Public administration reform: money spent and results lacking

1.2 million KM was spent from the Public Administration Reform Fund to teach 2,400 employees in public institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to work in basic computer programs. The goal of the training was to make civil servants more productive at work with greater computer literacy. However, it is difficult to check whether their productivity has increased.

After the training, which was completed two years ago, most officers received a certificate of acquired knowledge. However, only some civil service managers evaluate the work of employees. Therefore, as things stand now, employees must be taken at their word when they say that there is progress in their business after the training.

According to a survey by the Sarajevo-based Center for Investigative Reporting (CIN), 10.3m KM has been spent on public administration reform in the past eight years, mostly donor funds. Only half of the planned obligations, set by the end of this year, have been implemented, and for now, citizens cannot feel any progress in their daily lives.

Everyone is late, no one is punished

Public administration reform was agreed eight years ago as a process that every country must go through before becoming a candidate for membership of the European Union (EU). The prime ministers of BiH, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), Republika Srpska (RS) and the mayor of Brcko District have agreed to reform public administration at all four levels, with every move requiring the consent of representatives at all levels.

A Strategy for Public Administration Reform has been developed and an Action Plan with activities, deadlines and responsibilities of individual institutions has been defined. According to these documents, at the end of 2014. BiH should have a more efficient and accountable public administration.

In order to monitor the implementation of the reform, the Public Administration Reform Coordinator’s Office (PARCO) was established as a state institution within the BiH Council of Ministers. However, the existing documents do not provide for penalties in case of non-compliance.

In the 2006 Strategy. Six reform spheres were identified in 2006: public finance, administrative procedure, human resources management, drafting of legal regulations, information technology and institutional communication. Most of the work was to be done by the institutions, while a smaller part depended on projects funded by foreign donors through the Fund.

So far, 10.3 million KM has been spent from the Fund for 12 completed projects and technical assistance in creating these projects, and another three million KM have been approved for current projects. The money was donated by: the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in BiH, the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DfID) and the Delegation of the European Commission to BiH.

Based on data on projects financed by the Fund and data provided by institutions, PARCO representatives write annual reports on progress in the reform process.

However, the head of the PARCO Operational Unit, Aleksandar Karišik, reminds that every project, no matter how well designed and done, is short-lived and the reform cannot end with it. He told CIN that each project requires government approvals, and after its completion, the institution will continue to apply.

“And that is the key link, one of the problems, that we do not have the responsibility of institutions to take over those results and to develop them further.” (…) At one point, someone has to do things without projects and continue what the project has left, ”says Karišik.

An attempt at systematic appraisal of officials

Over two million marks from the Fund were spent on human resources management, including computer training. Although this decision seems superfluous, as the ability to work on a computer is one of the basic conditions for admission to the civil service, donors believe that it should have been done.

“If a civil servant does not know how to read what is written on his computer, if he does not know how to use a system – he is wasting everything. In order to go one step further, we need to make these people literate “, says Mario Vignjević, program manager at SIDA. He adds that the ultimate goal of that project was more efficient service to citizens.

Along with the project of training civil servants to work on computers, PARCO designed a project to introduce a new system of evaluation and monitoring of the work of employees in public administration, for which slightly less than 750 thousand KM was spent.

For that money, BiH institutions, both entities and the Brcko District received new or amended regulations and a manual on appraisal of officials. The new regulations oblige managers to analyze the evaluations of employees and submit a report to the competent civil service agency, which forwards it to the government. The goal is for managers to follow their plans and results through regular conversations with employees, and to fit their personal goals into the goals of the institution in order to increase motivation for work.

More than 600 managers were trained on the evaluation process itself and its importance. Upon completion of the project, the institutions should have implemented this mechanism, which leads to more successful work.

A year and a half after the end of the project, it turned out that the recommendations for the evaluation of officials were fully complied with only by the institutions in the Republika Srpska (RS), because only in the rulebook of this entity there are penal provisions.

At the state level, less than half of the institutions submitted appraisal reports. Among them are mostly institutions with a small number of employees and only three of the nine ministries. The Ministry of Justice, as one of the most important institutions for public administration reform, did not submit a report, and the same is the case with the Council of Ministers, which is obliged to evaluate the heads of institutions.

In the Federation of BiH, there is no aggregate data on evaluation, and in the Brčko District, the rulebook has not yet been adopted.

Functions without responsibility

Political responsibility for implementing public administration reform rests with the Council of Ministers, the governments of both entities and the Brcko District Government. Their heads are members of the Coordination Committee for Economic Development and European Integration, a body committed to meeting at least twice a year to review reform progress. However, since the adoption of the 2006 Strategy. year, the Board did not discuss this topic.

Apart from the lack of political support, the head of the PARCO Operational Unit Karisik says that the goals have not been achieved due to the complex organization of the state and the reform system according to which all levels of government must agree on all activities.

“The third thing is the people themselves, capacities and motivation for change. “I think that could be overcome if there was a clearer, more direct orientation at the political level and the obligation to carry out reforms,” Karisik said.

The ultimate goal of reform is simple administration. However, citizens still cannot feel any progress in everyday life. “That story for the citizens should start only now,” says Aneta Raić, a representative of PARCO. However, there is no data on which projects citizens can feel about the reformed administration.

The original plan was to start in 2006. until 2010 is working on improving the administration and individual sectors such as health, environment, education and others, and by the end of 2014. these sectors are perfecting. However, BiH has not yet reached that step.

Due to this delay, neither the institutions nor the responsible individuals were punished, but the citizens were indirectly punished. According to the European Commission’s Annual Progress Report on BiH for 2013. “very little progress” has been made in public administration reform.

“This process lacks the necessary political support. (…) The continued fragmentation and politicization of the civil service system remains a cause for concern, ”the report said.

Donors will help if the state also helps

SIDA project manager Mario Vignjevic says donors are also noticing the government’s lack of concern for public administration reform. He told CIN that donors, while pleased with what they had done, expected more when they began funding the reform with the establishment of the Fund.

Some donors, meanwhile, have withdrawn. The Dutch Embassy has changed its strategic goal in BiH, and DfID has closed its office. Instead of them, thanks to the influence of SIDA, new ones came – the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Norway, which gave about six million KM for the reform, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark with about 7.4 million KM.

Donors have set a condition for the reform to be helped by domestic budgets, so to date, four governments have paid a total of 755,000 KM into the Fund. About 20 million marks of donors and money from the budget are available for the next phases of the reform. In the first phase, donors were satisfied that the projects were done at all four levels of administrative reform and that they were unanimously agreed by all governments. At the same time, they saw it as a problem, as governments often took a long time to approve the project.

Vignjevic says that the money for the continuation of the reform is ready, but that the government must have a new plan, considering that the existing one expires at the end . If that doesn’t happen, perhaps the worst thing could happen – donors will stop funding.

“I doubt very much that someone will close their eyes and say, ‘Come on, OK, we will give it to them regardless of the fact that they are not fulfilling their obligations and that there is no plan.’ Another black assumption is that other potential donors will say: “What do we need, let’s invest where there are results, where the responsibility of the government is at the level,” Vignjevic explained.

Source: CIN.ba.