The system of public administration of the Czech Republic comprises: administrative authorities (state administration authorities), territorial self-government authorities, interest (professional) self-government authorities, other public institutions (funds, foundations, independent institutions, such as the Council of the Czech Republic for Radio and Television Broadcasting), public and private legal entities and natural persons authorized to discharge public duties. This chapter analyses the structure of the public administration system and problems of its organization and control, especially from the viewpoint of central government. The solution of institutional and competence issues of territorial government and self-government is already at a stage of intensive legislative preparation and they have been discussed in a number of documents which this analysis refers to, therefore their analysis is not repeated here.

3.1 Central government authorities

The system of ministries is relatively stabilized in respect of its basic features although further changes cannot be excluded. The organization of ministries is conditioned to a considerable extent by political approaches (different approaches of political parties towards the role of the State) and by political interests (especially strong in the case of coalition governments). Activities of ministries are generally governed by the Act No. 2/1969 Sb. of the Czech National Council which has been amended almost forty (!) times. Although the provisions of the Competence Act regulating competences and responsibilities of individual ministries differ in their extent and content, they have only a small regulative role as a whole. According to the opinions of experts, the Competence Act is hardly justified in its existing concept.

Establishment of higher territorial self-government units will facilitate the transfer of some current activities of ministries to their new bodies and to lower-level authorities. This should mean not only the transfer of competences in those matters that were passed onto them from the former regional national committees: the process of devolution and de-concentration must be more extensive and it should be implemented in accordance with the subsidiarity principle.

The functions of central government bodies have not been sufficiently clarified within the general system of public administration. Whereas their main function should be to form conceptions and to direct lower-level authorities, they make decisions within the first instance of administrative proceedings inadequately often (an extreme case is deciding disputes over telephone charges by the Ministry of Transport and Communications - the Czech Telecommunications Office) which deforms more or less their overall orientation not only materially but also due to the need of a larger number of staff etc. On the other hand, the central government authorities are not equipped sufficiently for a high-quality preparation of conceptions and draft bills as well as statutory instruments. A frequent low level of draft bills prepared by ministries suggests that it is necessary to enhance substantially the legislative activities of ministries, which requires the strengthening of their legal departments. The responsibility for the legislation could concentrate with one of deputy ministers, who would also be responsible for contacts with the Parliament (an analogy with the function of the secretary of state in some countries).

After the abolition of general supervision by the prosecutor´s office, the burden of control of the factual and legal correctness of decisions made by local authorities has fallen upon the central government (instance supervision in administrative proceedings, service supervision). However, the service supervision ("internal control") has not been covered by any legal regulation, and experience shows that it is by far not executed in such a way to be an effective tool of creating effective public administration meeting the needs of a democratic state.

The organizational structure of the ministries may differ: they are divided into sections (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry for Local Development) or divisions (Ministry of Industry and Trade) or groups (Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports) or branches (Ministry of Transport and Communications) which include departments further sub divided into sections, or independent sections. Some ministries have so-called ministry offices, which comprise units securing the economic, operating and personnel needs of the ministry (however, the denomination used - "ministry office" - evokes doubts). Excessive subdividing of an organizational structure causes problems in the horizontal co-ordination, especially in the case of large ministries.

The organizational rules of ministries, governing their structure and responsibilities of their units, differ considerably in their content and extent and they need to be rationalised. Some ministries have set up units in districts(territorial departments of the Ministry of Agriculture) or territorial units which are identical with the former regions, with some exceptions (regional units of the Ministry for Local Development, territorial units of the Ministry of the Environment). Their further existence is not justifiable with respect to the reform of territorial government.

What should be achieved is that the ministries should basically comply with uniform rules in shaping their organizational structures; they should be established by the Government in a form of model organizational rules. It should determine, among others, a minimum staff number for individual organizational units so that the setting-up of sections with small staff numbers in order to provide staff management bonuses can be prevented.

There are four management levels in smaller ministries (minister  -  deputy  -  department head  -  section head) and five in large ministries (minister  -  deputy  -  section/senior managing director  -  department manager  -  section head). The basic problem is the division of decision-making powers among the management of the ministry. Facts that are available show that 90% of the decision-making powers are concentrated in around 6% of employees of the organization (cf. the study "Financing state administration"). A solution of the situation by means of a decision going through several management levels before being approved in the final form requires a wider delegation of power.

The situation in respect of internal organizational structures of government authorities and organizations is rather confusing. The number of management levels is not regulated in a uniform way and we can observe their recent increase although funds invested in information and office technology would justify a trend to the contrary. The subsidiarity of comparable units is not uniform either (e.g.the personnel unit, internal economic administration) and units in charge of organizational matters are usually either missing or strongly restricted in their activity. Nor is there uniformity in respect of names of comparable positions.

The government, which is "the supreme executive body" according to the Constitution (Article 67(1)) and "makes decisions as a collective body" (Article 76(1)), plays a key and decisive role in the implementation of state policy and in the control and co-ordination of public administration. The government cannot delegate part of its power to a narrower body, the group of ministers (e.g. the ministers of economic sectors) since they can act as an advisory body only. According to Section 28 of the Competence Act, it is a duty of the government "to govern, control, and unify" activities of the ministries. However, this requires that the government should check how ministries fulfil government resolutions and check the application of laws within the fields of their activity, and to co-ordinate more intensively the activities of ministries.

So far, the focus of government policy has concentrated on macro-regulatory economic measures while the importance of a structural, regional economic policy and the importance of sectoral policies have been underestimated.

In addition, there are other central government offices and agencies (their enumeration and classification is contained in the study "Finance in public administration", see Appendix 2).

Expert reports as well as various respondents point out the following problems most frequently in the field of organization and control of the central government:

insufficient orientation of ministries towards the result of their activity,

ambiguous competences and responsibilities of individual management levels,

centralization of decision-making and small delegation of power, which is connected with the overloading of the management with solving operative matters instead of doing conceptual work,

an excessive vertical nature of management and insufficient horizontal communication,

insufficient flexibility of management,

non-uniform organizational structure,

overgrown organizational levels and organizational units,

unclear responsibility for the organizational structure.

The verification of these hypotheses on empirical material is very difficult as there are very few studies dealing with these issues. The above hypotheses result particularly from the secondary analysis of several reports (mostly foreign ones) which deal with public administration (EIPA 1994, Hesse 1995, Hesse and Venna 1997, CAPA 1998). Confirmation of these hypotheses would require more detailed studies, made possibly by a specialized institution within the framework of state administration.
Although it can be expected that the system of central government authorities is stabilized and that their activities are mostly defined with sufficient precision with respect to their orientation to special, mostly professional issues, their organization and activities would deserve a deeper analysis.

The Czech National Bank has a specific position in the system of central government institutions; according to the Constitution, it is the central bank of the State and its main task is to take care of the stability of the currency. According to law, the CNB is independent of government instructions but it acts as an advisory body of the government in monetary policy and banking matters. The CNB is also not subordinated to the control by the Supreme Audit Office. The hybrid nature of the position of the CNB is also characterized by the fact that it is a legal entity which has its own assets and is in the position of an entrepreneur but, simultaneously, as the central bank, it is also the central government authority in charge of matters relating to banks and foreign exchange.

The Securities Commission, which is denoted expressly as an administrative office in the area of capital market, however, not subordinated to the Government and is not accountable to it for its activities, shows some specific features. The Council of the Czech Republic for Radio and Television Broadcasting is also independent of the government; the election of its members is among the powers of the House of Deputies and the government has no authority here. The Council is accountable for its activities to the House of Deputies, not to the government. The law entrusts it with the execution of state administration, with the issuing of administrative decisions and with the imposition of sanctions for administrative delicts. The Commission and the Council are close in the nature to "independent regulatory agencies&aquot; in the US or &aquot;autorités administratives indépendantes" in France.

The function and activities of public administration can be delegated to legal entities and to natural persons. This trend has been widely applied in the recent period, e.g. in accordance with the Technical Requirements Applied to Products Act, a state body may entrust a legal person with the preparation and issuance of technological standards, a legal entity or natural person with state testing, natural persons are entrusted e.g. with the execution of administrative supervision as forest supervisors, water supervisors or game keeping supervisors. Public insurance companies undoubtedly execute certain functions of state administration.

3.2 Territorial government authorities

3.2.1 District authorities

District authorities concentrate the execution of administration in various areas and are established in all districts, with the exception of districts Brno - město, Ostrava - město, Plzeň - město and Prague as the capital. Since their establishment in 1990, they have developed into a stabilized element of public administration. Their powers are generally defined by the District Authorities, Regulation of Their Powers and Other Related Measures Act No. 425/1990. of the Czech National Council, as amended, and more concretely in individual laws. The powers of district authorities have been extended generally in recent years, which led to an increase in numbers of their personnel: whereas there were 9,922 staff in district authorities as at 1 January 1991, this figure has reached 14,100 staff members at present.

From the viewpoint of their content, the powers of district authorities comprise especially activities in secondary legislation (issuing by-laws), deciding cases as a first-  and second-  instance in administrative proceedings (it is necessary to adjust the powers of district authorities as appellate bodies in the process reviewing decisions they had issued - according to law, they can change such decisions), the execution of administrative decisions, the execution of state supervision in a number of areas of public administration, a number of powers in relation to authorized local authorities and municipalities. As far as their duty to control is concerned, the available information suggests that some district authorities insufficiently exercise the supervision of the compliance with laws by local authorities (e.g. in respect of by-laws of local government in municipalities).

The fact that there is no legal regulation of the co-operation between district authorities and the territorial state administration bodies with special responsibilities should be considered as a serious defect. Due to this fact, the possibility of horizontal co-ordination of activities of various administrative authorities within the territory of a single district disappears and the vertical (sectoral) management is used almost exclusively. According to the opinions of experts, it is necessary to determine on the basis of a detailed analysis what powers of district authorities would be suitable for transfer to regional authorities or municipalities. It is possible that the competences of district authorities will be exhausted by these transfers and thus there will be no reason for their further existence any more. Should they be abolished, it will be necessary to prepare a programme providing their employees with certain guarantees (e.g. offering them other jobs in public administration, a compensation, retraining etc.)

There is a possibility of keeping district authorities with the "residual" powers, i.e. with powers not transferred to regions and local authorities, and of merging them with some devolved bodies as well as detached departments of ministries operating within the districts. The advantage of this solution would be the formation of organizational prerequisites in order to overcome the scattering of public administration over a district territory.

3.2.2 Territorial state administration bodies with special responsibilities

There are a number of territorial government authorities with special responsibilities operating in districts, to a smaller extent in regions and also in specially defined territorial areas different from the territorial division of the State. There are differences in their organization. Some of them are established at a single level only (e.g. educational authorities and job centres) while others form a two-level system (e.g. tax authorities and tax directorates, land registers and geodetic and land register inspectorates, customs offices and regional customs offices).

The basic problem lies in the fact that there is a considerably high number of devolved authorities, which leads to excess fragmentation of government authorities. A solution of this situation requires a reduction in their numbers, or mergers of some of them with district authorities. However, in the case of those authorities which will remain further in existence, their territorial activity should be put into harmony with territorial administration units.

3.3 Territorial self-government

At present, state administration is also exercised by municipalities - basic territorial self-government units - if provided for by law. There is a number of such laws and it would be useful to map the extent of activity transferred to municipalities considering its differentiation according to the size of villages and towns. Local authorities exercise state administration basically within their territory, but also for other villages and towns, such as e.g. the Building Office.

A solution where the exercise of state administration is transferred to territorial self-government bodies has undoubtedly an advantage because it is brought closer to citizens and it is obviously economically beneficial for the State. Its weakness lies in the fact that the exercise of public administration may suppress self-government activities of municipalities, particularly because the extent of independent self-government has not been defined clearly. The issue of joining or eparating self-government and exercising public administration in a territorial public corporation deserves a deeper analysis. Authorized local authorities, which are established in 383 places, have a special position. On the one hand, they fulfil tasks for their localities as their independent activity, they exercise public administration in the area of delegated power and, on the other hand, they exercise public administration for other localities in their defined territorial area, or in the territorial area of another authorized local authority. It can be expected that such a double position of authorized local authorities is not quite acceptable for the municipality in which they are located as they probably have only limited capacity left for the fulfilment of tasks within their independent competences and, from the psychological viewpoint, nor for the inhabitants of other localities. The number of authorized local authorities is relatively high, which makes their staff management difficult. Therefore, it would be useful to reduce their number and to provide them with adequately qualified staff. It is also possible to think of their becoming independent as first-instance administration authorities which would concentrate the exercise of administration in various areas. This would simultaneously create a wider space for the application of independent activities of municipalities.

3.4 Relationship between state administration and local self-government

It is necessary in the relationship between state administration and local government that the government should apply a conceptual policy.On the one hand, it should result from the necessary differentiation between the competences and powers of state administration and also from the fact that there is a person responsible for each public task. On the other hand, it should result from the fact that the relation of municipalities, self-government regions and the State is primarily the relation of partnership and mutual co-operation. The relation of the State, public administration to territorial self-government should not be limited to administrative supervision but it should primarily lie in co-operation, assistance (financial, educational, professional and methodological) in the exercise of self-government competences and in the performance of transferred tasks of public administration. The government and the Parliament should support the two-way information flow between the centre and local authorities so that the legislation and government decisions can reflect the knowledge of local and regional needs.

The relation between public administration and self-government bodies is a subject of professional discussions and considerations. A part of theoreticians and some officials from central government are in favour of "strict" separation of self-government and public administration, while keeping maximum competences by public administration, and thus its centralization, is behind. The officials of local and municipal authorities and a number of specialists warn against such separation, and they point out correctly that citizens and business circles perceive local authorities as a whole and evaluate them with a view to the extent in which they satisfy interests and needs of the people, in which they approach the mission of public administration as a service.

So far, the separation of government in its territorial organization has been made only at the level of districts - through district authorities, which simultaneously do not have any self-government bodies of representatives. The preparation of self-government regions, the establishment of which by 2000 is confirmed by constitutional legislation, poses the question of further existence of district authorities and the issue of the nature of regional authorities, i.e. whether there should be separate regional self-government and regional public administration bodies. The solution of this issue should be contemplated carefully but double function authorities seem not to be a rational solution, even from an infrastructural viewpoint of technical facilities and, moreover, this would be difficult for the public to understand.

Arguments in favour of a "strict separation" of public administration and self-government, based on relatively short post-November experience with local authorities, have their weaknesses. They overestimate onesidedly mistakes which are difficult to avoid at the beginning of inexperienced self-government and under conditions of little assistance from public administration.

There are also interest (professional) self-government organizations - chambers of medical doctors, dentists, pharmacists, solicitors and others(there are about 12 of them in the Czech Republic) - participating in the execution of public administration. They interfere with the public administration area in various ways: they issue certificates, orders and licences without which it is not possible to exercise a profession or a private practice and they lay down rules which are in their nature of internal acts but are of importance even for persons who are not members of the respective chamber (e.g. in relation to patients). They protect public interests and interests of persons which are not members by means of exercising supervision of their members.

So far, the integration of supervision of public administration has not been clarified sufficiently within the development of professional self-government, nor has fully evaluated its importance for the de-etatization of some public administration activities.

There are similar issues relating to the role of other independent institutions, such as universities.

3.5 Conclusions of Chapter 3

1. The organization of central government authorities should be adjusted so that the centre of their activities should lie in drafting conceptions, sectoral policies, the legislation and the preparation for EU accession. This should be reflected in the composition and qualifications of their staff. Sectors, having been freed from operative, mostly first-instance decision-making, should concentrate further on the implementation of government policy through fulfilling their co-ordinating function, directing lower-level administrative authorities and through administrative supervision.

2. State administration forms, in principal, a uniform system. Therefore, it is necessary for its effective functioning to prepare and adopt unifying models and to apply well-examined forms and methods of work. To achieve this, the government must lay down model organizational rules of central government authorities and other necessary standards for the organization and functioning of central government authorities.

3. In relation to territorial self-government, state administration authorities should concentrate primarily on the following:

co-operation and assistance by state administration authorities to local self-government authorities, especially financial, educational and professional, both in the exercise of self-government powers and in the exercise of delegated public administration power;

solution and support of all forms of unification of municipalities for the qualified exercise of their self-government and delegated public administration competences and, in the future, the application of more effective stimuli for the integration of municipalities; a reduction of numbers of authorized local authorities and their better personnel management, technological and information equipment;

the formation of professionally qualified and efficient public administration at a regional level, capable not only of applying laws in territorial public administration and self-government but also of creative developing government policy in conditions of individual regions, and of providing professional help to local self-government authorities.

4. The territorial organization of state administration must support both the efforts to achieve efficient and effective public administration and increased participation of citizens. The territorial organization of public administration must be created in harmony with the territorial organization of self-government and for its support.

5. It is necessary to strengthen vertical and horizontal co-operation in the whole of public administration, aimed at supporting common values and principles on which the democratic system of public administration is based.