A STRATEGIC APPROACH TO PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REFORMS

Good governance and the quality of public administration is a key aspect in ensuring a country’s long-term competi­tiveness and well-being. The path towards good gov­ernance requires a long-term vision centred on a genuine consideration of the needs of citizens and business. Building trust should be a priority. Consensus building and a strate­gic approach are the pre-conditions for successful reform. The active engagement of all stakeholders is needed.

Strategic Approach

Institutional capacity is not just a technical matter of train­ing civil servants, it relates to how public authorities inter­act with and deliver services to business and citizens. Good governance is the basis and ultimate objective of insti­tutional capacity building. Good governance builds trust and social capital. States with a high level of social capital tend to perform better economically. Context factors remain key for the design of a comprehensive strategic approach to public administration reform. Context factors include: institutional stability, stake­holder involvement, alignment of goals and effectiveness of cooperation between actors involved.

Building on these factors, the following conditions of success can be highlighted: the existence of a customised, country-specific approach that clearly identifies the main weaknesses of administrations as well as the main policy areas that require administrative support (diagnosis level); sufficient focus on the regional and local dimension; and the need for the institutional and administrative capacity building process to follow a frame­work of coherent reforms, as opposed to ad hoc actions.

The EU encourages Member States to approach modernisation of public administration from a strategic point of view, with a focus on the following  “Principles of Excellence”:

• Results orientation
• Citizens/customer focus
• Leadership and constancy of purpose
• Management of processes and facts
• People development and involvement
• Continuous innovation and improvement
• Partnership development
• Social responsibility

 Fostering Public Sector Innovation

The current socio-economic and financial context the EU is fac­ing poses a challenge. However, the situation is also a driver for public administrations to mobilise their full innovative poten­tial in order to meet citizens’ needs more efficiently and effec­tively. These drivers for innovation are, generally: pressure on government budgets; rising public expectations of more acces­sible and flexible services and greater participation in service and policy development and review; and complex social, envi­ronmental and economic challenges. All these elements together are found  in the current political, economic and social circumstances across all EU Member States.

Innovation in the public sector means :  new or improved services; process innova­tion; administrative innovation; system innovation; conceptual innovation; radical (or paradigmatic) changes of belief systems or rationalities.

The process of building an innovative public organization is better addressed in strategic terms, given the dynamic nature of innovative action. The process can be seen as a journey of four dimensions:

• Creating consciousness about the goals the organization intends to achieve;
• Building capacity;
• Mastering co-creation (involving stakeholders from policy design to implementation and evaluation; policy-making not for them, but with them);
• Displaying courage and audacity to champion innovative ideas.

The objective of administrative capacity development, with regard to public sector innovation, is to systematically embed innovation into the operation of the public sector and thus harness innovation when it happens. Public organisations’ purpose, capabilities and cultural impact on how innovation occurs should all be taken into account. The translation of a good idea into a successful outcome needs the appropriate institutional framework: conditions to unlock the innovation potential. For innovation to happen, there is a need to estab­lish an environment conducive to systemic innovation and an innovation culture. If innovation is not a strategic priority, public sector organisations are unlikely to focus on and measure their innovative practices: Unleashing this potential will require a holistic, systemic policy approach which involves the institu­tional features and considers the underlying framework condi­tions.