Territorial Review Copenhagen - Region Hovedstaden

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regional level, the 16 existing counties were replaced by five regions. The
rationale for this was that the regional government should focus on the
provision of public health services and that it would be necessary to increase
the size of regional government units to increase effectiveness. Unlike
counties, the regions do not have the power to levy taxes. Some of the
counties‘ responsibilities were transferred to municipalities and the central
government.
Local government reforms on this scale are rarely implemented in
OECD countries. Amalgamations are usually highly contentious and
politically charged. Over the last decades, a significant reduction of regional
or local governments in unitary countries has only been observed in Japan,
Iceland, Netherlands and Greece, but some of these outcomes were reached
gradually rather than immediately. As a result of the reform in 2007, subnational
government expenditure (regional and local government) has
decreased (see Figure 3.2). This trend of re-centralisation runs counter to the
experiences within most OECD countries. In the last decades, several
countries have decentralised considerably, resulting in larger shares of subnational
expenditure. Only Japan, Norway, Ireland and the Netherlands
currently have lower sub-national expenditure percentages than they had in
1995. These recent changes to some extent complicate an assessment of
governance frameworks in Denmark, as a new equilibrium between actors,
in particular in relation to the regions, is currently being established.