The research programme Finnish Local Government 2004 was a joint programme launched by the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities, universities and research centres. It was funded by Finnish municipalities and the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities. The project engaged in a systematic and comparable analysis of the development of the municipal sector in 1995-2004. The 47 municipalities participating in the programme were representative of the Finnish local government sector.
The study programme comprised of 14 research modules. For most modules, data were collected through mail surveys. The data may be used for cross-sectional or time series analysis.
The survey focused on primary health care in Finland, how Finnish municipalities organise, produce and manage the services, what kind of changes have been made, and what are the strategies for the future. This survey was aimed at health centre and health clinic managers and other management-level employees in the selected municipalities. Similar surveys were conducted in 2000 and 2003.
Questions covered primary health care service provision, centralisation and decentralisation of health services, municipal health care costs, and purchasing and competitive tendering of health services. One topic pertained to the location and ownership of the health centre, the number of staff, and whether the staff were constantly on duty. The respondents were also asked to compare the health centres in their municipalities with other health centres in Finland.
One topic pertained to the decision-making and management of primary health care in the municipality. Views were also probed on the use of performance measures, client satisfaction surveys, and client feedback. Finally, the development of primary health care service provision since 1992, the present state, and development policies for the future were charted.
Two-stage stratified sampling in selecting project municipalities.
The project municipalities were selected separately from those with less than 10,000 inhabitants (28 municipalities) and from those with more than 10,000 inhabitants (19 municipalities). The selection aimed to be representative within both groups in relation to all municipalities with the same population size. Large municipalities were over-represented because 70% of the Finnish population lives in large municipalities. Representativeness criteria included regional location, age and education of the population, industry structure, municipal economy parameters, political situation and variables related to municipal policy. The selected municipalities form a small scale model of all Finnish municipalities. The Åland Islands municipalities were excluded because of special features resulting from Åland's autonomy.