In addition to county planning work the legal responsibilities of county government and governor include:

1.Acting as a partner in drawing up state-level and comprehensive plannings.

2. Supervision of comprehensive planning.

In order to fill both tasks county must have county planning as a precondition. This was one of the reasons why in drawing up the Planning and Building Act the term for making up county planning was fixed.

Build-up of planning process

In all the counties the county government itself drew up the county planning, with its own forces. Our aim was that the county planning should be carried out at the same time with working out county development strategy. The best results were achieved when these two tasks were combined as one complete process, where county planning and development strategy constantly specify and complement each other. Making up county planning and development strategy in Pärnu county serves as an example of a well-built-up planning process (fig. 4).

In the best cases the design of county planning was tried to be built up so that it could serve as interactive, long-time, purposeful process going on even after the ending of this stage of county planning. In order to function as a process like that an extensive team work was used including beside all the departments of county government also a rural municipalities and towns of the county and their associations, state sectoral offices and other interest groups (e.g. - for example large enterprises, more influential social organizations etc. strongly affecting county development). There is an old Estonian proverb saying that two heads are better than one. Synergy born in group work cannot be replaced by a single intelligent specialist who is pottering alone. Involving of association of local governments was of a special importance, because

- it promotes cooperation of county governments and sets up concrete tasks for the association;

- helps to change the association so far acting like a club into the institution filling certain constructive future-oriented tasks.

Design of county planning should in no case be left solely for specialists in narrow field of planning and/or development. Several of them would be able to make up a technically good planning document, but without including all possible partners there will be no precious and fresh development ideas nor impact on sectoral fields accompanying interactive planning process and no training effect.

I am claiming that a well-organized planning process creates a lot of synergy that considerably speeds up development in the planning field and promotes development also on other planning and administrative levels. It is not just a claim, it is an experience gained in Estonia from recent planning practice. In the course of the VASAB 2010 work and by the example of the most successful pilot county and municipal plans we have understood the advantages of a well-built-up interdisciplinary teamwork. We have understood that in the case of interactive, synergy-producing planning work the planning process is even more important than the planning document produced as a result of it.

A well-established planning process:

In short - a well-established, interactive, synergy- producing planning process is

first and foremost a learning process ( fig. 5).

Essential problems

People learn from their own and others' experience and mistakes. In order to make my report more useful to you, I will point out some of the most essential problems which some counties failed to solve.

Perfection and completion of development strategy and planning in some of the counties turned into an endlessly dragging process where excessive particularity complicated the finishing of development strategy and planning. The pressure of the higher authorities of county governments on completing this planning stage has not been strong enough.

In development strategy and county planning work scattered information about county has been collected. This information has been mapped as an initial material for county planning. Visualization of information on a county planning scale map (1 : 100 000 - 150 000) is a good means for generalized and synthetic processing of information. At the same time many counties do not managed to process the collected information and use it fully in making up development plans and planning. This way collection of information is rendered a task in itself, the results of which are used more intuitively than consciously in the working process.

In county planning mapping work county governments have begun using digital maps and computers. In this connection using of the computer map has been overestimated. This is why in some of the counties people have given up initial manual visualization of the collected information on paper map which is actually a very good means for generalizing information and thinking. The potentialities of digital map have been fully used only in some counties where county planning has been started together with creating geographical information system (GIS) of the whole county (i.e. county government, rural municipalities and towns, sectoral offices of the county).

In the counties where county planning work is not getting on so well, people have forgotten one simple truth. It is not enough to have one planning specialist, one fool who could and would lead the county planning work. This specialist or head of the department supporting him/her should have enough mandate to make the whole county government work as a team and give orders to other departments and specialists. So far the most resulting scheme has been the one where head of the department filling the tasks of assistant governor (in need of stern words) has taken the lead in organizational management of planning and actual work. County governor's strong support and strictness has also a very important effect on the progress of the county planning work.

Our journalism has paid too little attention to county planning and development strategy. Journalists are unable to arouse people's interest in planning. The problem could be solved by establishing closer contacts with journalism, maybe even by a journalist joining in work process.

Interaction

Planning is not just making separate plans but interactive system/process of different planning and administrative levels where separate plans are made in order to constantly specify and improve the interaction of the system (fig. 6). That is why county governments should know other projects concerning their territory and take active part in them.

A common planning project of all the Baltic countries "Vision and Strategies Around the Baltic Sea 2010 (VASAB 2010) was ready in 1994. Analysis of the spatial structure of the Baltic countries and spatial development guidelines contained in it serve as a good basis for the compilers of county planning in realizing the development possibilities of the county in a larger development space.

VASAB 2010 Sub-project "Tampere-Helsinki-Tallinn-Riga Development Zone" (THTR) (fig.7) is a work of international spatial planning where three counties from Estonia participate. The main objective of it is using Via Baltica in improving developing capabilities of the local governments of the zone (fig.8). Our experience has shown that the efficiency of such regional planning projects with the involvement of state, county and local institutions of different states is extremely high. Especially when a project like this is carried out simultaneously with local, county and national level planning.

Compiling national planning guidelines ESTONIA 2010 is coming to an end. As county planning and national level planning have been going on at the same time, a number of nationally important development ideas have been born in interaction of these two processes, the main objective of which is speeding up local development.

Simultaneously with compiling ESTONIA 2010 and county planning the work on National regional development strategy is also in progress . This enables to connect it with ESTONIA 2010 as well as with development strategies compiled together with county planning.

All the above-mentioned serve as a good advantage for creating interaction and synergy speeding up the state and especially the local development.

Development work and planning practice of the recent years have convincingly proved that the impact of the more general/central level to the more detailed/local level is rather insignificant, compared to the impact and contribution of the more detailed/local level to the more general/central level. This was eloquently revealed in case of Estonia 2010 and county plans. The first draft of Estonia 2010 produced without participation by counties provided very few new ideas for county plans, while ideas gained from the cooperation round to the counties essentially complemented and altered the essence of Estonia 2010. The same is the relation between the county and local level. Therefore, it is particularly important that with production of any more general plan representatives of the more detailed/local level be actively involved in the planning process. Just as important is that representatives of the more general/central level be engaged in production of local plans and development schemes - this will certainly provide ideas for elaboration and updating of earlier development plans.



Summary

During the last ten years planning in Estonia has changed beyond recognition. Only 6-7 years ago planning used to be a bad word denoting centralized, directive and secret planning of Soviet times.

We have never considered planning as a fetish, a goal in itself, but have tried to teach how to use the planning process as a good instrument of reaching development agreements satisfying all the parties.

Today we can admit that intuitive decision made during the preparation of the law to set a 3-year term for county planning was well founded and functioned well.

Making of county planning has

- trained many good specialists who will lead future development work in Estonia;

- grown interest of local governments in planning as creator of development capability of municipalities.

The current year is the first one to have caused lines behind the doors of the companies drawing up comprehensive municipal plans.