HELLENIC PRESIDENCY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
MINISTRY OF INTERIOR, PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
& DECENTRALIZATION /
MINUTES OF THE
40TH MEETING OF DIRECTORS GENERAL RESPONSIBLE FOR
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
RHODES, 8 & 9 JUNE 2003
MINUTES OF THE 40TH MEETING OF DIRECTORS GENERAL
RHODES, 8 JUNE 2003
CHAIRWOMAN: MS E.BERGELE
OPENING OF THE MEETING
Ms. BERGELE (Director General of Personnel Management- GREECE): welcomed the participants to the 40th Meeting of the Directors General of Public Administration and invited Mr. Panagiotis Georgiadis, Secretary General of the Ministry of the Interior, Public Administration and Decentralization to address a short speech.
Mr. GEORGIADIS (Secretary General- GREECE) wished success to the work of the meeting and welcomed the Directors General of the acceding countries and the candidate countries in the European Union. He mentioned the important role of the working groups in the Public Administration given the resistance to changes provided by the current systems. He wondered on the causes behind the lack of adaptability to the new demands. He referred to the changes that had taken place in the Public Administration in Greece, noting that there was still much to be done to achieve a transparent and friendly relationship with the Greek citizen.
Ms. BERGELE (GREECE) thanked the Secretary General and presented the members of the Working Team during the Hellenic Presidency. She welcomed the Directors General of Member-States of the European Union and the Directors General of the acceding Countries. She referred to the success of the 10th Meeting of Ministers of Public Administration under the chairmanship of Mr. Costas Skandalidis, Minister of the Interior, Public Administration and Decentralization, held the previous day in the Castello of Rhodes. She mentioned the role of EPAN in the achievement of administrative convergence, in respect with diversity, on issues like training, mobility of workers, administrative reform.
After the adoption of the agenda, she gave the floor to Ms. Bossaert (Lecturer of European Institute of Public Administration), to make a presentation of a comparative survey elaborated by EIPA on the Career Development Systems of the Public Administrations in the Member States of the European Union.
SURVEY “Career Development Systems as an effective tool to enhance the attractiveness of public employment”
Ms. BOSSAERT (Lecturer at the European Institute of Public Administration) made the presentation on the survey on Career Development Systems in the Member States. The survey dealt with the challenges faced by the public sectors and the role of the career development in a more attractive public employment. The study under the Hellenic Presidency focuses on three questions. First, the main motivation and the career development systems, second the main characteristics of the systems and reform trends in the Member States and last the motivation of the public sector staff. She underlined that a system strongly focused on seniority had weak incentives for performance. Mobility policy is another element that contributes to the attractiveness of the career development together with the monetary and the non-monetary incentives for senior civil servants. She referred to the reform trends in the Member States and the reform on the promotion policies; the trend to introduce a more differentiated and individualized human resource management approach. She continued presenting the various trends in the different Member States stressing the fact that they varied to a large extent. She stated that it was really difficult to evaluate those reforms since they were just in process. She continued with the opportunities for civil servants for a varied career development. She remarked that mobility opportunities were more developed in position systems than in the traditional career systems including the mobility in the private sector although a trend to support mobility was evident in most of the Member States. Nonetheless she observed that there were still many obstacles as regards to mobility. She also referred to the career prospects and monetary rewards offered to senior civil servants, which were much lower compared to those of the private sector. She stated the fixed term appointments and the introduction of specific training programs for senior civil servants. She took into consideration that some potential de-motivational aspects, which would rise the question as to what extent the current systems motivated the public sector staff, characterized the developments. She observed that despite a limited number of common trends, there existed huge differences between career development systems in the Member States. The most apparent development trends were directed towards a more flexible human resource management with special emphasis on the individual profile. She also stressed the fact that the strong individualization of human resource management called into question some traditional privileges as well as that the stronger focus on performance led to more unpredictable and insecure career paths. She ended saying that the promotion of opportunities were decreasing as a consequence of the restructuring of the public sector mainly for efficiency reasons.
Ms. BERGELE (GREECE) open the floor to discussion.
Mr. MONARD (Director General –BELGIUM) congratulated Ms Bossaert and made some remarks on the study saying that the general philosophy and vision could have been compared as well as a more individual comparison could have been made. He referred to the relation between career and remuneration, between competencies and results. He stressed the fact that reforms in career were impossible without having a budgetary effect. So the costs of various reforms had to be compared.
Mr. BACHMAYER (Director General –AUSTRIA) referred to the fixed employment contacts system introduced in the public sector in Austria. Concerning the policy of boosting career development, he mentioned the important role of transparency and objectiveness. He suggested that in order to reward personal capabilities it would be better to reward teams and have salaries for structures. He stated the peculiar regime for public employees’ pensions.
Mr. BARKER (Director General –UNITED KINGDOM) said concerning the study that it seemed to be coming from an individual rather than organizational perspective and the relevant comments were about the effects of trends without any mention to the need to have those trends and to their objectives. He expressed some doubts about the de-motivational aspects of some of the trends noting that there were many de-motivational effects in the traditional career systems mainly due to the effectively guaranteed promotions on the basis of seniority. He made a comment on the cost of introducing the reforms saying they did not always imply greater cost for the organization. He also referred to the reasons of being increasingly positive about mobility.
Mr. RICHARD (Director General –FRANCE) agreed with his Belgian colleague that the survey was very interesting, balanced and well detailed since it presented the advantages as well as the risks of the career system and suggested that it should go into further depth. He supported that the legal definition is one thing and the implementation and practice of a legal system is another thing. He explained the reasons why France was so attached to the career system as opposed to the position system. Civil servants should act with impartiality and develop qualities, which would allow the public service to be present in the entire territory. He stated that in the French system a distinction was made between the careers, the status of the corps and this was a protective juridical aspect and a distinction was also made between the job itself and the functions. So a civil servant could hold various jobs, various posts. He continued saying that the aim was to favor the existence of several careers, several professional paths in the framework of services rendered in various posts. The French reform modified the evaluation system and developed a new remuneration system with better recognition to performance either collective or individual. Jobs that were difficult and not preferred by civil servants ought to be paid more. This was called the new bonus. He developed the three levels of the remuneration system in France adding that for the high rank civil servants the system was different with greater flexibility concerning the mobility and the remuneration.
Ms. LOLLIKE (Director General –DENMARK) referred to the presentation made by the European Institute of Public Administration. Denmark was happy to find that the Hellenic Presidency had chosen to focus on challenges offered by demographic developments, which reflected a growth in the size of the population and age, meaning that in the future fewer would apply for jobs in the public sector. In respect to the career system the survey showed that there were different approaches in handling career development in the fifteen Member States but the important was to focus on the need of giving the employees options and opportunities both horizontally and vertically. Denmark sought to provide a greater field of opportunities and tried to incorporate those options in the human resources policy in the public sector, taking into consideration the career development capability of each civil servant as well as the organizational needs within the civil service.
Mr. NANOPOULOS (Principal Advisor- EUROPEAN COMMISSION) on behalf of the Commission thanked for the survey. He stated that the Commission is a Public Administration of multinational and multicultural character with a special kind of population and a variation of social and personal values. He referred to the size of the Commission, which was small compared to the Public Administrations in the Member States. It was subject to important changes with enlargement and criteria of merit and values had to go through criteria of geographical balance. Nevertheless, the Commission operated, well continuing to adjust to the new challenges that arose. He thought that links between the national reform and the community reform should be links of observation and of mutual evaluation. He concluded saying that the study should go into further depth and be continued as regards the analysis of individual values and the motivation of individuals.
Mr. PLAI (Chairman of the Civil Service Office- SLOVAKIA) presented the measures taken in Slovakia in the field of human resources management. The most important were downsizing the public sector, job security, decentralization and evolution of human resources management as well as enhancing flexibility. He said that more responsibility for line management and especially for top management and introduction of performance management had restarted the previous year with the implementation of a common assessment framework that had been presented during the second Quality Conference held in Copenhagen. Important topics for Slovakia were government as a competitive employer in the labor market, the ageing of the manpower, lifelong learning and knowledge management, integrity of public servants. The aim of the new reform was to have a more competitive high quality public sector. He added that the current philosophy in the civil service system in Slovakia was based on the principle of hiring staff for specific civil service positions, containing at the same time a great number of career elements.
Mr. PAPAGEORGIOU (Director of Public Administration and Personnel Department- CYPRUS) said that Cyprus had always had career driven systems since the establishment of the Republic in the nineteen sixty. He shortly referred to the effort undertaken to reform some components of the system, mainly by introducing a new evaluation system based on competences, capabilities and skills and by enhancing mobility within the civil service.
Mr. D’ORTA (Director General –ITALY) referred to the Italian reality that had gone through a mixed system and model. It hired public servants through competition and many young people were hired for specific positions. So public services in Italy had been renewed and an association of young managers had been formed. He referred to the role of that association and to its annual meeting. He said that the greatest difficulty in a career system was to find effective and transparent criteria to evaluate performance, adding that in Italy a study had been undertaken to pinpoint the best practices and good experiences as regards to payroll. He continued saying that another risk had to do with the choices made, having a political or a policy content. If certainty, precision and transparency had to be promoted and reinforced there would be a danger of not being flexible enough. And that would be negative. If flexibility were promoted then there would be more opportunities to reward those who performed well but there would be problems of a political nature. He stressed the importance of such meetings to overcome difficulties that exist in the transition from the traditional careers systems to the position systems.
“Training needs Analysis Methodologies in Public Administration and Training Activities for European Integration”
Ms. BERGELE (GREECE) thanked all speakers and proceeded to the next item on the agenda regarding the surveys carried out by the Hellenic Presidency on common training needs and the training needs analysis methodology. She asked Professor John Chryssoulakis (Secretary General of the National Centre for Public Administration) to present the findings of the survey.
Training needs and analysis methodology
PROF. CHRYSSOULAKIS (GREECE) presented the two surveys, which were related to the methodologies for identifying the training needs in the fifteen Member States of the European Union and the common activities to homogenize the knowledge for public servants. The objectives set were to continue the open dialogue on the convergence of the European Public Administration training systems and to promote training by defining the training needs, enhancing trans-national training activities and suggesting a basic framework for convergence. The target group was composed by the Member States of the European Union and the acceding Countries. The steps taken were the collection of material and elaboration of the responses to the questionnaires sent to the target group Member States. The methodology had been to provide an outline of training in Public Administration and the sources of information had been the Directors General of Ministries responsible for Public Administration, the Head of National Schools and Institutes of Public Administration and annual reports from the European Commission. The results of the comparative analysis derived from the elaboration of the responses. The main actors, the main training agencies involved were Ministries, national schools and institutes, training institutes, training departments within Ministries and local government agencies, private schools, trade unions. The organization of education in Public Administration could be realized through centralized, decentralized and semi- centralized systems. According to the centralized system the Ministries responsible for Public Administration undertook the identification of the training needs and the necessary training was undertaken by training centers supervised by the Ministries. It was an organization-centered process of assessing training needs and deciding on training provisions in order to adjust to the environment of the organization. According to the second system each Ministry or each administrative unit undertook the identification of the training needs, separately. There was training provided to address the needs and expectations of each employee whereas under the first system there was a combination of both approaches at governmental and administrative level. According to the third mixed system, the Ministry responsible for public Organization acted as a coordinator with the decentralized agencies and bodies enjoying a significant measure of autonomy in designing their training programs. In respect of the Member States, there was a relevant classification. The countries’ survey usually followed the third approach, the combination approach.
He continued saying that there were annual assessments and that the criteria whereby civil servants could participate in training programs were related to the relativity of the seminar and to the nature of the employee’s line of work, his personality, his position and his seniority.
Then he referred to the thematic units that were mainly related to the organization and function of EU institutions, EU policies and procedures, community law, languages, decision making in the EU, commitology, enlargement issues, multicultural issues, community structural funds with a rising demand for training on matters related to community law, internal relations and security etc.
He remarked that the Member States of the European Union and the acceding countries were also implementing programs and activities at trans national level either with EU Member States and candidate countries or with countries outside E.U. He also referred to the Trade Unions involvement, which had taken action in that direction. He also mentioned the lack of the necessary legislative framework in respect of training and development in some EU Member States. He noted that the comparative analysis of trained needs led to the conclusion that the majority of the European Union Member States followed a decentralized or semi- decentralized training needs identification model. In conclusion, he stressed the need for collaboration among Schools and Institutes of Public Administration and referred to the opportunities to organize multilateral agreements in training public employees.