Human resources are viewed as the main and most valuable means of public administration since they influence its overall level and effectiveness in an absolutely principal way. It is much easier to change laws and to reorganize state authorities than to build and maintain highly competent civil service loyal to the State and to citizens and to secure life-long training of all public administration staff in a fast-developing economic and social environment.
This analysis concentrates primarily on that part of public administration staff which is included in the category of civil service Civil servants are usually characterized by a special legal status within administrative offices where they participate in the exercise of public power (they are endowed with powers or participate in the decision-making processes in a qualified way), they dispose of public funds, get into contact with significant information etc. This is why there is increased interest in their professionalism, impartiality, political independence, efficiency etc.
A fundamental reform of civil service is on the agenda in post-communist countries. In this process, the Czech Republic is lagging obviously behind most of those countries today as they have already created the foundations of the legal regulation of civil service and modern personnel management, established or modernized training institutions for civil service and have bodies responsible for this area.
The aim of reforms is the civil service corresponding to the principles of a democratic state and of effective exercise of public administration. Therefore, it must be
There is no uniform civil service system in EU countries - the situation in individual countries reflects their historical and other specialities. Basically, it is possible to distinguish two systems of civil service:
The career system presumes a special public-law regime of civil servants. Countries where legal relations of these employees are regulated by labour law usually have special laws reflecting the specific nature of civil service. According to the Rotterdam document of SIGMA mentioned already in Chapter 1, all EU member countries "have professional civil service governed on the basis of a law in which the recruitment of employees and career promotion are based on the principles of contemporary human resources management (including professional prerequisites, skills, motivation, labour force stability) and the loyal performance of government policies". These countries also emphasize and apply the rules of ethical behaviour of civil servants. As already mentioned in Chapter 1, this document provides for the establishment of civil service with all basic attributes, i.e. the definition of duties and rights and control on the one hand, and securing protection against undue influence and pressure on the other hand as the key elements of democratic reforms. The career-system civil service supports the increase of qualifications and the evaluation of experience as well as co-operation inside state administration and in relation to other public entities. Thus it is a "productive long-term investment".
These conclusions are supplemented by two informative reports which have been prepared by experts for the purposes of this document within the framework of the SIGMA programme.
The substantial thing is that we should not take over those things from the traditional system still prevailing in Europe, which fail to meet new conditions and are in decline. An analysis of the impacts and risks of the contemplated models is important as it could limit the danger of decision-making on the basis of one-sided information and expectations. The effort to reduce public expenditure and to increase the flexibility and adaptability of public administration leads to a tendency to reduce civil service and to reserve a special regime for those employees of administration authorities when it is substantiated by the above criteria.
The current situation of the administrative staff is affected by the 40 years of non-democratic conditions, including the preference of criteria of political reliability to those of professionalism and efficiency, the misuse of state administration for the aims of the governing Party, and the distortion of ethical values and administration culture. Unfortunately, insufficient care has been devoted to personnel policy, personnel management and the development of human resources in public administration after the change of the regime in November 1989. Changes made since 1989 correspond neither to the needs nor to the possibilities of this country.
In addition to the retreat of persons, who had most compromised themselves, and changes in a number of management positions, there was an exodus of many capable clerks into the private sector after 1989. Such a trend has failed to terminate primarily due to salary conditions and to unclear prospects in the public sector. The consequences are an almost zero interest of young specialists, particularly having qualifications which are in short supply, to start working for civil service, an insufficient generation change and, finally, the fact that decent operation of the system rests with the generation of the retirement age in many places.
The causes are not only the low salaries which are a limiting factor especially for younger employees but the generally disorganized conditions in civil service which do not guarantee professional growth of the employees, career promotion based on defined rules and clear career prospects.
The Civil Service Act has not been adopted yet, the state personnel policy has not been defined, no body is responsible for the central control of civil service. Political statements on civil service made so far concentrate on general principles, especially on the implementation of the constitution, depolitization, prevention of corruption, professionalism and prevention of excessive staff turnover. Some statements degrade the importance and role of the State and demoralize public administration staff. The State has not yet defined its interests and principles in this area in a clear and comprehensive way.
Personnel management is understood and implemented in practice primarily as personnel record-keeping and administration. It is dispersed and not conceptual in the sectors and in the whole public administration system. The care of the development of human resources is often left at the discretion of the managers who are not prepared for this task, do not acknowledge its importance and usually have considerably simplified ideas about it. Most of them see their role in personnel management only as determining the salaries and bonuses and the approval of reorganization and transfer of people connected with it. The understaffed personnel departments do not fulfil their role in the area of strategy and development of human resources and they receive minimum support from the management of the authorities.
The criticism of civil service by the public, entrepreneurs, political circles and ours as well as by foreign experts often concernsissues belonging to human resources: insufficient qualifications, low efficiency, bureaucratism, corruption, lack of willingness and interest in the needs and problems of citizens. Many public administration staff members still think that citizens exist for them, not the other way round. We have also failed to get rid of the politicization of administrative staff, which has its roots in the previous regime. Some officials believe that the most important thing is to be loyal to a certain political party, which can bring more profit than perfect performance of the service. Czech politicians have not grasped yet how such an approach can damage public administration and, consequently, also themselves through undue influence upon state officials.
The main problems can be summed up as follows:
The staffing of authorities (personnel structure): There is a shortage of professionals with general orientation, modern education and an overview, for management positions and strategic decision-making as well as of members of a number of professions and specializations, trained for performing analytical, information, legislative etc. functions in public administration. Insufficient proficiency in foreign languages is becoming a serious obstacle for the modernization of administration and for our integration into the European processes. Permanent and close working contacts with the EU and with other foreign entities without which we cannot move forward and in which most ministry officials must be involved is not practically feasible. Too many materials and negotiations must be translated, the quality of many translations is unsatisfactory, conferences and working meetings are attended by several "specialists in everything" as a result of their ability to speak a foreign language.
Recruitment for civil service: There is almost no system organized and devised in a standardized way. The selection of new employees is not subject to an obligatory selection procedure - the decision depends on the management. Selection rules are not elaborated too well, if they exist at all. Primarily the conditions for the selection are not clear enough and they are not published in advance, and the selection procedure itself is not too demanding. It is usually limited to a general interview. However, an absolute lack of high-quality applicants is a limiting factor. There is no comprehensive training system that would guarantee a targeted preparation and recruitment of graduates for the civil service. What is missing substantially is a higher education institution specialising in these tasks, as it is usual in the West and today also in a number of post-communist countries.
A comprehensive system of on-the-job (in-service) training of central government officials is missing as well. The situation is somewhat better in the case of the local authorities staff whose training is provided for under the law and governed by a ministry decree (however, the legal bindingness of the duty to acquire a certificate of passing the prescribed test is doubtful). An odd thing is that in the case of local authorities this has been related to the former practice of verifying professional skills whereas the former system of strongly politically based cyclic training simply vanished without being replaced by anything else. Dispersed separate events or college courses which try to substitute the missing system at least to some extent cannot be a real solution.
Politicizing of the civil service: Considering the absence of proper rules laying down legal criteria and procedures for the recruitment and promotion of civil servants and with a view to the fact that records or inspection reports dealing with selection procedures and the justification of nominations of the managers are not available, it is not possible to prove clearly the statement that the politicizing of civil service, which was practised under the previous regime, has survived in the new conditions as well, or to determine its intensity. The requirement of depoliticizing public administration has been repeated constantly in professional and other press and in expert opinions (made by our and foreign specialists and civil servants). The occupying of positions in the state machinery according to party membership or on the basis of personal acquaintances is in contradiction with the requirements of the rule of law and with the interests of the public. The shortcoming is the actual absence of a law and of the compliance guarantees, thus, the possibility of politicizing is allowed by the present system.
Shortcomings in the organization and control: They are the reasons why there are no proper job descriptions, the clerks do not know well their tasks and requirements upon them. They are insufficiently informed about the aims of departments and bodies, about changes that are being prepared. For example, they try to find out information about the reform proposals, even about those which concern them directly, in post-graduate university courses; they do not an access to these proposals and an opportunity to express their opinions at their workplaces.)
Weak motivation: There is no comprehensive motivation system. The remuneration system allowing for strong discretionary powers of the superiors, the absence of career progress rules, missing systems of staff evaluation and care for personnel development create a demotivating environment restricting efficiency, quality and initiative. No state can pay for an ideally modelled civil service today. Thus, the motivation system must combine salaries (remuneration) with some certainties and advantages and with interesting and motivating job description and working environment. The surveys show that working conditions and relations within the workplace belong to the staff priorities establishing motivating effects even in civil service.
Disciplinary liability: It does not exist in our country, which is a rarity. The function of accountability in civil service is irreplaceable from the viewpoint of guarantees of the compliance with job duties and prevention of excesses which hamper the operation of administration and deteriorate its picture in the eyes of the public.
Staff numbers and their increase: Staff numbers increase instead of decreases announced in political documents, which is also a subject matter of public criticism. However, objective evaluation requires the monitoring and evaluation of the efficiency and development of the staff numbers in offices, the reasons for staff turnover, the utilization of internal reserves etc. Without this, it is not possible to verify to what extent the increase in the numbers of state clerks is a result of ineffectiveness of state administration and spontaneity of the development (which was hampered only by the economic difficulties and economy "packages" in 1997) and to what extent it is justified by the establishment of new offices or units in connection with new tasks and functions of the State (e.g. capital market supervision, the collection of taxes, the expansion of customs service, the police, job centres etc.). It is known that there are no "standards" in this matter or in international contexts and various sectoral or international comparison are only used as auxiliary criteria.
The care for the increase of efficiency of administration: This care should be a matter of all administration authorities. However, it requires certain rules and manners of securing their implementation within organization and control of human resources. Neglecting this task always leads to an increase in the number of administrative jobs above the possibilities of the state budget and to subsequent one-off reductions which disturb the operation of the administration and have no permanent effects due to their lack of system. The efficiency of performance has not been monitored in public administration, the workload of individual clerks is unbalanced, those who are capable are overburdened and the authorities find it difficult to get rid of those who are incompetent and inefficient under the existing conditions. The authorities often lack information or any idea of what directions in order to increase the efficiency of individual staff members and whole institutions they should concentrate on, where to obtain information and professional assistance and how to proceed in the preparation and implementation of changes (change management).
So far, the civil service reform has concentrated predominantly on the preparation of the Civil Service Act. This act is of key importance in our conditions. Only a law can guarantee necessary certainties, introduce the necessary order into civil service, regulate the rights, duties and responsibilities of civil servants, and define criteria according to which the individuals will be able to assess their own competence, prospects and needs of work improvement and further training. Without personal responsibility, the responsibility of public administration authorities becomes a considerably imaginary matter - it is not possible to punish collectively an administration authority.
Simultaneously, the well-known tendency to overestimate the force of law is manifested in political statements and attitudes of authorities.("We have the law, the matter has been provided for, what else do you want?"). Our and foreign experts have pointed out many times that this is a comprehensive problem, it is necessary to begin with the adoption of the conception considering impacts and risks of possible solutions and it is necessary to start creating personnel prerequisites sufficiently in advance, i.e. to train personnel managers, to start training programmes to supplement the missing specialists to civil service, to prepare appraisal and retraining programmes and personal development programmes etc. Some steps in this direction were started by the former OLPA but no systematic progress has been made since its abolition.
The principles of the Civil Service Act were discussed in the committees of the House of Deputies in 1994 but the government did not include the subsequent bill on the agenda of its meetings. The causes lay in political disagreement and this is why the draft prepared at that time could not have been completed. It was also difficult to find a single solution in a series of conceptual issues, valid for both the short-term and long-term aims.
The draft material intent of the Civil Service Act of May 1998 separated the transition stage of the consolidation of the state administration set up from the future second stage in which the full introduction of the final solution, i.e. of the career system, is envisaged. Some propositions of the draft should be reconsidered, though. This applies, for example, to guarantees of the constitutional right of citizens to equal access to public functions (Article 21(4) of the Charter) without which it is not possible to stop politicizing and nepotism in public administration. The prohibition of membership of civil servants in political parties would also be unusual in the present-day world.
It is not yet possible to count with the influence of stabilized and generally accepted ethical standards and administration culture in the environment of state administration which is still getting rid of the heritage of the past, which is not stabilized yet, which has high staff turnover and frequent changes of higher rank officials and which suffers from a lack of positive examples and models.Moreover, issues of ethics have received little attention so far, although we have ethical codes of public administration available which have been adopted in a number of countries (e.g. the United Kingdom, Portugal), as well as recommendations concerning issues of administrative ethics issued or discussed at present in the OECD, the EU, the Council of Europe and other organizations.
Naturally, issuing an ethical code without any follow-up measures in the personnel management and public control could not be sufficiently effective. Therefore, it is substantial to popularize such codes widely and to enforce ethical aspects of administrative work gradually in the thinking and behaviour of the superiors. What we need are models of desirable behaviour, preparation for activity in the administration, including the clarification of ethical problems, an all-round support for the development of human resources, regular staff evaluation, the linking of motivation with increasing the level of administration culture and ethical behaviour. It is necessary to use all rational means supporting the enhancing of ethics and administration culture.
Random and not conceptual approaches which prevail in personnel management in the Czech public administration cannot have left any traces in the training and development of its staff members. A complete overview of organized training courses and their actual impact is missing. However, we can say that the situation differs considerably in individual sectors. Features of systematic approach appear in the devolved state administration in charge of the defined technical areas (tax offices, customs service, job centres etc.). At the level of ministries, training in languages and information technologies predominates and some training for newly recruited employees is being developed, as well as short training courses for the management and for selected specialists, e.g. on issues of preparations for EU accession.
However, there is minimum co-ordination between sectors. Neither the Czech public administration as a whole nor its important individual components have given any thought to the needs and policy of the development of human resources for the period of economic and social transformation and preparations for the EU membership. The Czech Republic differs from other European countries in that it has neither a state or public administration institute or school nor programmes at a necessary level for the preparation of top officials and future civil servants.
The role of training in the solution of basic problems of public administration is reduced to mostly random sending of individuals to training courses (including courses and study stays abroad). Public administration staff have noticed that their superiors do not lay any significant emphasis on training, it is neither requested nor highly evaluated. The motivation for training and self-training is weak. It can be generally stated that an opportunity to utilize training extensively as one of the basic tools of the reform and modernization of the Czech public administration has been missed. Due to the absence of prospects and political will it could not have been different.
A substantial increase in the level of education and development of human resources has become an urgent necessity in the Czech public administration and cannot be postponed any longer. The following directions seem to be desirable:
The development of human resources will have to be understood as one of the main parts of the reform strategy, harmonized with the other reform directions and measures. A conceptual and systematic approach will be necessary to solve the development of human resources in its wide context (with the conception of civil service, career, personnel policy, qualification requirements, motivation, evaluation, the introduction of new methods and technologies, the management of changes etc.).
It will be necessary to use foreign experience in the development of human resources in the public and private sectors in a better and faster way. This experience is available. The conception, e.g., of a "learning organization" is interesting even for Czech public administration institutions. Even a ministry can become a learning organization. The experience with a wide range of training and self-training methods can be utilized, including the use of the fast-developing new training technologies. There is valuable experience in respect of methods which combine consistently training and self-training with the solution of practical problems resulting from the organization, planning and implementation of a change.
The Czech public administration should consider a new infrastructure for securing conceptual work, for the preparation of training policies, the assessment of needs, transfer of foreign experience, co-ordination, the development of new programmes, the training of trainers, counselling assistance to individual state administration organizations, information service in respect of training possibilities, assistance in seeking the most suitable training programmes etc. However, it will be particularly necessary to prepare and secure institutionally basic programmes for civil servants, corresponding to their changing needs in the course of a career in civil service. It will be necessary to utilize better the existing Czech infrastructure of management, financial and other professional training which is capable of covering some training needs of public administration in joint programmes with the private sector or in programmes fully adjusted to the needs of public administration.
The training system must also meet suitably the needs of members of the elected components of public administration with the aim of increasing the autonomy and quality of decision-making, of enabling the real performance of control of the work of the organization and of increasing responsibility for adopting and implementing decisions.
It will be useful to direct administrative staff motivation to bigger interest in self-training, in training which obviously solves priority problems of the respective organizations, in acquiring practically utilizable knowledge and experience instead of acquiring certificates and diplomas, and in the transfer of knowledge and experience to others, especially to the new generation.
Considering the long period of underestimation and neglect, special attention should be paid primarily to so-called "soft" skills: dealing with people (inside public administration and with clients), communication, coaching of the subordinates and other colleagues, ethical behaviour, setting examples, conflict-solving, solving of human aspects of organizational and system changes etc.
Information and communication technologies must become an important content component as well as means of training and self-training in the whole public administration.
First of all, however, it will be necessary to supplement and intensify general information of the real situation in training and development of human resources at various levels and in various sectors of public administration, and to make a deeper analysis of the real needs assessed both from the viewpoint of public administration staff members (demand), the viewpoint of international trends and the expected future developments for which public administration must be well-prepared.
However, the approach must be conceptual and strategic.