Foresight Centre researches accessibility of local services

Head of the Foresight Centre Tea Danilov identified two main challenges affecting the accessibility of local services today. “First, the accessibility of local services is affected by demographic changes, such as urbanisation and urban sprawl, as well as people owning multiple residences, having homes both in the city and in the country,” said Danilov. “Second, it is important to understand whether some services can be provided from further away without compromising their accessibility, while saving costs and offering better quality.”

The research stream ‘The Future of Spatiotemporal Accessibility of Local Public Services’ focuses on the sustainability of services. Various local services, such as the school, cultural centre or nursing home, might not be located in the best place for the residents anymore as the distribution of the population has changed over the years. Furthermore, the nature of these services has changed over time.

The Foresight Centre will study whether more capable municipalities could offer certain services to neighbouring municipalities and how to improve municipalities’ efficiency in providing public services.

“The efficiency analysis of municipalities completed within the research stream will give an overview of how efficiently the municipalities are able to use their available resources, such as the budget, personnel and infrastructure, in order to provide public services of the best quality at maximum capacity,” said Danilov. She added that the efficiency is closely linked to the accessibility of the municipalities’ services, i.e. to what extent people can access necessary services depending on their location and time.

Head of the research stream and expert at the Foresight Centre Eneli Kindsiko said that service migration is a good indication of the accessibility of public services. “The more people have to travel for a good service, the less accessible the service is in the area,” said Kindsiko. “If parents drive past the school near their home to look for the nearest good quality school instead, it speeds up the already intensifying ‘school race’.” This, in turn, means major challenges for municipalities in managing the school network.

In cooperation with the Ministry of Regional Affairs and Agriculture, Statistics Estonia and the Land and Spatial Development Board, map layers are being created that show how close the services people need are located to their homes. This is a further development of the school network map application (in Estonian) completed by the Foresight Centre in 2023 where everyone can view the indicators for the last five years of all Estonian schools and how many students live in a school area. It also simulates the school network’s future based on current births.

This year, the Foresight Centre’s research streams include the involvement of private funding in culture and sports, the spatiotemporal accessibility of local public services, the competitiveness of the economy, the sustainability of health care, and the autonomy of young people. Previous research on higher education financing, the purchasing power of pensions, the impact of population scenarios on social protection expenses and revenue, and platform work are being updated or followed up on.