2 Kaplan St., Qiryat Ben-Gurion
P.O. Box 6158, 91061 Jerusalem
Tel. (02) 6701411
Website: http://www.moin.gov.il/ (Hebrew)
(Source: Israel Government Year Book)
Functions and Structure
The Ministry of the Interior plans and implements national policy in matters
of local government, physical planning, population registry, emergency
services and special functions, and supervision of elections and
construction. The Ministry operates on two levels: the national level, which
sets guidelines and policy, and the regional level, an implementation level
which maintains close contact with the local authorities and the public that
needs the Ministry's services.
The following staff divisions (administrations) exist on the national level:
Local Authorities, Finance and Budget, Planning, Population, Emergency
Services and Special Duties, the National Elections Supervisory Commission,
and the National Construction Supervisory Unit. Additional staff units
include the Legal Advisor's Office, Accounting Department, Personnel,
Internal Auditing, Ministry Spokesman, and Public Relations.
The Ministry's district apparatus corresponds to the country's six
administrative regions: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, North, Central, and
South. Additional staff officer units handle Ministry affairs in
Judea-Samaria and the Gaza District.
Major Functions
- Supervision of local authorities and direction of their policies
in accordance with government social and economic policy.
- Regulation of personal and legal status of Israeli residents in matters
of citizenship and registration, immigration, entrance to and exit from the
country, censuses, and the dissemination of census information.
- Physical planning throughout the country via national, district, and
local outline plans.
- Control of emergency services including evacuation, assistance, care of
casualties in wartime, firefighting, and other emergency matters.
- Organization and administration of local authority elections and
preparation of electoral rolls for national (Knesset) elections.
- Enforcement of planning and construction laws through the Construction
Supervisory Unit.
Local Government
The Ministry is directly in charge of local authorities, and oversees their
operations in accordance with government policy in three major areas:
- drafting local authorities' fiscal, budgetary, and manpower policy;
- handling formal legal affairs on local authority topics;
- counsel and guidance for the orderly and efficient management of the
local authorities.
The Ministry operates through the Finance and Budget Administration and the
Local Government and Administration Division and their district
commissioners and officers.
The Local Authority Finance and Budget Division helps take
decisions on local authorities' financial problems and assures the provision
of appropriate municipal services to citizens. The Division orients local
authority activities, in accordance with Government social and economic
policy. The Division accomplishes this through four departments and three
extra-divisional professional agencies:
The Budget Department attends to matters with financial
implications for the performance of the local authorities. It prepares
annual forecasts of the local authorities' budgets for Finance Ministry
consideration. It provides information, statistics, and guidelines for
budget preparation, monitors the approval of budgets by district
commissioners, and helps audit the district budgets. The department also
helps set and approve local authority tax rates and helps prepare
professional opinions on tax rates and the scope of taxation.
The Grants and Loans Department is responsible for
coordinating local authority tax revenues, grants, and loans. It is
concerned with the distribution to the local authorities of government
grants and other allocations, seeking to ensure that citizens receive the
full complement of municipal services and that optimum use is made of all
available sources of revenue. The department also coordinates the allocation
of revenues from the Finance Ministry to the local authorities.
The Municipal Services and Development Department audits
the local authorities' service and development activities, with intent to
set quantitative and qualitative standards and seek opportunities for
streamlining and standardization in these regards. The department monitors
the delivery of services by local authorities and liaises with other
government ministries that provide government services in the local
authorities' areas of jurisdiction. The department also assesses
recommendations for the funding of development projects and presents
opinions in keeping with policies set by the Ministry's top officials.
The Audit and Inspection Unit and the Municipalities Accountant's
Bureau: Ministry auditors examine financial statements not audited
by outside accountants. The Audit and Inspection Unit presents its
conclusions to the district commissioners and, through them, to the local
authorities. In the course of the year, the unit monitors the correction of
irregularities. The Budget Department and the Audit Unit maintain contact
with accountants in the field in order to receive current information from
them.
A new auditing program went into effect in fiscal 1985, based on specific
guidelines issued by the Municipalities Accountant. The new program
augmented the audit with such categories as examination of the employee
salary and retirement system, insurance arrangements, allocations to
business firms, etc. The requisite computations were improved and
simplified. New regulations for local authority bookkeeping were issued in
1987.
Municipal Water Administration: The Ministry established
this unit under the Israel Water Planning Authority in concert with the
Center for Local Government and the Water Commission, for the purpose of
providing a professional solution to local authorities' requirements for the
funding of pipelines and waterworks.
The Administration collaborates with other ministries to attain an
all-embracing financial overview for the improvement of water supply. In
early 1988, a water system rehabilitation and renovation fund was
established. Headed by the Ministry of the Interior and co-administered by
the Finance Ministry, the Center for Local Government, the Water Commission,
and the Regional Councils' Association, the fund is used to renovate
antiquated water systems.
The Local Government and Administration Division is
composed of six departments, with a number of interdepartmental teams for
special assignments. The division, using a group objective management
method, strives to realize three major aims: implementing national
government policy in the local government system; developing and integrating
administrative and professional skills to improve governance and
administration on the local level; and improving the image of local
government in the eyes of the Israeli public.
The Division has the following departments:
Local Authorities' Manpower - Major functions: setting
manpower standards for local authorities; regular dealings with local and
regional authority personnel using a "service commission" model; and
developing tools to streamline local authority administration. The
Department participated in downsizing the public-sector labor force. Local
authorities were consulted throughout, thus assuring full implementation of
goals, employee cooperation, and no loss of service efficiency.
The Local Authority Training Department is involved in the
social and demographic changes that are occurring in local government
throughout the country and the world. The training network helps local
authorities develop their units and human resources, and offers such
high-quality services as a training and management information pool
(including books, reports, articles, and training kits); and a staff of
consultants and experts in various fields, who are sent to the local
authorities for specific assignments, as needed. The Department distributes
many publications offering guidance to local government executives and
administrators. These include the quarterly City and Region, a scholarly
publication dealing with municipal and urban problems; professional
monographs; and collections of laws and ordinances on municipal matters. The
Department offers various resources, such as training programs and kits, as
well as conferences, seminars, and workshops to impart new ideas and brush
up old ones about the running of local government (including national-level
seminars on new ideas and approaches).
The Department helps local authorities and workers fund training programs
and, in concert with the universities, is seeking to expand the two-year
program in urban management, as well as preparing special curricula for
different segments of the population and commissioning special studies on
municipal issues. It tries to include lecturers from academia in the
activities of the Centers for Development of Local Government and Local
Administration and obtain credit toward an academic degree for external
studies pursued by local government officials and employees.
The Centers for Development of Local Government and Local Administration
were set up to provide comprehensive and intensive services to all local
authorities and municipal organizations (more than 250 units, with 62,000
employees and officials); they are affiliated with the National Training
Center (NTC), which is composed of Department workers. The NTC runs 13
regional centers throughout the country. This decentralization of the
training network has increased awareness of the importance of training and
motivation for excellence. The NTC coordinates the activities of the
regional centers, supplies professional and study materials for training
development, prepares a training kit on specific professional topics, and
organizes teams of instructors and equips them with appropriate training
aids. The regional centers work in coordination with the local authorities
served by them, are involved in their various operations, and prepare and
run training programs, as needed by the local authorities.
The Local Authority Organizational Development Department
works to improve the effectiveness of the local authorities by designing
tools and initiating processes of change; initiating and supervising local
authorities' organizational development projects; processing and developing
centers of excellence and promoting municipal issues that are among the
Ministry's priorities. The Department looks for local authority units that
are performing on a level that merits holding them up as models for
emulation by other local authorities. It prepares training kits and develops
these exemplary units as demonstration centers. The Department formulates
professional models for the operation of local authority units and tailors
modern and innovative approaches to the work of Israel's local authorities
(e.g., the ``Contract City'' concept, the employment of contractors by local
authorities, cooperation among local authorities, organization of the
authority as an economic and community leadership).
The Local Authorities and Corporations Department deals
with changes in the boundaries and structures of local authorities in order
to distribute resources and assets more logically, and improves the level of
services by integrating various levels of the population. It does this by
merging and partitioning authorities, reducing areas of jurisdiction, and
transferring areas from one jurisdiction to another in localities without
municipal status; seeing to municipal attention to industrial areas;
encouraging inter-municipal and inter-regional cooperation arrangements;
inter-city associations and district councils; developing local government
models through alternative statutory frameworks, preparing draft enabling
legislation, and initiating processes for their implementation. The
Department sees to the orderly operation of local authorities by amending
the laws and regulations relating to the orderly and efficient management of
elected local institutions. It encourages the work of local authority
committees on matters linked to proper management; drafts legislation for
compensation of local council members; works to expand the obligation to
appoint internal auditors throughout the municipal system; appoints
investigative commissions in malfunctioning authorities; formulates policy
and rules for the operation of appointed committees; and encourages
attention to economic issues in local authority activities (including the
establishment of municipal corporations, planning units, and drafting the
Municipal Corporations Law). It examines local authorities' requests for the
Interior Minister's signature on contracts with council members or their
relatives, exemptions from tenders, and the like; and prepares directives
for simplifying, expediting, and
streamlining procedures.
The Department is also developing a computerized database incorporating the
local government map, officials, corporations, non-profit organizations, and
the like, and another computerized database of tracts and plots by municipal
jurisdiction; preparing local government for direct absorption of
immigrants; drafting training programs and a directory of local authorities;
running an information hotline; and preparing programs to involve the local
authorities in the development of housing and employment.
STAFF UNITS: The Municipal Research Department helps local
authorities and other agencies connected with the municipal system formulate
policy and take decisions. The Department also develops ties with the Israel
Academy of Sciences and Humanities, universities, regional colleges, and
research institutions to promote exchanges of information and examination of
various research topics.
The Advisor for New Rural Settlements and Regional Council
Affairs was appointed by the Minister in the light of two factors
whose importance has increased in the past decade and which have a dominant
influence on the community structure of rural settlements in Israel:
- the continuing crisis in agriculture and the declining importance of
agricultural production vis-a-vis other economic sectors;
- the desire of grown-up children of rural settlement families who have
not been designated as heirs of their parents' farmstead to obtain land and
make their homes there.
The National Coordinator for the Arab Sector, working
within the Local Government Administration, helps district-level minorities
officers solve problems that arise in this sector, aids the Administration
in drafting programs for developing Arab villages, and coordinates all
operations by Administration units for this sector.
Planning Authority
The Planning Authority is involved at head-office level in national,
regional, and town planning; draws up programs, planning guidelines,
land-use designations, and engineering surveys, and conducts monitoring and
coordination. Planning on the national, regional, and district levels is
handled by district planning offices and local building committees. When
major issues requiring large-scale coordination and adherence to physical
planning principles arise, Authority representatives sit on interministry
committees and coordinates among those responsible for implementation. The
Planning Authority runs the National Planning and Building Council, the
country's paramount planning institution, whose functions and competences
are defined by the Planning and Building Law 5725-1965. The Council advises
the Government on ground rules for the implementation of this law, sponsors
and recommends national outline plans, authorizes changes in regional
outline plans, and rules on objections to local outline plans and, under
certain conditions, detailed plans as well. The Council also advises the
Minister on the setting of planning and building standards and the
demarcation of local planning districts.
The Planning Authority has four divisions: National and Regional Outline
Plans; Local Outline Plans and Detailed Plans; Planning Guidelines; and
Programs, Development Plans, and Information Gathering. The following units
also operate within the division: Engineering and Infrastructure Survey;
Settlement and Land-Use Designation Standards and Regulations Survey; the
Secretariat of the National Planning and Building Council; the Agricultural
Lands Conservation Commission; and the Coastal Water Commission. The
Authority has six regional planning offices, corresponding to the country's
administrative districts.
Population Administration
The Population Administration deals with the personal, formal, and legal
status of residents of Israel, in accordance with Government policy on
citizenship, immigration, and entry to and exit from the country. It
provides documentation and registration services and monitors movements and
changes such as births, deaths, changes of address, entry to and exit from
the country. It issues passports; conducts border checks; and manages the
population registry, passport, and border check databases, which are a
primary source of information for the Population Administration offices and,
through them, for other government agencies.
Laws determining personal status and modalities for entering and leaving
Israel include the Law of Return 5710-1950; the Entry to Israel Law
5712-1952; the Citizenship Law 5712-1952; the Passports Law 5712-1952; the
Names Law 5716-1956; the Population Registry Law 5725-1965; the Possession
and Presentation of Identity Cards Law 5743-1982; and the Emergency
Regulations (Exit from the Country) 5708-1948.
The Administration operates through the Monitoring and Supervisory
Department, which oversees the work of Administration offices; the Registry
and Passports Department; the Visas and Aliens Department; the Citizenship
Department; the Population Registry Department; the Border Checks
Department; the Planning and Systems Analysis Unit; the Special Assignments
Unit; and a telephone information center. There are 21 district Population
Administration offices in Israel proper, 12 more in Judea-Samaria and the
Gaza District, and one at Ben-Gurion Airport. The district offices also run
eight branch offices and a number of registry stations.
The Registry and Passports Department deals with the
planning, management, and supervision of operations and services relating to
registry and passports, pursuant to the Population Registry Law, the
Identity Card Law, the Names Law, and the Passports Law. It deals with
exceptional requests concerning registry and passports and advises the
regional offices on exceptional cases; deals with residents' statutory and
other appeals against decisions made by the district offices; and initiates
regulations, amendments to laws, and action to anchor directives and rules
in binding regulations. The Department also has professional responsibility
for registration of residents of Judea-Samaria and the Gaza District, and
offers such special registry services as birth and death certificates for
the years 1918-1956 and corrections to them. It maintains a registry of
Israeli and foreign residents, administers the birth records of adopted
persons and the death records of IDF casualties, and provides related
services. It also registers births and deaths in Israel of residents of
Judea-Samaria and the Gaza District.
The Visas and Aliens Department implements the Law of
Return and the Entry into Israel Law, which regulate entry into and exit
from Israel. It issues permits and residence permits and extends the
validity of residence permits. It deals with appeals of decisions by the
district offices; issues immigrant certificates; and deals with potential
immigrants requesting certificates while they are visiting the country. It
issues tourist visas and work permits to aliens and monitors their
fulfillment of the conditions of the permit, including the requirement for a
bank guarantee. Part of the Department's work is carried out through three
interministry committees, which deal with aliens' applications for permanent
residence permits; applications by non-Jews for permanent residence permits;
and applications by Arabs in Judea-Samaria for permanent residence
permits.
The Citizenship Department implements the Citizenship Law
5712-1952, which regulates the citizenship status of residents of Israel and
the acquisition and renunciation of citizenship.
The Population Registry Department gathers registration
details that cannot be obtained from the district offices (services given
abroad, births, deaths, etc.); retrieves information from the
Administration's records for other ministries, the IDF, and public
institutions; and discovers erroneous or incomplete registration particulars
and forwards them to the district offices for amendment.
The Border Checks Department maintains the border-crossing
file, while records movement by Israelis and aliens through the country's
border posts, including the exit of Israeli residents over the Jordan River
bridges and through Rafiah. This system has been computerized since 1979,
helping the Ministry and the Israel Police monitor entries and exits by
aliens. It permits enforcement of regulations and laws related to exit and
entry at the border stations and provides information services to government
ministries and other bodies.
The Planning and Systems Analysis Unit maintains the
Ministry's data-processing system; helps develop new software and improved
EDP for the district offices' work; helps design new forms of documentation
produced by the computer system; deals with communication lines that are
down; and provides instruction to employees on EDP-related work
procedures.
Emergency Services and Special Duties Administration
The Administration operates through the Fire Commissioner's Office; the
Emergency Services and Special Duties Division; and the Evacuation,
Assistance, and Casualties Authority (EACA), which operates under the aegis
of the National Headquarters of the National Emergency Board (NEB), to
coordinate emergency services with local authorities, in conjunction with
Civil Defence (CD), which is under IDF jurisdiction. The Administration also
licenses and supervises firearms, supervises bathing beaches and swimming
pools, and coordinates the work of the Theater and Cinema Inspection Board
and the Registrar of Nonprofit Organizations.
Firefighting: Fires cause great damage - on average, 15
people are killed by fire each year, and direct property damage reaches
hundreds of millions of sheqels. Meeting this challenge are 19 intercity
fire brigades and four municipal fire departments, operating under the
Firefighting Services Law 5719-1959 and the Intercity Associations Law
5715-1955. The Ministry approves budgets, authorizes manpower levels, and
provides professional guidance, supervision, and coordination. The fire
commissioner and chief inspector maintain contact with the Standards
Institute and rely on professional committees in matters of firefighting and
fire safety.
Local fire departments provide all standard firefighting services, extricate
those trapped in auto accidents, and implement the provisions of the
Firefighting Services Law 5719-1959. They are autonomous with regard to
station upkeep as well as equipment maintenance and procurement.
Regulations issued by the Minister set grades and authorize manpower levels,
lay down hiring and employment conditions, shift work, the powers of the
chief inspector and brigade commanders, the obligations of mutual assistance
and cooperation among fire departments, govern the investigation of fires,
and promulgate fire safety regulations (the firefighting equipment required
in hospitals, hotels, schools, cinemas, factories, apartment houses, etc.).
Safety and evacuation regulations have been issued pursuant to the Planning
and Building Law.
Under the Civil Defence Law, in times of emergency the Firefighting Service
supports the CD system and collaborates with relevant military
authorities.
Emergency Services Division: The Ministry, in conjunction
with the IDF, police, and NEB National Headquarters, assists local
authorities in emergency and security matters. The Emergency Services Unit
plans and equips local authorities to deal with NEB matters; builds
warehouses and depots for NEB, EACA, and CD equipment; sets up NEB and CD
command posts; funds and maintains security equipment in rural settlements
(security fences, perimeter roads, public address systems, guard posts,
security lighting, jeeps, etc.); builds and maintains armories in rural
settlements; sets aside firing ranges; and secures water sources.
The Evacuation, Assistance, and Casualties Authority (EACA), which operates
under the aegis of the National Headquarters of the National Emergency Board
(NEB), sees to the needs of population groups likely to be injured in
wartime. The Authority's wartime duties include finding housing for those
evacuated during hostilities and attending to casualties. In peacetime, the
EACA engages in the requisite planning and preparations. The EACA,
established by Government decision, comprises representatives of the Labor
and Social Affairs, Health, Police, Religious Affairs, and Finance
ministries; Civil Defence; local authorities; the Jewish Agency; and various
volunteer organizations. About 12,000 persons, most of them volunteers, are
involved in EACA activities.
Supervision of Bathing Beaches: The Ministry's activity is
anchored in the Regulation of Bathing Places Law 5724-1964 and in orders and
regulations issued by the Minister pursuant to this law. The 135 official
lifeguard stations on Mediterranean, Red Sea, and Sea of Galilee beaches
provide services to the public, in addition to hundreds of public swimming
pools. All lifeguards, about 1,000 in number, take refresher courses in
first-aid before the start of the bathing season.
National Elections Commission
The Commission supervises and organizes elections for local authorities,
regional councils, local committees in non-cooperative settlements, and
agricultural committees; supervises Histadrut elections; and draws up voter
registers. Each year the Commission sends notices to any voter whose
particulars have changed since the last voter register was compiled.