Strategic planning and auditing in municipalities

The changes brought about by globalization and technological developments have rendered the traditional understanding of public administration insufficient in terms of being active and effective in public services and brought forward a new understanding of public administration. Local administrations, which are the units closest to the public, have been effected by this alteration and with this new understanding the concepts of strategic planning and performance auditing which have wide currency in the private sector have started to be adopted. These concepts whose popularity increase are expected to be beneficial in providing for efficient, active, good quality and economic presentation of the public services. Municipalities in Turkey amended their regulations to keep pace with this mentioned process and transition from the traditional public administration towards the new understanding of public administration has started. This situation has rendered it unavoidable for municipalities to make strategic plans. The belief that active, efficient, and good quality public services could be realized in local administration have increased the expectations that these goals will be fulfilled through performance auditing which is a significant element of performance management. In this research; the effects of this process of change, innovations which are brought by this change, legislation adjustments, restructuring workings, strategic planning process in municipalities, types of controls and details of performance audit as a new understanding of auditing are addressed. The subject of the extent the desired goals are fulfilled by strategic planning and performance auditing is taken at hand both by showing how this happened in practice and theoretically. In this respect Zonguldak municipality is analyzed as the main example.