Measuring the governance of local government from the perspective of community in Malaysia

Questions of community participation have raising recently as a government perceived that community should cooperate with local government to bridge the demands from society and government.This is because the goals of sustainable development emphasise on the bottom-up approach behind traditional approaches that are just topdown. In this context, the local government at grassroot level is responsible for the welfare and well-being of the community through quality services. Thus, this study was design to measure community perception on local government governance. This quantitative design study involved 7 local governments in Malaysia. This study discusses the findings of the community perception survey (n = 831) on the quality of local government governance in carrying out responsibilities to the community. Six variables have been set for this study in determining the effectiveness of local government in Malaysia in the context of governance including the quality of staff work, community programs, services, infrastruture provided, council member accountability to the community and local government governance today.From the results of this study, it can be concluded that today local government governance in Malaysia from the community perspective is at moderate level. Financial issues are the main factors that cause people to receive the modest service quality of their view.Hence, efforts to improve the quality of local government governance must be continued through collaboration effort between the federal, state and local governments