Project Phare - Public Administration Improvement - Phase 1

In the summer of 1997 on the basis of Agenda 2000 the EU Delegation initiated in Prague round table sessions regarding the possibility of the revival of the Phare Programme for public administration, which after the dissolution of the Office for Legislation and Public Administration in 1996, lost its general guarantor. The project task was compiled in cooperation with employees from several central bodies and the Center for Foreign Aid under the Ministry of Finance.

In December 1997 the National Training Fund was appointed to manage the Project, the Project lasted 1 year (till the end of 1998 and available funds for the Project amounted to nearly ECU 0.5 million ECU.

An Advisory Board has been established - professional support for the Project is headed by the Dean of the Law Faculty of Charles University.

Under the coordination and management of the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic a Project Board has been formed on the level of deputy ministers, and the creation of modernization teams inside ministries has been planned for1999.

In this phase the Project focused on central state administration, however it reflected also the wider relations of the state administration as a whole. The two main project tasks were to complete an Analysis of the Czech public administration and to create a reform strategy with a global view.

More than 30 experts participated in the analysis and the analysis focuses on the following areas: role and function, organization, activities, financing of the public administration and human resources. This analysis has been submitted to the central administration bodies, to the Parliament and the Senate.

Based on the analysis a Proposal of a strategic plan of the reform was worked out that served as a framework for materials submitted to the Government by the Ministry of the Interior in January 1999.

At the same time the proposal of the system of human resources development in public administration was elaborated in co-operation with EIPA (The European Institute of Public Administration) and the training programme for future modernization teams within ministries was prepared. The Project task also included preparation of follow-up projects for Phare support provided to public administration reform.

The outputs of the project are described in details in the final report of the project.