At the session held yesterday, the Council of Ministers of BiH has adopted the Semi-Annual Report on Work of the Public Administration Reform Coordinator’s Office for the period January 1 – June 30, 2011 and the Decision on Adopting of the Annual Financial Report of the Public Administration Reform Fund for 2010.
It has been concluded in the report that in the first half of the year the Public Administration Reform Coordinator’s Office has completed its activities on preparation of the Revised Action Plan 1 (RAP1) and sent this document to the Council of Ministers of BiH, entity governments and the Government of the Brčko District of BiH for adoption. This document has been adopted on June 14, 2011 by the Council of Ministers of BiH, on August 24, 2011 by the Government of the Federation of BiH and on September 1, 2011 by the Government of the Republic of Srpska. It is expected that the document will be adopted by the Government of the Brčko District of BiH by the end of September.
Through the Revised AP1 for all six reform areas (Administrative Procedure, Public Finance, Human Resources Management, Policy Making and Coordination Capacities, Institutional Communication and Information Technologies), with précised deadlines, activities and bodies responsible for implementation and deadlines for implementing of measures until 2014, public administration should become strengthened and closer to citizens and business society.
The RAP1 should quicken the public administration reform process and contribute to faster completion of conditions required from the BiH administration in the process of associating the European Union. The RAP1 also directs the PAR to implementation of concrete measures that will have a direct benefit for citizens, business subjects and society in general. Planned has also been the introduction of e-services, as are e-taxes on total revenue of citizens, e-registration of vehicles and electronic traffic confirmations. The plan also stipulates the establishment of the unified database of all laws and bylaws that will be accessible to citizens. The measures also stipulate the adaptation of working hours to citizens, introduction of regular measuring of satisfaction of administrative service users where needed.
In the first half of the year the PARCO has been working on encouraging the implementation of measures from the AP1. The total progress in the PAR implementation in Bosnia and Herzegovina reached by now is around 50 %. By the work plan of the Council of Ministers of BiH for the first six months of 2011, the PARCO has had six planned activities and four of them have been implemented.
The emphasis of mentioned activities was on organization and coordination of work of the supervisory teams in all six reform areas. Coordination and organization of work of these teams are responsibility of the reform area expert advisers of the PARCO, who are in continuous contact with the supervisory team members. In the first six months of this year, the total of ten (10) meetings of supervisory teams has been held.
Pilot monitoring reports
By the support of the technical assistance EUPAR project, prepared has been the pilot monitoring report and the second monitoring report for the project "Development of Performance Management System in the Structures of Civil Service of BiH", the pilot monitoring report for the project " Drafting of Administrative Decision Making in Bosnia and Herzegovina Quality Improvement Program" as well as the pilot report on evaluation of the project "Training of officers for public relations". The report has stated that drafting of monitoring of the project "Training of civil servants for application of information technologies" is ongoing.
The obligation from the Common Platform on Principles and Manners of the implementation of the Action Plan 1 of the PAR Strategy has been implemented by implementation teams as well, who have been included in the operational project implementation.
The PAR Fund Joint Management Board has approved so far 14 projects from which 13 relate to all four administration levels, while the project "Treasury Information System of the Brčko District of BiH" is individual and relates only to the Brčko District. Four projects have been finished; six of them are in the implementation phase, three in the public procurement procedure and one is in the process of preparing the Terms of Reference. The total of 9.980.025.88 KM has been approved in 2010 for the implementation of these projects. The PARCO has prepared a list of new project ideas and proposals for the projects that will be nominated for financing from the PAR Fund.
The report has also concluded that the Council of Ministers of BiH and the Government of the Brčko District of BiH have allocated funds for supporting the PAR Fund from the budget, to the initiative of the PARCO. This initiative has been sent to the entity governments as well. In the first half of the year, continued has also been cooperation with donors. The SIDA is ready to invest additional three million Euros in the PAR Fund in the period 2012-2014, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway plans to invest three millions Euros in the period 2011-2013 as well.
During the semi-annual reporting period, implemented have been the activities related to three projects financed from the PAR Fund, successfully completed implementation of the project "Strategic Planning and Policy Development" and prepared the project proposal for the project "Design of Software for Support to Drafting Laws and Other Regulations" as well as the Terms of Reference for the project "Blueprint of Development of Central Bodies of Governments in BiH – implementation phase II" , which has been placed on the list of projects for financing from the IPA 2010. The supervisory teams have been supervising and directing the implementation of projects in order to ensure the completion of objectives determined by the PAR Strategy. The projects nominated for financing from the PAR Fund and IPA have been selected on the basis of priorities set by two supervisory teams from this reform area.
In the first half of the year, the PARCO has continued activities on the implementation of part of the PAR Strategy related to the preparation of the Action Plan 2. In cooperation with the technical assistance EUPAR project, finished has been the document called Preparation of the Second Action Plan – Creation of a basis for the sustainable development of sector administrative capacity. On basis of the technical assistance proposals, the activities have been directed towards determining the current condition of the public administration in practice, through the catalogs/evidence. The PARCO has begun drafting the catalog of the institutions from all four administration levels. The preliminary catalog has been prepared for the levels of BiH and the Brčko District of BiH, by the review of valid regulations at both administration levels. Drafting of catalog of institutions for two entities is one of the ongoing activities. After checking of the data with competent institutions the catalogs will be unified. They contain the information on institutions, laws that are being implemented, competencies, monitoring mechanisms, subordination system, typology etc. As a part of the technical assistance project, one of the ongoing activities is also a preparation of the analysis of organization administration model inside BiH as well as the model in the European Union Member States, which should be used for a comparison of local regulations with decisions and principles of the Member State administrations. In coordination of the PARCO, successfully implemented has also been the first phase in the IPA 2011 – 2013 assistance programming in the PAR sector.
The whole PARCO Semi-Annual Report on Work you can look here .