SIGMA, a joint initiative of the European Union (EU) and the OECD, largely funded by the EU, has issued revised Principles of Public Administration (the “Principles”) in response to a request from the European Commission. The goal was to single out the values and standards of good public management that can be used by EU enlargement and neighborhood administrations in their reform efforts and that can be used to solve shortcomings in public administrations.
The principles of public administration represent a comprehensive framework of standards that express the values and behaviors that citizens and businesses can expect from modern public administration. They were designed with the aim of guiding the administrations of the enlargement countries and the EU neighborhood in reform efforts to solve shortcomings in public administrations and to meet EU requirements in the context of one of the “foundations” of the accession process. For the OECD, the Principles represent an instrument for the dissemination of OECD standards of good public governance and for increasing the influence of the Organization in the administrations in which SIGMA works.
Politicians and civil servants from other transition countries can also use this framework as a tool for continuous improvement of the public administration system and as guidelines for strengthening the capacity of their public administration to create better policies for better lives, provide high-quality and user-oriented services and to effectively manage public means, as well as to be in efforts to encourage transparency and accountability and build citizens’ trust in public institutions.
The first edition of the Principles of Public Administration was published in 2014. SIGMA prepared the revised edition with the aim of: 1) updating the framework in accordance with the latest standards and practices in the EU, OECD and other international organizations; and 2) better responses to the challenges society faces today and in the future, as well as the need for responsive and agile public administrations to address emerging political priorities and citizen demands.
The Principles are designed to be “policy neutral”, enabling public administrations that follow them to better meet their governments’ political priorities, as well as economic, social, environmental or security objectives. Today, public administrations are expected to be more digital, more agile, more innovative and greener than in 2014.
This new version reflects the importance of fully embracing the potential of digitization, the lessons learned during the global COVID-19 pandemic (strengthening the agility and resilience of public administration and the flexibility of working arrangements), as well as the expectation that public administration contributes to solving environmental challenges, including climate change and biodiversity loss. This new version brings together the Principles for EU Enlargement and Neighborhood Regions, and expresses even more clearly and concisely EU values and standards for good public administration. Where there are specific standards for EU accession, they are highlighted separately.
The 2023 Principles also extend the scope of application beyond the center of government to include regional and local levels of government, with the aim of encouraging a coherent policy approach. The revised version also reflects the experience and lessons learned by the EC and SIGMA since 2014, through direct cooperation with national administrations and regular monitoring activities.
You can download the revised Principles here
https://www.sigmaweb.org/publications/Principles-of-Public-Administration-2023-edition-BCS.pdf
As a reminder, in March 2022, European ministers responsible for public administration further emphasized the need for attractive, modern and innovative public services that lead by example, transparent and resilient public services that meet user expectations, and high-quality and inclusive digital public services that respect European values. In November 2022, at the meeting of the Committee for Public Administration at the ministerial level, OECD ministers committed themselves to “strengthening, promoting and strengthening the foundations of democracies, aware of the need to face the challenges of growing and changing expectations of citizens in terms of representation, responsiveness , open government and institutional integrity, as well as green policies, including through innovative approaches in the public sector” and to “continuing efforts to build professional, effective and efficient public institutions, and high-performance leadership and civil servants in support of stronger democracies.’’
The EU and the OECD recognize that good public governance is a key factor for achieving sustainable development, economic growth, competitiveness and a better quality of life, as well as for solving key challenges in society, both today and in the future. These two organizations share views on the values that define good public governance. The OECD and the EU help governments manage increasingly complex contexts and improve public governance by providing a platform for policy dialogue and exchange of experiences, developing recommendations and preparing the necessary comparative international data and analyses. In the EU, the concept of “good governance” was gradually defined and included in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. In its Enlargement Strategy from 2014, the European Commission highlighted public administration reform as one of the “foundations” of the enlargement process and presented six thematic areas that would later form the structure of the Principles. The revised EU enlargement methodology adopted in 2020 puts the “cluster of foundations” at the very center of the accession negotiations: “Credibility should be increased by a stronger focus on the fundamental reforms necessary for success on the road to the EU, which will now play an even more important role in the accession negotiations. Negotiations on core issues will open first and close last as progress on those issues will determine the pace of negotiations. 5 Foundations address key cross-sectoral and interconnected issues ranging from the rule of law, the fight against corruption and human rights to the functioning of democratic institutions and public administration reform. Negotiations in these areas will be guided by, among other things, road maps; the road map for public administration reform will be among the benchmarks requested from the negotiating countries. In October 2022, the European Commission’s Communication on EU Enlargement Policy emphasized the key purpose of public administrations to respond to new problems and achieve results for the benefit of citizens, as well as the main shortcomings in the enlargement countries: “Public institutions and administrations must be ready to respond to social problems and effectively implement policies. Modernization of public administrations remains a key issue in all enlargement countries. Politicization still undermines the capacity of public administrations and their reputation as a desirable employer. While there is in principle an awareness of the need for key reforms to create administrations that are professional and merit-based, more leadership and effort will be needed to improve policy planning, public finance, people management and accountability.” In order to increase coherence, the European Commission harmonizes its approach to dialogue with member states and candidate countries on the importance of quality public administration: “The Commission aims to ensure a high degree of coherence in its approach to policies, including after accession, by continuously highlighting the importance of quality public administration and providing of an equivalent assessment framework for the purpose of measuring the quality of public administration. This is to avoid a situation in which ‘hard-won’ positive reforms, for example aimed at a professional civil service based on merit, are reversed after the country becomes a member of the EU.