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CHANGE OF MENTALITY.
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
REFORM
Ion Galea
Importance of administration reform
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EU enlargement; Copenhagen criteria
stability of democratic institutions guaranteeing
democracy, rule of law, human rights and
existence of a functioning market economy, as well as
capacity to cope with competitive pressure and
market forces within the EU
Without an efficient administration, these goals
could have been hardly achieved.
Importance of administration reform
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Role of state: how “much”/how “well”
it is essential to concentrate on how “well” the State
functions.
having an efficient administration is essential for the
good management of resources collected through
taxes from the citizens
Perception
Citizens may perceive administration to act in personal
interest;
 Point of departure: Commission Report on Romania
2000
“Weak policy co-ordination and consultation procedures
continue to reduce the efficiency of the government”
“Corruption continues to be a widespread and systemic
problem. It undermines not only the functioning of the
legal system but also has detrimental effects on the
economy and has led to a loss of confidence in public
authorities.”
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Difficulty of the reform
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Administration is composed of people
Changing the mentality/attitude of civil servants;
1903: “I wish the administration to become a
second magistracy”;
Ideal civil servant: professional, proud of his work,
sufficient financial resources, conscience of duty to
work for citizens
Recruitment and training
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Law on the Status of Civil Servants was adopted in
1999 (Law 188/1999)
Civil Service Agency:
design public administration reforms
monitor the implementation of the statute, to
organize training programs
set up evaluation criteria and to keep the record
files of civil servants
Recruitment and training
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Detailed regulation of competitive recruitment
procedures
Implementation
Role of Freedom of Information requests for
implementation:
composition of the commission in charge with the
specific competitive requirement (thus checking for
possible incompatibilities), names of persons declared
admitted following the competition, names of persons
appointed on management positions
Cases
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Case no. 385/22.02.2011, TM v. Local Public
Finance Service Dambovita. The petitioner requested
the document containing the attributions of head of
unit M.C. The Tribunal admitted the action, rejecting
the plea of the Public Finance Service based on the
personal data exception and lack of direct interest.
Even if the solution of the Court of Appeal was
contrary, the Tribunal also granted moral damages
to the petitioner.
Cases
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Case no. 272/08.02.2011, TM v. Police, by which
the petitioner requested a table containing the list
of all employees of the Local Police, including
surname, first name, position and functions. The
authority replied that the names of all employees
were already made public ex officio, on the
website of the institution, but that other information
was covered by the exception on personal data.
Both the Tribunal and the Court of Appeals upheld
the position of the Police
Continuous training
Examples of good practices:
i) a system of promotion, according to a scale of
professional grades provided by law, on the basis of
“points” obtained following participating in training
programmes;
ii) a system according to which young graduates from
universities were provided government scholarships for
master programmes in EU Member States, subject to the
contractual obligation to work in the public
administration for five years;
iii) the creation of a National Institute of Public
Administration, in charge with training programmes
Salaries
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highly important factor for creating a professional
and effective administration
it is essential for civil servants not to be practically
obliged to search for other sources of income
system of professional grades and managerial
structures
difficulty to regulate national-level salaries
economic crisis: i) 25% reduction; ii) “freezing” new
recruitment
Establishing procedures
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Procedures provided by laws and implementing
regulations reduce corruption, reduce the margin of
discretion of deciding factors
De-centralisation – advantages:
i) decisions are taken on a local level, thus
enhancing the sense of ownership for local
authorities;
ii) civil servants on local level know better the
realities involved by the respective decision.
De-centralisation
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Challenges:
i) the need to provide for strict competencies of the
local authorities and to regulate their relation with
the central government and
ii) the need to provide adequate financial resources
for exercising their competence
- Law 215/2001 on local public administration
Transparency
Transparency in decision-making
- Law 52/2003:
- procedures for consulting citizens and non-governmental
authorities when elaborating normative acts and
procedures related to the participation of interested
persons in public meetings
- institutions are obliged to make a public announcement
about a draft normative act and to allow citizens and
non-governmental authorities to formulate proposals
Transparency in decision-making
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Deadlines - 30 days prior to initiating the formal
submission proposals and 10 days for receiving
written comments from the public
if citizens or non-governmental authorities demand
in written the organization of a public debate, the
authority is obliged to establish such a debate – by
making a public announcement about the debate
with a minimum 3 days notice
Transparency - financial resources
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law on free access to public information obliges all
public authorities to make public the “financial
sources, budget and balance”
development through practice of requests:
all salaries of all officials and civil servants are
published on website;
a list of expenditures and the name of companies to
whom the payment is made is posted monthly on the
website.
Declaration of assets and interests
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Law 176/2010 concerning integrity in the exercise
of public functions
every official and civil servant is obliged to issue a
declaration of assets and interests
The declaration is communicated to the National
Integrity Agency and posted on the website (except
for personal data).
The National Integrity Agency is competent for
verifying the relation between the declared assets
and the regular income of a person.
National Integrity Agency
- on 18 August 2014, following a decision of the High
Court of Cassation and Justice which confirmed a
report of the Agency finding that certain local public
officials infringed the legal regime of incompatibilities,
the Agency asked the prefect to revoke 9 local public
officials (mayors and local councilors).
- on 22 August 2014, the Agency found a difference of
about 41.000 Euro between the declared assets and
the regular income in case of a police officer. All
findings of the Agency are made public on its website.
Public procurement
Importance:
i) it is one of the most important modality in which
public money is spent;
ii) it is very sensitive to corruption and conflicts of
interest;
iii) it has an important economic impact, bringing
significant advantage to companies which are
selected following public procurement procedures
(within the EU, public procurement is treated within
the free movement of goods).
Public procurement
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legislative framework - transposition or
harmonization with EU law, particularly Directives
2004/17 and 2004/18
In Romania, complete transposition of these
directives was achieved in 2006 (Ordinance
34/2006);
Institutions: National Authority for Regulation in the
field of Public Procurement and National Council for
Regulating Complains
Importance of “declaration of interests”
Public procurement - Mentality
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Long practice of good practices and challenges – even
criminal cases or administrative sanctions for
incompatibility – in order for civil servants to develop
behavioural patterns
“reflex” to apply the correct public procurement
procedure.
Practice: mayors to get rid of a tendency to “agree”
with a business person for a “common” project; central
government - the practice not to be able to establish
with a foreign partner, for example an infrastructure
project.
Importance of Free Access to
Information
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decentralized system
each public institution or authority has to implement
the right to free access on its own basis, through a
specific compartment/unit
The control of applying the law is done by the
judiciary – no national authority for the supervision
of the right to free access to public information.
Importance of Free Access to Information
In most cases, public information requests concerned:
 restitution of property;
 salaries of civil servants;
 measures adopted in criminal proceedings;
 expenses from public funds;
 requests for reobtaining Romanian citizenship
Study conducted in 2011 (IPP)
Tribunal (first instance jurisdiction) rejected 61,5% of
the requests based on Law 544/2001.
Decisions of the Tribunal were reversed by the Court
of Appeals in 17% cases (of which, in 27% of the
cases the appeals were filed by petitioners and in
71% of the cases by the authorities)
Free Access to Information
Develops mentality change through:
i) the fact that institutions are obliged by law to create
special divisions/units or to assign persons for the
implementation of the law;
ii) the fact that civil society became active and big
NGOs submitted requests for free access to information
in an organized manner;
iii) the fact that one of the biggest users of the right to
free access is media, and lack of reaction or a negative
response may have a media impact, if not a legal one.
Continuing challenges
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E-government
Achievements: electronic tenders are conducted and the
Electronic System of Public Procurement
Challenges: Case no. 447/28.02.2011 CIISTE SRL v.
National Agency for Civil Service, 52 cases ISD v.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one case being
670/24.03.2011 - demonstrate that if institutions
already detained databases, there would have been
no grounds to refuse the free access to information.
Lack of databases determined that the institutions and,
in certain cases, courts, establish that the information is
not available and thus refuse free access.
Continuing challenges
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Codification of administrative procedure
in 2008 a Government Decision (no. 1360/2008) was
adopted concerning the preliminary thesis of the Code
of Administrative Procedure
A draft text of the Code was presented publicly by the
Ministry of Interior.
bring together all relevant pieces of legislation
concerning central and local authorities, administrative
claims
incorporate the provisions of Law no. 544/2001 on
free access to public information.