OREANDA-NEWS. July 05, 2010. Although one fourth of the surveyed population believe that the borders of the newly created districts are bound to change in the years to come, 40% think that in general Latvia has lost more than it has benefited as a result of the reform. This data has been obtained from DnB NORD Latvian Barometer, which along the usual monthly questions sought to find out the population's opinion about the consequences of the district reform, reported the press-centre of DnB NORD.

The first part of the survey showed that the public opinion about the permanent monthly issues reflected a familiar trend – the population is becoming slightly more optimistic each month. There has been a six per cent point or up to 40% decrease in the number of people who think that the economic situation in Latvia will continue to deteriorate. In turn, almost a half of respondents or 48% say that there has been no considerable change, whereas 7% are convinced of positive trends.

Furthermore, there has been a decrease in the number of people who believe that in one year the economic situation in Latvia will have worsened, which accounts for only 31% of respondents. Finally, 38% say that the situation will not have changed, but 22% point out that it will have improved.

DnB NORD Latvian Barometer indicates that the evaluation of the present family welfare standard has also become slightly more optimistic: there has been a nine per cent point increase (up to 47%) in the number of people who estimate the situation as average, whereas the number of pessimists, who consider their family welfare standard to be rather low or very low, has gone down from 57% to 49%.

'The evaluation of the present situation is still very negative – 65 points. Nevertheless, after an even deeper fall it has climbed to the level of December 2008, when Latvia entered into an agreement with the International Monetary Fund and everyone grasped the extent of the problems created in the country in the previous years,' such is the evaluation by Peteris Strautins, Economic Analyst, DnB NORD Banka.

 In the second or variable part of DnB NORD Latvian Barometer the population of Latvia were asked to evaluate a number of issues related to the district reform. It turns out that 40% of the respondents think that in general Latvia is a loser as a result of this reform, whereas 27% maintain that the benefit/ loss ratio is equally balanced. Only 5% point out that there are more benefits than losses, but 28% are not able to answer this question.

Despite the fact that the officials responsible for creating the new territorial borders had worked on them for several years, 41% of respondents were convinced that this process was a waste of money and 32% also claimed that the reform was hasty and badly organised. In turn, 25% believe that the process is still ongoing and the borders are likely to be modified.

Although the new heads of the districts had been elected as early as one year ago, 44% of respondents evaluated their knowledge of the borders of the newly created districts as bad and 26% as very bad. Only 1% of the respondents were fully confident about their knowledge in this field.

In DnB NORD Latvian Barometer the population were asked, which municipality functions at present were performed better and which worse compared to the period prior to the district reform. Almost a half or 46% could not identify positive trends, however, they pointed out that there were improvements in handling cultural issues and road maintenance. The problematic fields specified by the respondents were health care, unemployment reduction and education.

'Although the administrative reform has been implemented, too little time has passed since its conclusion and coming into force of the newly created districts therefore it would be premature to evaluate the impact of the reform and to draw impartial conclusions about the municipalities' performance in the new system. It will be possible to provide an impartial assessment of the reform only after having seen district municipalities in action for several years,' says Dagnija Stake, Minister for Regional Development and Municipality Issues.

DnB NORD Latvian Barometer has become a recognized monthly sociological survey and is performed nationwide every month. It studies the current developments in a certain socially important field. Furthermore, each time society is asked to answer a set of permanent questions, which on a monthly basis reflect changes in general public sentiments.