Minutes of the 63rd Meeting of EUPAN Directors General

4th December 2014

Sala delle Conferenze internazionali

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Piazzale della Farnesina, Rome

Welcome and introduction

Ms. Pia Marconi, Head of the DPA - Department for Public Administration, Italy, opened the meeting. She welcomed all participants and expressed her satisfaction for the high level of participation. She remarked that the Ministerial meeting held on Dec. 3 - after seven years since the last meeting - showed the importance attached to this issue and resulted in the Conclusions that underpin the EUPAN development process. The DG meeting would then focus on the future of EUPAN. She illustrated the agenda and announced that Latvia, the next Presidency to take over, would outline their programme before the end of the meeting.

Approval of the minutes of the 62nd DG and WGs meetings in Athens.

The final version of Athens meetings minutes was approved with the addition of the amendments proposed by EUPAN members.

Ms Marconi reported about the results of the activities implemented during the Italian semester of Presidency. Topics were agreed upon with the Trio Countries and presented yesterday for discussion. The sessions will focus on HRM competencies, reports on competencies for HR Management in public sector, Administrative and institutional capability, open government as a driver for PA modernisation and the use and impact of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF), the tool identified through EUPAN cooperation. An attempt was made to innovate the working methods and a positive feedback was received from WGs. An additional attempt was made to try and reduce the burden for countries to respond to questionnaires. And the need is felt to produce easy-to-read reports. Before giving the floor to the first speaker she concluded that all these elements would be kept in consideration when redefining the EUPAN operating methods for the future.

Session on MTP activities by the Italian Presidency

Competencies in HRM

Leonello Tronti, National School of Administration

Mr Tronti gave a report on two exercises made on Competencies and HRM at the European level.

Concerning the first item, the DPA (the Department for Public Administration at the Italian Prime Ministers Office) launched a survey Managing Competencies in Public Administrations (MC-PA) among EUPAN members to gather information on how EU countries manage civil servant competencies and on methods and procedures for Strategic Workforce and Competence Planning.

36 Countries and the EU Commission were surveyed. 27 countries responded (24 EU Member States).

Performance was specifically assessed for: individual results, individual competencies, organisation results, unit results and team results.

Countries were asked what is affected by performance assessment: training needs; career progress; pay and bonuses/benefits.

Then a focus was made on Strategic Workforce and Competency Planning (SWCP). This is a four-step planning process. 1) Statistical forecasting of population and, accordingly, their needs for public services; 2) Mapping present public employees competencies linked to future evolution of population; 3) planning competency needs; and 4) planning public employee capacity (mobility, turnover) and competencies.

The key elements for SWCP are: 1) Competency mapping, 2) Strategic workforce mapping and 3) SWP based on population needs. The surveyed countries were grouped according to their compliance with the selected criteria.

A comparison exercise between 17 EU countries was made by Italian ISFOL, which is responsible for OECD-PIAAC data. This exercise was designed to provide an international comparison on public employees competencies.

Some processing skills were compared: literacy, numeracy, writing, ICT, problem solving, task discretion, learning at work, influencing others, cooperation, self-organisation, dexterity, physical skills.

Data show vast differences between European countries, as for: 1) institutional arrangements of HRM and competence management in public administrations; 2) HRM and competence management instruments & practices; 3) Competency levels & mixes of European public employees.

This exercise showed that there are clear differences in HR management. There is an interest in deepening and sharing common knowledge on these issues and on best practices.

Ms. Marconi thanked Mr. Tronti for the presentation and gave the floor to Mr. Mitchell, the following speaker.

Institutional and administrative capacity

James Mitchell, University of Edinburgh

Mr Mitchell thanked for the invitation. He gave a presentation on the findings of cooperative work carried out on Institutional and Administrative Capacity (IAC). The result of cooperation is a number of interesting co-produced papers.

Why a IAC. New challenges from cross-border matters (i.e. pollution) are becoming ever more pressing. Is there a capacity to cooperate in solutions? Additionally, across states there are deep-entrenched problems that governments are still trying to address (i.e. institutional and administrative capacity)

AIC is defined as a capacity to deliver, regulate, coordinate and analyse. Because State is changing, Public administrations are struggling to deliver results to citizens. And the role of regulation has become far more important. This is now done by arms length institutions and becomes a question of regulatory capacity.

Also coordination is an issue of capacity which becomes of vital importance when addressing underlying problems and crucial for trans-boundary matters.

EUPAN gave a quick definition of IAC, OECD and UNDP as well. However it is important to consider the foci of IAC: the enabling environment, the organisational level and the individual level. Most of the time, one element is neglected. It is difficult to say which element is unsuccessful. Capacity also needs to be measured. This is a challenge, not a matter of the simplest metrics. It is essential to understand what is at the bottom of the basic idea.

The table in the slideshow provides the key points: an iterative and coproduced understanding and implementing process of changing to put IAC into action and integrate it in our environment.

What has been done in governance? Six key requirements were established that could be applied to international cooperation. He encouraged looking at this work. Each requirement relates to governmental institution enhancement and capacity building.

A big challenge will arise in the next few years in capacity building. In order to try to change institutions and processes, it is easy to just create new ones. At the end of the day what will get to people? A new Constitution is not sufficient per se. It takes a generation before the effects are felt. We cannot wait a generation. We cannot change a constitution without changing the mindset.

IAC is an unfortunate term. It applies to formal institutions, but also affects informal institutions as the core values norms. Both are equally important. Hence cooperation is needed between institutions and groups. But we are not building a house, we are building a community. This is much more difficult. It involves changes in the peoples mindset. It requires an empathic look. It entails encouraging boundary span out and reach out. Facilitation and mediation skills are required. But they are not part of traditional skill sets. They have to be applied and replicable at all levels.

The analytical element is vital. Donald Rumsfeld stressed on the importance of analytical analysis with the three well-known categories. But there is a fourth category: the unknown knowns; these are matters which we intentionally refuse to acknowledge that we know. IAC is not rocket science but for some reason there is some blockage that prevents us to move forward. We need to be more honest and face the unknown knowns.

Ms. Marconi thanked for the presentation and gave the floor to the following speaker

Impact of Open Government and Public Sector Modernization in Europe

Davide Del Monte, Transparency International Italia

The speaker analysed the potential of positive impact on citizens trust that comes from the many facets of the modernisation process: participation, transparency and coproduction of public services.

First, the impact of Open Government (OG) was analysed. 8 cases were analysed according to 4 dimensions: Participation; Co-production of innovative services and open data; Transparency Accountability; Economic efficiency

Four experts were selected from various sectors to have broader points of view.

The analysis was made by desk review of documents and direct interviews. After the analysis, a blind vote from 1 to 5 was assigned to each dimension to evaluate the impact of each case. Cases ranged from open data sources to traditional participation enablers.

The final score showed the impact of the case on PA modernisation.

The first results showed a high participation rate in all but three cases. The highest impact was recorded for Statutory elected senior citizens council which does not really concern Open government since this is a form of more traditional citizen participation. Other cases were innovative for the use of technology.

There are some difficulties to evaluate OG economic efficiency because of the lack of data since these initiatives only date back to two or three years ago. The UK seems to be the best case. It is the only one that addresses the problem of mismanagement and corruption.

The participation rate was weak, and from the public sector only. The causes