REFORM OF KEY PROCESSES IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

5. REFORM OF KEY PROCESSES IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Public administration performs its functions through a wide range of processes in which all or considerable numbers of its bodies participate. Therefore most of these processes cut across organizational and sectoral boundaries. The reform does not intend to inventory, classify and change all of these processes. The Proposals have selected a limited number of key processes in which distinct improvements are particularly needed because of their present condition and the tendencies of public administration development. The selection of key processes made in this chapter cannot be considered as final: it should be re-assessed during every progress review of the reform and in refining the strategy for the period to follow.

5.1 Strategic Management

Dynamic changes in the external environment of the Czech Republic and the fundamental changes of its political, economic and administrative institutions underline the importance of strategic thinking, decision-making and management and the formulation of adequate development policies. These must be pursued as key innovations in public administration. Neither the government nor the respective sectoral or local bodies can effectively fulfil their functions without a broader strategic outlook and concept of development. Therefore, work on strategy and policy analyses, outlooks and concepts ought to become a fundamental activity both at Government level and in particular sectors and other institutions.

The Government programme declaration envisages the establishment of a centre of strategic studies reporting to the Government Office and focused on:

continuous elaboration of comprehensive strategic outlooks for the Czech Republic and the formulation of suggestions arising therefrom for legislative and executive institutions,
assessment of the principal (political) government decisions in the context of their possible long-term consequences,
professional support, methodological guidance and coordination of sectors in the preparation of their sector and branch strategic outlooks and policies.

Also the individual sectors should establish departments for development strategies and policies concerning the respective fields or entrust with these activities existing institutions. In any case they must reckon with the cooperation with the business sector, leading experts and representatives of the general public. It is necessary to separate strategic and policy decision-making from operational decision-making, to relieve central authorities from the burden of operational decision-making and management, and overcome the currently prevailing excessive improvisation and ad-hoc approaches.

5.2 Law-Making and Legislative Processes

The harmonization of Czech law with EU law and further general improvement of our legal system imposes considerable requirements on the legislative activities of public administration. After the accession to the EU our legislation will be incorporated into the making of community law and will continue to harmonize national law with Community law, which will also continue to develop. With regard to these objectives and its present unsatisfactory capacity and quality the legislative process must be modernized and its professional staffing must be considerably enhanced.

The creation of organizational, material and, above all, personnel prerequisites for the professional performance of legislative activities commands absolute priority. It is necessary to introduce purpose-oriented professional training of legislative specialists (supplemented by specialized linguistic training) and the training of senior public officials in the fundamentals of legislation.

Furthermore, the reform should focus on the following changes:

adjusting professional legislative capacity and legislative rules and procedures to the standard of developed democracies,
providing the public with better and more accurate information on the objectives and principles of legislative changes and generally improving communication with the public in questions of legislation; using suitable forms of cooperation with the representatives of public self-government authorities, business associations, professional circles, etc. aiming to improve the quality of drafts and strengthening the solidarity of the citizens with state policy;
differentiating legislative strategy and current legislative activities, and developing capacities and procedures for long-term preparation of drafts of fundamental significance and far-reaching impact,
increasing the quality requirements concerning professional draft preparation both in the material and in the legal and legislative-technical respects; determining responsibility for a professional assessment of the impact of proposed laws and the definition of the conditions necessary for their implementation;
giving preference to new, comprehensive and clearly structured laws over the current practice of continuously amending the laws and producing intricate series of partial amendments and supplements;
significantly enhancing both horizontal and vertical coordination of the legislative process within state administration: improving the rather superficial and hasty currently practiced process of comments both within the ministries and other central authorities and among them mutually (which requires a radical change of approach to this process and the elimination of unrealistically short terms; the comments must not be left to legislative departments only; responsibility of the respective materially competent departments for the formulation of comments based on the concepts and the needs of the sector must be defined; and better use should made of electronic communication).

Analogous objectives will have to be pursued in further law-making activities. The guarantees of constitutionality and legality of statutory rules and the rules issued by administrative authorities must be enhanced by further education of the officials of administrative authorities and self-governing bodies. The judicial review of normative acts must become more widespread. The reform of legislation, however, must also pursue broader objectives in the context of regulatory reform.

5.3 Regulatory Processes

The term "regulatory reform", used for the improvement of regulatory processes, has not become familiar in the Czech Republic yet. The OECD uses it to characterize a set of changes by means of which the member states endeavour to improve the regulatory functions of state and public administration. In this context regulation means the instruments defining the framework and the conditions of civic and economic life. They include laws, regulations, internal directives, guidelines and informal procedures including inspections, audits and other forms applied by state administration and non-governmental subjects to which the state has transferred the respective powers. Economic regulation consists in the definition and enforcement of the rules for the decision-making and the conduct of various economic subjects (regulation of prices, conditions for admittance to business activities, financial markets, banking sector, insurance industry, investments, economic competition, etc.). Social regulation protects public interests in the fields of public health, the environment, social solidarity, etc. Administrative regulation in this context means the requested formal rules, formal statements and other bureaucratic procedures.

The objective of the reforms is to make the regulation serve better its purpose, i.e. support economic development, competitiveness and satisfaction of social needs instead of hampering them and burdening them with disproportionate or unnecessary bureaucratic requirements. The OECD recommendations summarise experience in this field, consisting either in deregulation or in enhancing regulation in areas where it is insufficient, and in improving the quality of regulation.

Although it has not been known under this term the regulatory reform is a long-term undertaking, whose implementation has already started and will be pursued in the Czech Republic in the whole course of public administration reform. Work on the immediate priorities concerning the changes of regulatory processes has been in progress in the framework of preparation for EU membership through the harmonization of law and institutional and other measures connected therewith. A number of further recommendations and experiences can be integrated into the reform from the very beginning, particularly in the fields of legislation and administrative law-making, management methods, conception of administrative control and staff training and development in public administration. This also applies to a selective review and assessment of the effects of some regulations, flexible elimination of regulations unnecessarily burdening the citizens and businesses or discouraging investors, etc. Particular attention in this respect will have to be paid to regulatory instruments and fast improvement of regulation in the banking and financial sectors.

The drafting of a programme of regulatory reform and the assurance of its consistent fulfilment represent a medium-term priority of public administration reform. This objective will necessitate the application of the following OECD recommendation to our conditions:

a programme of regulatory reform with clearly defined tasks and implementation framework is to be declared at political level,
assessment of whether regulation fulfils effectively and economically its tasks must be made at regular intervals,
regulation and methods of its enforcement must be transparent and non-discriminative,
regulation must stimulate competitiveness,
regulation should be preserved in all instances where it represents the best form of safeguarding public interests,
existing international agreements and agreed principles must be implemented to eliminate regulatory barriers to trade and investments,
regulation must be amended and applied in accordance with the objectives and policies in the respective areas, such as health care, the environment, consumer protection, assurance of power requirements of the country, etc.

The efficiency of regulatory measures must be assured by a properly functioning control system. Fragmentary control without the necessary coordination and management and adequate inspection and sanction powers represents one of the principal causes of unsatisfactory quality and poor efficiency of public administration, abuse of power, corruption and other evils of public life.

The establishment of the missing inspection agencies and/or other administrative supervision bodies and the guarantees of efficient control in the implementation of Community law form part of the requirements conditioning the accession of the Czech Republic to the EU.

The reform must remedy the existing state. In particular it is necessary:

to adopt a concept of administrative supervision based on uniform principles and co-ordination of control activities,
to complete the development of a system of administrative supervision agencies and harmonize it with EU requirements,
to revise the legislation concerning administrative supervision with the purpose of strengthening its powers and improving its professional standard, objectivity and independence of political influence.

5.4 Public Sector Management and Public Property Administration

The management of the public sector and the administration of public property range among the fundamental functions of public administration in all democratic countries. Due to the changes which have taken place in the course of economic reform in recent years, the need of reforms in this field in the Czech Republic is particularly great and urgent. In the course of the privatization process and after its termination the issues of adequate status, extent, role and methods of public sector management were not considered sufficiently important, as a result of which the situation in this field is rather confused. Existing public sector management and public property administration are not based on any clear-cut conception of the role of the public sector, public services and public property in a democratic society with a market economy. They lack solid legal foundations. That is why extreme events occur, such as e.g. selling public property of communes under obviously unfavourable and legally dubious conditions, or the difficulties faced by the National Property Fund in administering national property.

Also the relationship between the public and the newly emerged private sector has remained hazy and unnecessarily conflicting. It is necessary to overcome the unclear and uncertain conditions resulting in poor management, dropping value and pilferage of public property as well as the unsatisfactory condition of numerous public services. The aim must be complementarity and cooperation, not antagonistic relationships between private and public sectors.

Fundamental questions of national development policy, i.e. whether the Czech Republic needs both at present and in the future "more" or "less" of public sector, and which parts of the public sector are yet to be privatized, exceed the framework of public administration reform and the Proposals refrain from dealing with them. These questions should be addressed in the framework of future development strategies and policies at national and sectoral levels (see para. 5.1 and Chapter 8).

In the framework of public administration reform the following issues appear as priorities:

accelerated filling of gaps in legislation defining: (1) the status, objectives and principles of the public sector and the ways of operating this sector (with reference to the specific characteristics of the activities and services provided by the public sector in various areas and branches of economic and social life), (2) the conditions and tasks of public property administration (the property of the state, the communes and other self-governing units), and (3) the conditions and forms of public service delivery by private sector organizations, including the required regulatory and control mechanisms;
definition of rules and methods of public sector management by public administration agencies (application of state policies and public interests, assurance of the required professionality of management on the part of public administration, coordination, status of respective organizations and their managers, increase of autonomy and responsibility, use of collective administrative and supervisory bodies and formulas enabling greater participation of the public, etc.);
careful selection, briefing, professional training and increased responsibility of the representatives of the state in corporate governance bodies in the public sector and companies with state participation;
broader use of independent experts as public administration representatives in these bodies;
modernization and improvement of managerial performance, emphasis on professional and managerial qualities in the selection and training of managers and generally increased emphasis on the development of human resources in public enterprises and other public sector organizations, including the use of foreign experience with the improvement of management standards in the public sector.

Public procurement is a key instrument for ensuring an effective purchase of public goods and services. Its transparency (in awarding public contracts and their execution) must be increased also with reference to the present state of legislation the assessment of which is not unanimous and is seldom positive. The Act No. 194/1994 CoL on Public Procurement was amended in April 1998 without, however, solving all open issues of the required improvements of transparency and protection of state and communal interests against undue enrichment of contractors or corruption of public servants. Also the provisions restricting the participation of contractors from EU countries in public tenders will have to be deleted before accession to the EU.

5.5 Decision-Making and Communication Processes in the Relationships with the Citizens

One of the most important objectives of the reform is to change the relationship of public administration to the citizens. This applies both to factual correctness, legality, speed and cogency of decision-making and to the behaviour and conduct of public officials and elected representatives. The credibility of public administration is being damaged by unbelievably protracted treatment of proposals and other submissions to administrative authorities or inconsistent prosecution of public law offences, resulting in the citizen´s feeling of helplessness in dealing with authorities.

The objective is to strengthen legal security in this field and to create the prerequisites which would minimize the restrictions of free life and private enterprise. A number of shortcomings, such as failure to take action, procrastination or unjustified formalities, criticized by the citizens and business companies, can be eliminated by a better use of existing means. These include consistent observance of legal duties of the authorities and officials, application of the means of instance supervision, staff training, etc. However, it will be necessary to modernize some legal rules and procedures, eliminate unnecessary bureaucratic formalities and, in particular, improve communication with the citizens using a wide scale of possibilities provided by modern information instruments and technologies.

The reform strategy will focus in particular on the following issues:

the revision of legislation concerning administrative procedure. The objective is to assure the right to a fair trial in accordance with our obligations arising from the European Convention on Human Rights and the European administrative law principles (see The principles of Administrative Law Concerning the Relations between the Authorities and Private Persons, document of the Council of Europe of 1996). It will be necessary to extend the factual applicability of the Rules of Administrative Procedure and other procedural rules so as to provide adequate procedural protection of subjective rights, to refine and supplement their provisions in order to eliminate unnecessary confusion and non-uniformity of decision-making, and to facilitate the situation of the administration recipients;
the means guaranteeing consistent observance of legality and responsive behaviour and conduct of administrative authorities, the establishment of order in the civil service and in management and control mechanisms, and the application of effective motivation and training;
speedy and flexible settlement of affairs of natural persons and legal entities and consistent observation of terms;
adoption and issuance of documents defining the principles and rules for the provision of public services and ethical codes for public administration officials (see also para. 9.5);
explicit, sufficiently detailed and intelligible information for citizens, business organizations and other entities on their rights and duties in particular types of procedure (information booklets and leaflets, information centres, Internet pages with addresses, etc.);
extension of the right of citizens, civil associations and self-governing and other interested entities to make comments and suggestions on development plans, conceptual and policy materials, etc. (giving them enough time to comment);
general simplification of the situation of the parties to administrative procedure as well as of administrative authorities by a better support with information and telecommunication technology (record and filing service; co-ordinated use of state administration information systems subjected to a clearly defined administrative and technical regime).

In the endeavour to better communicate with the public and the citizens it is necessary to emphasize a non-bureaucratic approach, responsiveness, the service ethos, easy accessibility, intelligibility and listening to the citizens. Rapid provision of qualified information and advice is the key to correct administrative procedure, enhancing the feeling of legal security on the part of the citizens and facilitating the fulfilment of their civil duties. Therefore, an effective communication approach must inform the citizens about their rights and duties (e.g. in the form of users´ or citizens´ charters or codes), provide explicit and binding instructions concerning the individual administrative procedures and activities and give information and advice on how to proceed in concrete situations (often unexpected and difficult to handle by the citizen).

Both foreign and our own experience has shown that it will be desirable:

to provide information of nation-wide interest through a coordinating information centre,
to request the central authorities with competence in the respective problem areas to guarantee the content and quality of information concerning these areas,
to disseminate practical information thus prepared to lower-tier authorities and through information services directly to the citizens,
to train public servants in public relations (particularly those in public relations departments, press sections, information centres, etc.),
to ensure a solid information background enabling the "first line" workers to deal with the citizens in a qualified, competent and responsive manner,
not to forget to provide and utilize feedback (to managing and factually competent authorities).

Mutual understanding and support of public administration and the general public can be enhanced by various forms of public participation in certain phases of preparations of development concepts, physical planning or law-making, e.g. by collecting and processing public comments and suggestions, interactive exhibitions, surveys and enquiries, public hearings or civic advisory committees. Public participation provably increases the confidence in public administration decisions (especially at local and regional levels), however, it is necessary to seek equilibrium between listening to the public and the assurance of the required homogeneity and speed of activities carried out by public administration.

The improvement of the quality and the integration of information services for the public represent a step preceding logically and Tecnically the gradual integration of public administration information systems. Technologically this integration could be effected already at present. However, without adequate legislative and institutional assurance of consistent protection of personal data and other classified information it represents a potential threat to the citizens and the state. Electronic publication can be offered to the citizens and entrepreneurs both directly - on the Internet, in information kiosks, etc., and in the form of information support to various services in information centres and at counters. Successively it should be possible to make a better use of interactive electronic communication.

These electronically supported methods of informing the public can be extended gradually by introducing other forms of electronic services to the citizens, such as the provision of forms, submission of applications, tax returns, improvement of time and local accessibility of public administration, or integration of certain administrative services.