It is strongly recommended that the National and Provincial Service Commissions redeploy Community Development Facilitators to council structures, to District Councils initially, and then to Local Councils as they are developed. They would be responsible to the Council Secretary, with a career structure within the Provincial Department of Local Government. At a wider level will be rural District Councils , called Regional Councils or Service Councils in some provinces, with directly elected members as well as indirectly elected representatives from each local council. In some areas the District Councils subsume the old Regional Service Councils and Joint Services Boards. These provide the embryo of a district bureaucracy to serve the District Council, but have much to learn about service delivery since this was mostly contracted out in the past.
Traditional leaders have ex-officio membership of local councils in their areas.
Local authority structures will form the crucial first link with communities, and thus form a part of the vision towards which we strive, while their initial inadequacy forms a part of the reality we must encompass as communities endeavour to put their needs onto the development agenda. Local authorities will receive income from property taxes, levies, service charges and revenue sharing funds from the provincial and national government. They can also use their revenue base as well as revenue sharing funds as leverage for borrowing directly from the capital markets or indirectly through the appropriate development finance institution such as DBSA, for capital outlays. Revenue sharing funds will be allocated to districts on indices determined by the Financial and Fiscal Commission, and are meant to favour areas with a Lover revenue base. This is important for effective rural development, given the known link between available discretionary funds at a local level, and the appropriateness and speed of rural development.