The influence of local authorities on improving the quality of life of residents of a given area

Abstract

The study presents the concept of the quality of life of the inhabitants and it’s measured, as well as - taking into account the values of some of them – analyses the directions and trends of budget expenditures of communities which may have an impact on the improvement of the quality of life of members of a given self-government community. The thesis of the study was that self-government and especially community authorities exert a significant influence on the quality of life of community residents by incurring expenses for satisfying collective needs of members of self-government community, in particular for maintaining existing and creating new elements of communities’ social and technical infrastructure. The data presented in the article show that in recent years the value of quality of life measures in Poland has significantly improved, which may be related to the activities of local authorities. However, they were regionally differentiated. In principle, communities’ budget expenditures in all analysed sections of the budget classification showed a more or less constant trend (significant fluctuations concerned only investment property expenditures), although their dynamics significantly decreased after 2014, which may be associated with a new approach to limiting territorial self- government units’ debt in Poland. Taking into account the presented values of the measures and the time delays related to obtaining the effect from the incurred outlays, it can be stated that the inhabitants of communities reacted positively to the directions of the incurred communities’ budget expenditures. Their assessment shows that this expenditure was not only effective but also efficient.