My vocational visit today was to Skive Kommune. I met with the Mayor and Chief Executive at 9 for about an hour before heading out to Breum about 15kms out of Skive where the Accounting department is located (a new town hall is under construction in the centre of Skive and once this is completed the Accounting department will be located there). The Mayor and CE gave me an overview of Skive Kommune and Kommunes within Denmark, it is also interesting to note that Skive Kommune have the vision of being carbon neutral by 2029 they plan on achieving this by using various natural sources of energy including wind, solar and geothermal.
At Breum the accounting department had developed an excellent program for me for the day that saw me meeting 5 different people and covering many of the topics I had mentioned I was interested in.
The amount of control over the Kommunes by the Central Government Association and State in Denmark is quite strong, the way I understand it works is the Central Association work out the income and expenditure requirements of all Kommunes in Denmark, once this has been determined it must be maintained and whilst one Kommune may raise its taxes this must be offset by another Kommune lowering theirs to maintain the centrally determined amount. The Central Association also issue a directive as to whether there will be growth in services across the Kommunes or not, a zero growth directive has been issued for several years.
It is also interesting to note that penalties in the form of grant reductions apply for not meeting the agreed service expenditures. Another thing I found very interesting was a directive that if you wish to do business with Kommunes in Denmark you must submit an electronic invoice – no other methods are accepted and only electronic payments methods are offered.
This was a very enjoyable and informative vocational visit!!
denmarkgse2011 
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