THE PATH TAKEN IN PORTUGAL IN THE FRAMEWORK OF ADMINISTRATIVE DECENTRALISATION

At this time, administrative decentralisation is seen as a primordial procedure to achieve "good governance", a governance which is closer to the citizen, more collaborative and parsimonious, and is considered a key to strengthen democracy. However, the Portuguese decentralising process, which started in 2018, has been suffering from vicissitudes that lead to criticism and questions its true purpose. The presented research aimed to understand what the foundations of this process are and how it has evolved. We used a bibliometric and quantitative research, resorting to secondary data made available by the General-Directorate of Local Authorities and, in a complementary way, we analysed news from newspapers and magazines, to better scrutinize the matter. The results allow us to conclude that, particularly in the education and health areas, the process has raised structural problems that call into question the capacity of local authorities to efficiently execute the new responsibilities and, consequently, the quality of the public service provided to the citizens.