In Germany every city has its own local government. Their customers are mainly the inhabitants of the respective city. The city administration is divided into several fields of activity. There is no default how to organise or divide the several fields of activity or the different areas. That is the reason why each local government is different from the others. Only a few things are the same, for example the tasks and the inhabitants as costumers, but the organisation inside of the local government is only similar to the others.

The city administration in Wesel is divided into four departments. The heads of the departments together form the administrative board of the city administration. This board is responsible, for example, for the planning of administrative tasks and fundamental decisions on organisation and personnel management.

The first department is headed by the mayoress Ulrike Westkamp and is divided into one specialist area it named city development. This is also divided into five teams with different tasks. There are for example the teams property management, traffic planning and road construction, basic spatial and development planning, urban land use planning and the team for building regulations and monument protection.

The second department is divided into two specialist areas. The first area is named building services which is divided in the two teams technical and commercial building service. The second specialist area is named central services and is divided into the three teams.

The third department is divided into three specialist areas. The first is named cultural institutions and is divided into five teams, the second – youth, school and sports – is divided into three teams and the third – social issues, integration and housing – is divided into three teams as well.

The fourth department is divided into three specialist areas- order, finance and fire and rescue services. Only two of them are divided in teams. One of them in two and one in three teams.

All the departments and teams have different tasks and they must work with many laws. They can’t do anything without a law, because all their work is based on so many different of them and they cannot and are not allowed to work without public laws. That is the biggest commonality between all the local governments in Germany. No decision can be taken without laws. In additional, the local government is closely linked to the policies of the city.

My name is Xenia, I am from Germany and I am an intern at the Irish Mortgage Brokers.