4th European CAF Users Event, Bucharest, 23-24 September 2010

ProgressingTowardsExcellence

The Challenge for European Public Administrations inDifficult Times

From CAF to ISO – the experience of Hunedoara County Prefect’s Office

1. Identification

Reference/ Session: S1.1.

/ Title of the good practice: From CAF to ISO – the experience of Hunedoara County Prefect’s Office
Name of the organisation: HUNEDOARA COUNTY PREFECT’S OFFICE
1 Decembrie 1918, no.28, DEVA - 330025, Hunedoara county
Country: Romania
Name of the person making the presentation: Alexandra Irina PĂDUREAN
Email / Phone: ;
0254 / 211850; 0254 / 211439
Website:
Level: local (county)
Sector:public administration
/ Focus:
Management by processes and facts

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Case presentation (two pages max.)

  1. Quality Improvement issues – the broader scope of excellence

The 2006 CAF experience lead to the conclusion that implementing a quality management system should bring the institution to the expected level ofinternal organisation and regulation. The management team wanted to offer a decision making pattern, based on objective facts, eliminating as far as possible the subjective elements, especially those concerning the institution’s long term development.

For Hunedoara County Prefect’s Office, the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) auto-evaluation has been the catalyser of the evolution from no documented management system and common framework for interdepartmental collaboration, to a quality management system (QMS) certified according to with the international standard ISO 9001:2001 “Quality Management Systems. Requirements”.

  1. Case background (optional)

According to the legal provisions (Law no. 340/2004 regarding the prefect and the prefect’s officeand Romanian Government’s Decision no. 460/2006 for the application of some of the provision from the Law nr. 340/2004 regarding the prefect and the prefect’s office), the prefect’s office is a public institution, with its own budget and patrimony.

The prefect acts as the Government’s representative on local level, with precise legal attributions, such as: administrative guardianship for the surveillance of the law to be observed by the local public administration authorities;monitoring the implementation of the provisions comprised within strategies and reform programmes, drawn up on the basis of Governing Programme, according to European Union’s policies and internal legislation; monitoring the cooperation of central public administration deconcentrated structures with the local public administration authorities;ensurance of the public order, civil protection and management of the emergency situations;coordination of the activity related to the regime of simple passports, of driving licenses and of vehicle registering certificates;collaboration with local administration authorities in order to establish the economic and social development priorities.

  1. The Actors

-Hunedoara County Prefect’s Office;

-Ministry of Administration and Interior – Logistic Management Directorate – Certification, Accreditation and Surveillance Commission.

The entire process of procedure definition and document elaboration, required for the certification, has been conducted without external expertise, using exclusively internal resources. During the whole period used for designing the system, all the members of the organisation have been consulted periodically.

The management’s representative for quality (RMC) in charge with both CAF and ISO implementation, drafted each of the procedures, sent them for observations and amendments to all coordinators of the functional structures, representatives of the middle management, who, if considered adequate, have given the procedures for amendments to the executive level. Therefore, the procedures incorporate the input of all members of the organisations who have been interested. The final version of the documentation was explained in the form of a formal presentation, and so, it has been agreed upon the next steps.

  1. The Work process / the Approach (optional)

Evolving form a management system based solely on legal provisions and experience to the quality management system guided by the international standard ISO 9001:2001 “Quality management systems. Requirements” via CAF was a process intended to generate a management system focused on objective decision and processmanagement.

In the beginning of 2006, the management team has agreed upon implementing CAF, with technical and procedural support from the Central Unit for Public Administration Reform (CUPAR).

As a result of the evaluation, the team has identified some priorities and one of them specified “taking into consideration the opportunity to implement a quality management system and obtaining the certification for the compliance with the international standard SR EN ISO 9001:2001 - QualityManagement Systems. Requirements”

The management decided to draw up all the documentation with internal resources, without external expertise.The decisions lead to a relative long planning period (from January to April 2007). We have chosen as certification structure the Committee for Certification, Accreditation and Supervision within the Ministry of Administration and Interior – Administrative and Logistic Management Directorate. Therefore the process involved no costs as wellfor drawing up of the documentation as for the certification process.

Both CAF and ISO recommend and presume the involvement of people. We used the method of permanent consultations between the management’s representative and the employees, with the participation of the middle managers from all functional departments to ensure proactive participation in the employees to the construction of the system’sprocedures and instructions that they will have to comply with.

  1. The Measure of Success

At this point there are31 system and operational procedures, which are being monitored and improved through internal auditing. (There are procedures regarding:the drawing up of action plans and guidelines for drawing up operational procedures; the issue of apostilles on public documents under the regulation of The Hague Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Document; the issue of authorisations for the collection of recyclable industrial waists from individuals; emergency situations management and so on).

In 2008, the institution was awarded with 2 3rd prices form the International Conference “Innovation and Quality in the Public Sector[1]”. One of them described the quality management system implemented in the Hunedoara CountyPrefect’s Office.

  1. The main obstacles (optional)

As we have mentioned above, the institution chose to be certified without any additional costs, by the Committee for Certification, Accreditation and Supervision within the Ministry of Administration and Interior. The Committee’s activity has been suspended; therefore it was not able to continue with the supervision audit processes.

On the long term, our institution has projected to apply for European funds, under the provisions of the Operational Programme for the Development of Administrative Capacity, in order to extend and improve the existing quality management system and to be certified once more by an external private certification organism.

The scarce financial resources discourage most of the public institutions from training more of their personnel, so that quality management systems and new public management procedures could become routine.

Nevertheless, the main obstacles were subjective, related to the desire to maintain the status-quo, to regulate as little as possible and to leave the working methods and procedures as they always were.

  1.  Lessons learned

Introducing reforms and modern practices to the public system, implies finding a balance between mentalities, pride, personal and professional frustrations and the requirement for change.

The next logical argumentation for the wish to streamline the activity, it may be one with the strongest impact on mentalities. Modernising, reforming, applying management principles to public administration, regarding the activities as processes, after all, they all mean efficiency, proof based decisions; they stand for an efficient action, monitoring and managerial control instrument.

The advantages are evident: efficient control, subjectivity suppression for all of the activities of the organisation, the protection of the employees from any intrusion from the outside, continuity. Once approved, the procedures become biding for the one that applies them, as well as for the one who endorses them.

Changing the working methods are not as frequent, they are predictable, determined only by essential legal amendments or by a variation of the external background. Once regarded and treated as risks, the above mentioned, may be easily managed.

As a final observation regarding the reform initiatives, any change requires time: time for reflection, time for analysis, time to be internalised and become routine.

  1. Project Innovation Content and Adaptability

The entire process of procedure definition and document elaborationrequired for the certification has been conducted without external expertise, using exclusively internal resources. The measure of success resides in the patience and perseverance for the new procedures to be understood and accepted.

Any of the 42 prefect’s offices could benefit from this experience. We are sure that using CAF represents the best starting point for quality management certification for the deconcentrated and decentralised public institutions as well.

As far as the adaptation of our project, it might have happened, since the experience has been described at the second Public Managers’ Conference (Bucharest, 5-6th ofJune 2008), at the International Conference “Innovation and Quality in the Public Sector” (Bucharest, 18th of September 2008) and at the National Conference “Public Managers’ Initiative – a Step forward for the public administration reform” (Bucharest, 15th of October 2008).

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[1]International Conference “Innovation and Quality in the Public Sector” Bucharest, 18th of September 2008, organised by the National Agency for Public Servants (ANFP).