural background is a precondition of the process leading to the institutionalisation of the local Healthy City project. As illustrated by the above facts, the development or acquisition of separate infrastructure does not depend on the financial resources only; in many cases it depends merely on the will and intention, or simply on the recognition and utilization of the opportunities which arise.