Public administration: current stage
According to World Bank and European Commission the Slovak republic has one of the least developed public administration (PA), especially in the area of efficiency of PA, which proves the Worldwide Governance Indicators.
The OECD analysis ÒSlovak republic: Developing a Sustainable Strategic Framework for Public Administration ReformÓ (available at https://www.oecd.org/governance/slovak-republic-better-co-ordination-for-better-policies-services-and-results-9789264247635-en.htm) shows that PA in Slovak republic is characterized especially by non-quality and non-uniform system of human resource management and high turnover among staff. According to OECD review high turnover is caused by several factors including relatively unattractive work in PA as well as impact of the political cycle.
Organizations in PA and their processes are departmentally directed and vertically structured. It means, that besides core processes, organization units have to ensure cross-sectional sub-processes like registry, managing assets, IT support, accounting etc., This is typical for traditional model of PA , which is still dependent on paper documents and files that are deposited in archives with limited capacity. Individualism of organizations is as well characterized by monolithic information systems with non-integrated data and registers, which is many times the cause of bottlenecks and inefficiencies.
According to the report INTERNATIONAL CIVIL SERVICE EFFECTIVENESS (INCISE) INDEX 2017 published by University of Oxford in 2017, Slovakia is ranked the least effective from 31 countries. The areas where performance is lower comparing to other countries are human resource management, digital services and policy making. (Reference document, page 1)
Employees in public administration
Data collected by the International Labour Organization suggest that employment in the Slovak Republic’s general government and public corporations (the Òpublic sectorÓ in the System of National Accounts) accounts for a relatively high share of total employment (27%; 2013) compared to other OECD countries, exceeded only by the Scandinavian countries (Denmark; 35%; 2013). A somewhat different picture emerges when employment in general government is separated out from employment in public corporations. Data for 2011 indicate that general government employment as a percentage of the labour force in the Slovak Republic was below the OECD average and very close to the Central and Eastern European country average.
Although the share of public administration employees in total employment is 27%, the problem is low wages. Compensation of government employees in the Slovak Republic as a percentage of GDP in 2010 was one of the lowest of all OECD countries (7.7% of GDP). In 2012, compensation of general government employees as a share of total public expenditure was below both the OECD and Central and Eastern European country average.
The salary system in Slovak public administration places importance on formal education and skills, but it less appreciates difficulty level of processes or individual performance. So far, there has been no systematic capacity planning executed or analysis published to ensure, that the government, as a whole, has an adequate workforce to deliver current or future strategic objectives in public service provision in an efficient and effective manner.
Operational programme Effective Public Administration 2014-2020
The above mentioned shortcomings were addressed in Strategic framework of Public administration reform by defining strategic objectives, subsequently linked to Operational programme Effective Public Administration (OP EPA), launched by the Ministry of Interior of the Slovak republic (MI SR) in 2012. These objectives, especially in area of performance and efficiency, are fulfilled through the national project ÒProcess Optimization in Public AdministrationÓ, funded by European Union funds. The project recognises the importance of stronger collaboration across institutional boundaries and seeks to rationalise the structure of the deconcentrated state administration, which is the biggest added value
Final results of using Process Management for Human Resources Development in Slovak Public Administration, which is a subset of national project, will contribute to robust whole-of-government coordination led by the centre of government, more systematic use of evidence-based policy making tools such as regulatory impact assessment, stronger decision making capacity to improve results, costs reduction, facilitate the daily work of the public administration and enhance the quality of services provided to citizens. In addition, a comprehensive human resources management reform provides opportunities to strengthen the quality and the performance of the central civil service in designing and delivering services effectively and efficiently to citizens.