Minutes of EUPAN HRWG/ IPSG Meetings
Rome, 16 – 17 October 2014
(draft 12 March 2015)
16 OCTOBER – MORNING SESSION
Welcome and introduction
Ms Marconi, Head of the Department for Public Administration, welcomed the participants. After conducting an overview on the agenda of the meeting she explained the significance of the official logo of the Italian Semester. The swallow represents the journey, hope and freedom of the large family that is Europe.
Mr Pizzicannella, Director of International Affairs of the Department for Public Administration, informed the participants that the approval of the minutes of the meeting in Athens is postponed to the next WG meeting under the Presidency of Latvia. Under the Italian Presidency, the focus will be on the following topics: the capacity of the institutions to ensure the efficiency of the Public Administration, as the policies of open government have impacted on the reform and modernization of the public administrations in Europe. This aspect will be detailed by a qualitative study carried out by a research group coordinated by Transparency International Italy representing civil society. As for the HRWG there will be a session dedicated to the research carried out by a working group led by the National School of Administration on the basis of the questionnaire on competences in HR. The session dedicated to IPSG will focus on a discussion paper on the institutional administrative capacity.
Session on the Italian Reform of PA
This session was opened by Ms Marconi which illustrated the Reform of the Public Administration in Italy as follows.
Public Administration Reform is currently being developed, following a web consultation launched in April 2014: 30 days, 40.000 feed-backs on 44 specific measures. Time-frame: 3 years (1000 Days Programme).
Main areas addressed are:
- Human Resource Management
- Organization
- Simplification and digitalization
These areas provide respectively the following lines of action:
· Improving HRM at all levels of government:
developing medium-term recruitment plans based on needed skills; favoring generational handover; facilitating mobility; improving the management of senior public servants to strengthen their professional skills and result orientation by eliminating rigidities in senior civil servants management, changing recruitment and appointment procedures, enhancing the performance appraisal system, easing the handling of redundancies; eliminating privileges by reducing trade union duty leaves by 50%; introducing the cap of EUROs 240.000 on senior civil servants remuneration.
· Better functioning and more efficient governments:
improving decision making with Prime Minister steering power enhanced (centre of government role); reducing Minister’s Cabinet staff; creating shared management of support services (procurement, ICT services, accounting, payroll, etc); reorganising decentralised offices of different Ministries by setting up unified State territorial offices; eliminating duplications of tasks by removing redundant units (i.e. public training schools); rationalizing police services, by eliminating duplications and overlappings between different corps; strengthening ANAC (National Anti-corruption Authority) powers to fight corruption.
· Implementing a Simplification Agenda for 2015-2017:
addressing key priority areas for citizens and businesses (i.e. revenue collection, welfare, business environment, building procedures); improving cooperation among different levels of government; reducing burdens on citizens and businesses and monitoring results.
· Make digital services a reality:
increasing interoperability by creating national infrastructures such as digital identity, residents register, e-payments, e-invoicing, etc.; increasing in the supply of online services, towards transactional on-line services and payments; enhancing transparency and accountability of public administrations as well as increasing citizens’ participation, by strengthening open data; foster digitalization in strategic sector (education, health, justice).
After the presentation the participants have contributed with interventions and questions to deepen the more interesting aspects of the Reform.
These questions were asked:
Denmark : could the issue of reduction of 50% of trade union leaves be deepened?
European Commission: which indicators have been adopted, in addition to those of the OECD, to identify areas that needed interventions?
Greece: what to do with managers and officials affected by redundancies following the rationalization of the offices?
Sweden: how is carried out the evaluation of the reform out and how other administrations are actually convinced of the necessity of reform actions?
France: what is the mission of the Commissioner Cottarelli and what is its impact on the reform of the Public Administration?
Answers:
Ms Marconi answered that the amount of trade union leaves has grown in recent years, this is the reason why we decided to reduce the number of permits without compromising the right to perform duties.
As for the indicators, in addition to those of the OECD, also those of other national and international organizations were used, such as the Digital Agenda and those of the World Bank's Doing Business.
With reference to the redundancies following the unification of the offices, two elements were used in order to avoid layoffs: retirement and mobility mandatory within 50 km to the offices with staff shortages.
The reform is being implemented but a part is still under discussion. The impact of the reform is being evaluated, for example, to see if the position in the international ranking will be improved. Most of the measures are introduced by administrative laws that regulate all public administrations. In order to create a more targeted instrument to implement the objectives of the reform the capacity of public administration training was enhanced by unifying the different schools of the Public Administration. To this end Europeans funds will be used.
A part of the Public Administration reform will have a positive impact on reducing public spending as agreed with the Commissioner Cottarelli, for example through the reduction and the unification of some local authorities and the unification of the schools of the Public Administration.
These questions were asked:
Cyprus: regarding the system of the managers performance evaluation, what are the consequences of a negative evaluation?
Portugal: the web consultation was carried out only within the Public Administration or also extended to civil society? The creation of shared management of support services was made at the level of ministries or at the level of central government? To what extent ICT services have contributed to reducing costs and bureaucracy?
Answers:
Ms Marconi answered that the system of performance measurement of the offices is being reviewed so to measure individual performance. As for the managers, the evaluation system will have consequences both on the remuneration and careers.
In the web consultation feedback came from public sector employees and from citizens and businesses.
In the field of public procurement, public authorities have to contact a central agency on a national basis called CONSIP, and the number of procurement units was reduced in no more than 40 at central and local levels. At the time the measures that concern the ICT sector have not been implemented yet.
These questions were asked:
Bulgaria: what type of approach has been adopted to streamline and merge the offices at the regional level?
Greece: to what extent the feedback of the web consultation was positive and interesting and how much has been taken into account?
France: what was the involvement of trade unions in the reform process?
Germany: have you discussed the opportunities and risks of digitalization on working conditions? For example on the tasks performed, on working time and workplace.
Answers:
Ms Marconi answered that the theme of the aggregation of local offices is still under discussion. With the reform of the provinces there should be no need to provide anymore offices of the ministries in each province; thanks to the digitalization of many services having territorial offices can be avoided. In any case, the offices still operating will be distributed at regional level.
As regards the web consultation, the feedback has been positive, most of the 44 proposals have had the support of the participants and some of the measures have been changed thanks to the feedback received. More information on the DPA website might be found, under the "revolution” section.
Trade unions have participated in the consultation with all other participants. Currently the trade unions are focused on contract renewals that are blocked due to the economic situation of the Country.
As for the risks of digitalisation in the field of human resource management, skills are needed that currently are missing because of the age of civil servants and the limitations in proceed with recruitment in the last 10 years.
These questions were asked:
European Commission: what will be done in terms of the organization to prevent these efforts to rationalize turn into silos mentality?
Norway: could the issue of mobility between different ministries and between private and public sector be deepened?
Latvia: what are the key challenges for the implementation of the public administration reform? Is there a resistance on the part of those to whom it is addressed?
Answers:
Ms Marconi said that the risk of creating silos already exists and is mainly a cultural problem. The action of the present government aims to avoid the silos effect and to improve the decision-making process and the interface between government and citizens.
As for mobility, the most important measure highlighted is the possibility of transferring civil servants from one office to another also belonging to different administrations.
The reform was welcomed by most of the participants, some resistance was expressed by specific agencies and the issues are still under discussion.
These questions were asked:
Austria: regarding the issue of duplication of functions, is there an act which defines the role of the ministries?
Ms Marconi answered that in early 2000 was made a rather radical reform that reduced the number of ministries from 20 to the current 12-13 through the unification of the tasks. In doing so it was avoided to create duplications. However some duplications were still highlighted through the reform of the State budget based on the programs and thanks to reform some of these duplications will be eliminated.
Session on enhancing institutional and administrative capacity building
Ms Laura Massoli, Office for PA Modernization, DPA (chair), welcomed back participants from the coffee break and provided a brief introduction on the theme of the meeting, highlighting why it is relevant that the EUPAN network focuses on institutional and administrative capacity (IAC). On one side, IAC is central for the modernisation of the public sector, that is a crucial driver for growth and development in any EU Countries. The Country Specific Recommendations issued by the EU Council in 2014 state this clearly and 20 EU Countries have received a specific CSRs on structural reforms in Public Administration. On the other side, IAC is a traditional topic within the ESIF and right in 2014 a new EU programming period (2014-20) is starting: many EU countries are going to receive significant funds, under Thematic Objective 11, for enhancing their IAC and modernising their public sector.
According to Medium Term Plan (MTP), the discussion of the day focuses on institutional and administrative capacity (IAC), in particular, the EUPAN IPSG in the afternoon session will allow sharing information and good practices among EUPAN Member States. Then Ms Massoli presented the following interventions inquiring where there were any comments or proposals regarding the agenda. No comments or proposals were received.
Cases on “enhancing institutional and administrative capacity building”
Modernizing Public Administration “Toolbox”.
Presentation by Florian Hauser, DG Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion , EU Commission
EU Commission presented the main characteristics of the Toolbox, a platform where public administrators can share information and good practices in order to enhance IAC. The Toolbox aims to support local, regional and national administrations presenting initiatives on modernising public administration through concrete case studies regarding laws, reports, agendas, programmes, communication etc. The Toolbox is not meant to be prescriptive, but it provides context-dependent examples based on international experiences, starting from the assumption that “best practices” do not exist, only “interesting practices” shall. Thus, it is not intended to offer an overarching policy for Public Administration, but it should convey the many services that covers specific issues. It is about learning from each other. It is not about telling MSs what to do, but rather show them how to do it.
The Toolbox is intended for a varied audience:
- Member States – not just those that receive ESIF resources under TO 11 and that have CSR on this
- COM Services, because they also need to learn
- ESIF Funds Managing Authorities
- Civil Society at large.
It was developed in Inter-service consultation, not just by DG Employ, because it deals with the entirety of PA activities, e.g. DG Mark for aspects of public procurement, DG Home for corruption, etc.
The Toolbox is divided in seven thematic chapters: better policy- making, embedding ethical and anti-corruption practices, professional and well-performing institutions, improving service delivery, enhancing the business environment, strengthening the quality of judicial systems, managing public funds effectively. Many themes are cross-cutting, so the toolbox makes the links when this is the case: the Toolbox will be an e-book and will provide hyperlinks.
Mr Hauser sees a full complementarity between the Toolbox and EUPAN platform in order to effectively enhance ACB in Europe.
Full draft will be ready by end October 2014. Two weeks ago there was a seminar with the 16 Member States that receive ESIF funding under TO11. There has also been dissemination to academic institutions. Case studies in the Toolbox are now being checked (content and that the mentioned administrations appreciate that the case is included) and COM approval and finalisation are foreseen for end November.
Ms Massoli thanked EC for the presentation; she reconvened the meeting and introduced the following speaker.
Enhancing Institutional and Administrative Capacity. Case: Poland
Presentation by Izabela Najda – Jędrzejewska. The Chancellery of the Prime Minister.
Poland provided a brief historical overview on institutional and administrative capacity building in Poland, outlining that administrative capacity building is one of Poland’s top priorities since the end of 1990s when the country became beneficiary of PHARE. After showing a series of completed and ongoing projects related to National Human Capital OP, within the 2007-13 programming period and which will result by the end of 2015 in the involvement of 58,000 employees and 21,000,000 EURO spent, Ms Najda elaborated some of the lessons learnt from a programme management perspective and from a project leader perspective.