Management and employees of the Public Administration Reform Coordinator’s Office, as well as entity public administration reform coordinators in BiH, within the study visit organised by the Technical Assistance Team in the period November 8 – 13 this year, have been in Zagreb and Ljubljana where they visited state ministries for administration as well as other institutions.
State Secretary of the Ministry of Administration of the Republic of Croatia, Edmond Miletić, together with his associates presented to us the work of this Ministry and the organization of the state administration in Croatia. The Ministry of Public Administration was established last year with the objective of strengthening public administration. Marko Kovačić, director of the Institute of Public Administration of the Ministry of Public Administration, spoke, among other things, on modernization of public administration and modernization of civil service legislation and on strengthening the role of electronic government in economic development. According to him, nearly 90 percent of the measures from the Strategy of Public Administration Reform have already been implemented. Next year, the new strategy for the period 2012 – 2017 should see the light of day. Sanda Pipunić, Director of Administration for Human Resources, presented the significant elements of the Law on Civil Service of the Republic of Croatia. She noted that production of the register of public sector employees, amendments to the Law on Civil Service, improvements to the evaluation process, setting objectively measurable criteria for evaluation are only some of the activities ahead.
We also visited the Centre for Professional Training of Civil Servants, which works within the Ministry of Administration and was formed in 2004. Duška Bošnjaković, head of the Department for Organisational Implementations of Training Programs in the Centre spoke on development of human resources through continuous training and education of officials. In addition to the Ministry of Public Administration, we also visited the Central National Office for Development Strategy and Coordination of EU funds. Hrvoje Dolnec, State Secretary of the Office, informed us on the National Strategic Reference Framework, a document for programming of EU Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund after the Republic of Croatia becomes the full member of the European Union and coordination of EU funds available to Croatia.
In Ljubljana, we were met by representatives of the Ministry of Administration of the Republic of Slovenia, where we discussed with the State Secretary Tina Teržan and her associates on the public administration reform, and Mr. Dusan Kričej presented to us e-administration and achievements in this area. Thanks to this reform, Slovenians register companies today through the portal e-VEM in a very short time. Also, former Minister of Administration of Slovenia, Gregor Virant, as one of the hosts of our visit, demonstrated how in just a few steps you can extend the driver’s license. Ms. Renata Zatler, spoke to us about removal of administrative barriers, concrete results and savings that are achieved by this reform, while Ms. Štefka Korade – Purg talked reform in the area of HRM.
We visited also the Government Service for Development and Economic Relations where Mr. Andrej Engleman presented to us the preparations of the programme for integration of Croatia in the EU.
We spent some time in the Administrative Unit of Novo mesto. Mayor Jozef Preskar and his associates spoke to us about the work of this administrative unit. Evidence, among other things, to the fact that the motto “citizens’ satisfaction comes first” is not just words is researches. One such research, carried out recently, revealed an interesting fact: with the work of the Administrative unit Novo mesto citizens are happier than their own employees. Reason for this is that because of amendments to the Law on Administrative Procedure, for quite some time in Novo Mesto there are no congestions at the counters or long lines. Administrative bodies are now, instead of citizens, obligated to take care of any fact on which there is an official note. That means that citizens do not need any more to prove facts, because that is being done for them by the administration. Computerisation of the Administrative unit Novo mesto began in 1998, all in order to be as close as possible to citizens.