The stability of the local government's strategic plan: A research for periodic strategic plans of Metropolitan Municipalities

The transation from the traditional understanding of public administration to the new public management approach, the stratecgic approach has had a determining factor in the new public management approach and its policies. In order to use resources rationally local authorities should employ strategic planning. Due to the diversity of the society where goods and services are provided local governments should use resources more effectively and efficiently and it is necessary to determine what role to adopt in the future through performing case analysis. In fact, the strategic plan can be described as a road map for public institutions. In this study a research was made on the basis of Municipality's strategic plan that is considered as one of the most essential factors of local institutions. It is also aimed to examine how these studies on strategic planning had caused changes in the local institutions through analyzing to what extent this planning is consistent with vision of the future and determining its strong and weak points. As a result of the elimination process, based on the various criteria, three metropolitan municipalities included in the study were found to be above the medium level on the point of the consistency level. As a result of the analysis aimed at determining the changes the following issues were obtained: to sustain the strong parts of the strategic planning, to improve weak and routine parts and to transform weak sides into strong. In this study there has also been mentioned about important points in the approach and the determinatio of local institutions in revealing the current status and identifying its strong and weak points.