# Role of Public Entities in Suitable Provision of Public Services: Case Study from Slovakia
## 5 Conclusions  
The primary aim of the transfer of competencies from state administration to local government was, on the one hand, to provide adequate public services to the inhabitants and, on the other hand, to create a modern and economically efficient public administration structure. However, the transfer of competencies from state administration to local government has meant that municipalities remain essentially an extended hand of state \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline  & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Operations per Capita**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Subsidies per Capita**} \\
**Name** & **Intercept** & **Slope** & **Intercept** & **Slope** \\ \hline Bratislava region & \(-2.3972\) & \(0.00122751\) & \(-72.6843\) & \(0.0366018\) \\ \hline Trnava region & \(4.41334\) & \(-0.00213591\) & \(-51.856\) & \(0.0263203\) \\ \hline Trenčin region & \(9.40957\) & \(-0.00461745\) & \(-56.8909\) & \(0.0287828\) \\ \hline Nitra region & \(-0.353757\) & \(0.000219084\) & \(-77.1567\) & \(0.0389046\) \\ \hline Zilina region & \(6.71934\) & \(-0.00327687\) & \(-55.253\) & \(0.0279794\) \\ \hline Banska Bystrica region & \(0.678928\) & \(-0.000274836\) & \(-61.9415\) & \(0.0313094\) \\ \hline PreSov region & \(-2.71766\) & \(0.00138294\) & \(-63.7235\) & \(0.0322105\) \\ \hline Kosice region & \(5.0266\) & \(-0.00245695\) & \(-62.2742\) & \(0.0314832\) \\ \hline \end{tabular} Source: own processing.  
\end{table} 
Table 4: The parameters of regression functions by individual regions in the Slovak Republic. Figure 6: Differences between individual regions depending on the amount of subsidy per inhabitant. Source: own processing. administration, which calls into question the basic principle of self-government. Registry offices were the first competency that municipalities acquired from the state. From the inhabitant's point of view, the registry office is one of the least visited offices, but municipalities view it as prestigious to provide registry services directly to their residents in the municipality. The main role of the registry office is to keep registry books, in which events such as births, weddings, and deaths are recorded. The results of the analysis and testing of hypotheses indicates that an increasing number of inhabitants in individual regions had no effect on the number of actions at these offices. However, when we tested the dependence of the number of these actions per capita, a statistically significant dependence was demonstrated. A large number of municipalities and the related settled settlement structure of the Slovak Republic have contributed to regional differences in the amount of subsidy spent on registry activity per capita. However, experience suggests that the amount that municipalities spend on the performance of the registry offices exceeds the revenues that municipalities receive from the state in the form of subsidies. Municipalities finance this difference from their own resources, from current expenditure in their budgets. At the time of the economic and financial crisis, there were already thoughts about changing the financing of local government in Slovakia. The current COVID-19 pandemic has reopened this topic. Based on the results of the analysis, we can state that fiscal decentralization was not successful and did not ensure financial independence for the municipalities. It could be said that it has further deepened their financial dependence on the state. Although local governments are calling for a change in funding, there is no political will to open the subject yet. One of the significant barriers is the mechanism of pre-distribution of funds to local governments, where the basic consideration is the number of residents with permanent residence in the municipality. Therefore, further research in this area should focus on changes in the funding of this service and on monitoring the activities of registry offices, resulting from their administrative burden, using a range of individual measures. Conceptualization, V.P., R.V. and M.D. ; methodology, R.V. ; software, R.V.