European Heads of Schools Forum7-8 November 2005
Examples of Partnership
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CONTENTS
AUSTRIA: Austrian Federal Chancellery
CYPRUS: CYPRUS ACADEMY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
CZECH REPUBLIC: INSTITUTE OF STATE ADMINISTRATION (ISA)
DENMARK: Danish School of Public Administration
FINLAND: The Finnish Institute of Public Management Ltd (HAUS)
FRANCE: IGPDE and CEES - in partnership since 2003
GERMANY: Federal Academy of Public Administration (BAKoV)
ICELAND: INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF ICELAND
IRELAND: The Institute of Public Administration in Ireland
ITALY: SCUOLA SUPERIORE DELLA PUBBLICA AMMINISTRAZIONE (SSPA)
LATVIA: SCHOOL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Lithuania: Lithuanian Institute of Public Administration (LIPA)
NORWAY: STATSKONSULT
POLAND: THE NATIONAL SCHOOL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
PORTUGAL: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ADMINISTRATION (INA)
ROMANIA: INSTITUTUL NAŢIONAL DE ADMINISTRAŢIE
SLOVENIA: Administration Academy
SPAIN: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION (INAP)
SWEDEN: HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT, GOVERNMENT OFFICE
SWITZERLAND: IDHEAP – Institut de Hautes etudes en Administration Publique
Ukraine: National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA)
UK: NATIONAL SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT
AUSTRIA:Austrian Federal Chancellery
During the phase of entering into the EU in the early nineties there was an imperative for the Austrian civil service for education and training on EU matters. At this time the target group was quite large and could not be restricted to a small number of people who were directly involved in the Austrian accession process to the EU and the relevant educational establishment was not yet prepared to offer an enhanced choice of training on EU-policy-making and Community law. Hence the Federal Chancellery entered into co-operation with external educational institutions especially with the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA).
Since this time there has been at least one Austrian national expert continuously seconded to EIPA. During the ten years of Austria’s EU membership we have developed a competent internal pool of lecturers on EU affairs.
With the Diplomatic Academy Vienna we started our training initiative for the Austrian EU-Presidency as early as May 2004 when we again revived a fruitful partnership with EIPA. Together with our seconded national expert we developed two curricula for two particular target groups. One was designed for the future chairpersons for the Council working-groups including the national delegates to-be and a second curriculum was devised for the special back office needs. In implementing this content of teaching through different seminars our national expert worked together with a number of EIPA lecturers. The emphasis of the training programme was on institutional and procedural matters of the EU, negotiations training as well as language training both in English and French.
The co-operation with EIPA mainly took place in the fields of EU-institutional and procedural matters as well as negotiation training. Our national expert who served several years as a “Mertens” with the Austrian Permanent Representation in Brussels combined her practical know-how of the EU decision-making process with the more theoretical background knowledge of the EIPA lecturers. Together they could present a well rounded picture of the complex scheme of EU legislative decision making. An additional added value in many of these joint seminars was that the working language in the seminars was English. This seemed most appropriate as in a large number of seminars also speakers from EU institutions (European Commission, Council Secretariat, and European Parliament) participated and presented their particular field of activity from a most interesting inside view.
Since we started our training on EU matters in the early nineties we established a co-operation with the Institut Francais de Vienne. The main reason for this co-operation was that the Institut Francais de Vienne designed a curriculum in French language training tailored accurately for the special needs of administrators. Further they offered special trainings e.g. like simulated conferences in co-operation with EU institutions in Brussels and international organisations as the United Nations. We also run a similar training in English for our civil servants; currently we are planning to enter into a co-operation to develop an internet based English-e-learning tool with a strong focus on ‘EU-English’.
In conclusion there has been a remarkable knowledge transfer between the Federal Chancellery, EIPA and the Institut Francais de Vienne. An additional benefit of this co-operation can be found in the cross cultural aspect of this setting. There is also evidence that this international co-operation on training issues builds a favourable impact on the mission statement for the Austrian civil servant working in the field of EU policy making.
CYPRUS:CYPRUSACADEMY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
The Cyprus Academy of Public Administration strongly believes in the need to build partnerships, in order to increase its capacity and gain from the knowledge and experience of other actors, in its efforts and promote learning and contribute towards the continuous improvement of the Cyprus civil service.
Existing partnerships include bilateral agreements with the National Centre for Public Administration (NCPA) Greece and the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) with the contribution of which the Academy organizes/organized a number of learning activities for which it did not have the required expertise. At the same time, the Academy offers/offered the services of its trainers to the NCPA for training activities addressed to Greek civil servants.
An ad-hoc agreement was also signed with Professors from the University of Cyprus in the framework of a Research Programme carried out by the Academy in cooperation with the NCPA, for the adaptability of the Cyprus civil service to the organizational requirements of the EU.
The Academy finds that the partnerships built so far have been very beneficial because it has gained new knowledge and experiences, has exchanged experiences, has increased its capacity and has expanded its portfolio of learning and research activities.
CZECH REPUBLIC: INSTITUTE OF STATE ADMINISTRATION (ISA)
ISA was founded in July 2001 as a part of the Government Office of the CzechRepublic, which means ISA is funded from the national budget. Its main objective has been to train civil servants by following rules determining ways of training in all administrative bodies and the Government Office of the Czech Republic. The training scheme of the Czech state administration has been reorganised and unified as a precondition for EU accession.
Establishing partnerships
At the very beginning, in 2001, ISA turned to university teachers and independent professional lecturers. Many of these partnerships have carried on until now. In 2003, the Czech government set out priorities concerning training of civil servants in relation to accessing the EU. ISA started to organise its first seminars concerning EU matters (15 seminars) in terms of Phare Twinning Light Updating of Training in EU Matters. The overall objective of the project was to improve in civil servants’ preparedness for EU accession.
Nowadays, ISA cooperates with Czech organizations which provide ISA with lecturers and experts on EU law, Monetary Union, EU policies, EU Constitution, Code of Administration, quality management, project management, stress management, managerial skills, assertiveness, negotiating, communication skills, rhetoric, etc. We also have excellence experience with Irish IPA that has organised for us (free of charge) two two-day courses called How to Manage the Brussels Maze.
Training programmes
The training programmes provided by ISA are divided into general training, ongoing training and management training. Therefore, the biggest part of ISA activities is composed of training courses developed for three general target groups of civil servants – newcomers, middle and top management. All the courses prepared and implemented by ISA deal with common and cross-sectional topics. Specific issues of interest of individual administrative body are carried out by themselves. ISA itself runs around 40 attendance training activities.
Language training
The importance of improving language skills has also increased significantly in the last several years. In 2003 ISA established the self-study English language centre for civil servants under the supervision and financial subsidy of the British Council. We have more than 150 registered participants who prepare themselves for language exams. This year, we supplemented the language centre with German section in partnership with Goethe Institute Prague. They provide us with books and other necessary study material. ISA offers specialised English language courses such as Writing official documents, Effective Negotiating, Professional Presentation, and Eurospeak seminars to improve proficiency at English EU terminology.
E-learning training
Last year ISA also started to organise e-learning courses in partnership with IBM (Minimum about EU), Rentel (Environmental Minimum) and Eurion together with Oracle (Minimum about Regional and Structural EU Policy). E-learning has become enormously successful with more than 6000 participants registered so far.
Phare Project
In 2005, the most important project running by ISA deals with managerial training. It concerns the Phare project Support to the Institute of State Administration for Middle and Top Level Management. As the result of the tender ISA has established a partnership with Consorcium (Altair Asesores, Europeum, and Eurion) led by DHV Czech Republic which is responsible for the whole project together with ISA. The overall objective of the project is to guarantee a high quality and effectiveness of executive management training in the Czech Republic through strengthening capacity of the ISA and professional competence of trainers.
The role of ISA is co-ordination and provision of an upgraded system of entry training, ongoing professional training, training of the middle and top management as well as targeting specific subjects such as European Union Affairs and languages. This project follows the outputs worked out by the twinning experts of the previous Phare project which were focused on updating of the national civil service training strategy and public administration training curriculum. The Czech National Development Plan states in its Human Resources Development sector fulfilment of criteria: “Improvement and stabilisation of civil service management with the emphasis laid on transparent and good-quality personnel work in civil service offices”. This project should contribute to meeting this criterion. The training modules are Personal Development and Soft Skills, Strategic Management, HRD/ Coaching, Economics and Financial Management, Change Management and Management of adaptation process.
Staff
At the moment, ISA has 10 staff members – the head, deputy head, 6 project managers, 1 e-learning project manager, 1 full-time and 2 part-time administrators, and 3 part-time coordinators of the language centre.
DENMARK:DanishSchool of Public Administration
‘The DanishSchool of Public Administration is the preferred partner in fulfilling the customers’ requirements for competence development.’
The DanishSchoolis not able to fulfil all the public sector customers’ requirements by use of its own structural resources. The DanishSchooltherefore has to work in a network-based way and choose partners of cooperation thoroughly. The DanishSchool has in some areas always worked in a network-based way and with an extensive use of external professors but over the few last years the approach to partners has been more consequent and systematic.
Partnerships are a formalised agreement between two (or more) independent partners on reaching mutual (and own) goals by combining and using complementary resources.
Starting point and the learning so far
The DanishSchool of Public Administration works in partnership within the following services,
- Municipal Management with the Local Government Training and Development, Denmark
- Master of Tax with the CopenhagenBusinessSchool
- Project Management with Rovsing Management, Implement A/S and the State Employer’s Authority (The Danish Ministry of Finance)
- Implementation of social policy and labour market policy with Implement A/S
- Deloitte Consulting and various institutions of higher education
- Management training the Association of Independent Schools
- Employee and management training with the Danish trade union Movements’ Centre for Competences Development
- Management Training with RoskildeBusinessCollege
- Tailor made management training for employees within the EU institutions conducted by international consultants
- International projects with HAUS (Finland) and Bradly Dunbar associations (UK)
- Concours with The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
To develop an education within the public service for the Greenland Home Rule with The Business School in Nuuk (Greenland) as partner
To develop a diploma programme in labour market issues with Social Educator in Denmark
Proposals on consultancy and education in the process of the present structural reform of the entire Danish public sector with core team A/S
Finally, The Danish School has a close cooperation on tenders on education with a large number of partners such as Local Government of Denmark, The Danish Ministry of Social affairs, and the Danish Ministry of Employment, the trade unions and various associations of managers in municipalities. It has been a deliberate strategy for the DanishSchool of Public Administration to extend the number of partnerships.
Recent learning,
We attracted new customers
We obtained knowledge and learning from the partners (which we not always take advantage of, - though)
Partnerships call for extensive management in all levels compared to own activities
The purpose is to be clearly formulated by all from the beginning otherwise it is hard to keep focus on the output of the parties
The rules for handling overlap/competition between the partners are to be established from the start otherwise conflicts will occur
Partnerships depend on openness and trust. It takes time to establish openness and trust
FINLAND:The Finnish Institute of Public Management Ltd (HAUS)
HAUS has a well-established and working international co-operation network with all European colleague institutions as well as with international private training and consultancy institutes, companies and law firms. HAUS is also actively involved in the activities of some major international organisations. Since 1995 HAUS has carried out development projects in most Eastern and Central European countries, Turkey and Vietnam.
HAUS’s values – a good starting point to co-operate
We genuinely want to help the customer, we cooperate for excellent results, we boldly restructure ourselves, and we act ethically as a company
Partnership is a key to excellent results and partners combine their knowledge and can get more together
Our domestic and international networks expand our possibilities to grow in a profitable way
HAUS has domestic partners –working in operational consultancy and international partners – dealing with Public Administration and Civil Service Training in EU and outside EU and in EU-projects
HAUS has partners in management and leadership training of civil servants such as the training programme in Public Management Strategies (senior civil servants), Management training programme (middle-level managers in public organisations), training programmes for young female managers, age-management and welfare at work-training programmes, IIP, and Investors in People
Operational partnership in action – open training courses for civil servants
HAUS has over 500 freelance trainers in its network. About 80 of them work actively and continuously from year to year as lecturers in our open courses. Most of them come from HAUS client organisations, universities, research organisations or ministries, agencies and companies
Why is partnership needed?
To identify, share and combine different expertise and scope of experience
To provide experts/trainers through partner organizations
To exchange views
To reach larger target groups
To support marketing
To identify specific needs and expectations of the Client and accordingly to select most suitable methods and approaches
Complex projects require joint expertise from different sectors
Benefits of partnership
Doing together - learning from each other
Combined knowledge generates knew products, methods, concepts and new ways to contribute to the problems of clients
Partnership promotes ability to become “early birds” in specific new development areas
With partners we can expand our business to new sectors
Combined expertise from public and private sectors is nowadays often required Strong partnership promotes good working relationship and sustainability of the results of the projects; helps to avoid conflicts and solve possible misunderstandings
In international projects it’s important to combine experiences and best practices from different countries and different public administration systems
Challenges for partnership
Partnership should bring added value for training or for the project
Should be valuated by all partner institutions
Partners should not have too different approaches or values
Clear common targets should be defined
Established partnership should be taken care: partnership itself doesn’t bring anything
The quality of partnership can only be tested in practice
Confidence between partners is essential
Disability to share expertise means failure in partnership
Demands active and co-operative members in all partner organization also partnerships needs investments (especially time!)
FRANCE: IGPDE and CEES - in partnership since 2003
IGPDE
The Institut de la gestion publique et du développement économique – Institute for public-sector management and economic development – is the French Ministry for the Economy, Finance and Industry's main continuing education organisation. Created in 2001, IGPDE is at the nexus of two major changes initiated by the Ministry in recent years: - budget reform (LOLF) for all of the central administration and the Ministry's global modernisation. Its total annual budget is about 23 million euros. It has a permanent staff of 200 and employs 2,000 part time teachers, either on a regular basis or as occasional outside consultants. In 2004, 95,000 training days were delivered for the benefit of 44,000 attendees.
CEES
Launched in 1995, the Centre des études européennes de Strasbourg was initially intended to combine different initiatives on European training. It is now the pole of expertise and teaching on European topics within the Ecole nationale d’administration (ENA). The audience is not only French civil servants but also private sector managers and elected local and national representatives. CEES also aims to provide training to all foreign partners. CEES has a network of 600 teachers or experts and in 2004 provided more than 200 different training courses, that is 15,340 training days for the benefit of 6,252 European citizens, fewer than half of them French.