How to achieve excellence through regional cooperation?

The concept for the future Centre for Excellence in Public Policy in the Western Balkans – CEPS WeB, was presented on 24 November in Belgrade. Institute Alternative is participating in its establishment as well.
Our partner European Policy Centre (EPC) from Belgrade organised a panel discussion on “Achieving Excellence through regional cooperation”,in cooperation with five organisations – members of TEN (Think for Europe) network, where IA has been a member since its founding in 2013.
CEPS WeB is the result of the project Centre of Expertise in Public Policy Systems in the Western Balkans, which is supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.
The establishment of the Centre will enhance the initiatives of the TEN network. Among other things, it aims to strengthen the capacity of its members and other civil society organisations to participate in policy-making.
The need for better coordination and implementation of public policies, as well as the strengthening of public consultations, which are implemented inadequately at the stage of formulation of policies, is recognised by the European Commission in the regional reports for 2015 and 2016.

The panelists were prof. Mojmir Mrak from the Centre for Excellence in Finance from Ljubljana, Igor Kostić, a representative from the Regional Centre for Environmental Protection, as well as Sena Marić, representative from EPC Belgrade. Participants were presented with the regional approach that would have conditioned the formulation of new ideas and effective regional initiatives in public policy in the Western Balkans.

TEN network is comprised of Institute Alternative, European Policy Centre in Belgrade, Institute for European Policy in Skopje, Foreign Policy Initiative from Sarajevo, Institute for Democracy and Mediation from Tirana and the Group for Legal and Political Studies from Pristina.

More information on the network, please find on the official website of TEN: http://ten.europeanpolicy.org/

IA comments on the Draft Budget for 2017 of the Capital City Podgorica

Institute alternative delivered its recommendations for more transparent budget presentation in 2017.

Our suggestions concern the manner in which budget data are represented n the Draft Budget of the Capital City and the following justification.

Some of the recommendations strongly point out the need for understandible presentation of budget expenses and real needs of the organizational units, detailed presentation of data on capital projects, developement of better communication with the citizens and civil society during public debate on the Draft Budget etc.

Download the entire comments (in Montenegrin only)

Old and New Government

We all know that state administration is composed of sixty-five organs out which sixteen of them are ministries. We also know that ministries perform complex tasks of proposing internal and foreign policy, leading policy development, normative activities, administrative oversight etc.

So who and how decides on the number of ministries and their names? Simple answer would be: it is not written anywhere. Indeed neither the Constitution nor the other regulations directly stipulate the manner of developing and adopting the decision on such important issue.

We can conclude only indirectly that this decision is proposed by the Prime Minister-designate by presenting the proposal of the Government composition, which includes the names of the ministries, which is later to be confirmed by the Parliament.

However, the scope of public policy or the responsibilities will be stipulated only later, when the elected government adopts a new decree on the organization and functioning of state administration. Only this by-law will list in details all the responsibilities of each ministry and other authorities. This is the state of affairs in a country that has neither the Law on the government, nor the law on ministries.

That is why it is possible that the Government of Montenegro, on Friday, November 25th 2016, without holding a meeting, on the basis of obtained consent of the majority of members of the Government, in accordance with Article 10 of the Regulation of the Government of Montenegro has adopted this regulation, whose content we will see only after it is published in the “Official Gazette of Montenegro”.

Prime Minister-designate is not obliged to provide a rationale for his proposal on the organization of the new Government. For example, why to separate Ministry on foreign affairs and European integration into two ministries? Is there a problem in existing organization of the Ministry or just the need for the two ministers instead of one showed up?

Regardless the number of ministries, a request of providing proper “distribution of power” among the ministries and the ministers is justified. Concretely, that would mean that jurisdictions would have to be defined in way that would provide approximately branched structure, number of employees and most importantly – the budget at their disposal.

For illustrative purposes, in 2015 two ministries had the budget in amount of less than 100 millions (finance and education), three ministries had above 50 millions (interior, justice and labor and social welfare), defence, economy and agriculture had between 10 and 50 millions, between 4 and 10 millions were allocated for three ministries (science, culture and information society) while two ministries had allocated budget in amount of less than one million euro (health and minority rights). Additionally, some independent bodies have allocated budgets several times higher than some ministries. The disproportion is obvious and it should be taken into account when defining a scope of work in the sectors.

Until 2006, the policy development of the system of state administration and local self-government was under jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice. Since then until today it remained within the internal affairs sector. Public Administration Reform Strategy 2016-2020, adopted in July this year, states: “Comparative practice show that the activities related to public administration are unified within independent institutional framework, which, in the future, in the context of the new organization of the state administration in Montenegro, should be considered through the establishment of a separate ministry for public administration.”

We should not forget that the public administration (reform) is one of the three key pillars within the rule of law based on which the Commission will evaluate the progress achieved in Montenegro, and, to a large extent, a precondition of success of other reforms.

From July until now, this issue has not been considered in a quality and transparent manner, and I doubt an analysis that compares the costs and benefits of these jobs staying in the existing departments in relation to the option of their allocations in the separate ministry has been made at all.

And yet, the Ministry of Finance plans resources for separate Ministry of Public Administration and the public is talking about possible candidates for the position of Minister.

The establishment of a separate ministry for the specific area of public policy does not guarantee that the Government would be implementing this policy in better and more responsible manner. In the end, the quality will depend on many factors, but primarily on the management of the Ministry, not only the Minister – but assistants, secretaries of state, the expert staff. Success depends on their education, experience, openness, innovation, skills and a desire for the better public administration.

If we are still seriously thinking to set aside jobs relating to public administration from departments of Ministry of Interior in a new separate Ministry, then the inclusion of other directly and indirectly related directorates, departments and offices should be considered.
We believe that the ministry of public administration could be formed by uniting the works of the directorate for public administration (Directorate for Public Administration and the Directorate for Local Self-Government), one directorate and a department for the ministry for information society and telecomunication (Directorate for the Development of E-Administration), as well as the Office for the Development of NGOs that functions within the inner structure of the General Secretariat of the Government.

A desirable structure of the ministry of public administration would therefore include the four organisational units: for public administration, local self-government, development of the electronic administration and electronic registrar, registration affairs and NGO development.

A good solution would be if the administrative inspection could be risen on a higher level of a specific organisational unit than it is now, and the lead administrative insecure be put on a level of director of directorate.

Within the Directorate of Public Administration, the organisational units in line with the areas of significance for the quality (of the reform) of the public administration would be the following: management of strategic reform process, civil servants system, policy coordination and development, quality and efficiency of service development, etc. Naturally, the ministry of public administration would supervise the work of the Human Resources Administration.

Whether such a ministry would be big enough (in terms of the budget and the number of employees) remains an open question, without artificial dealing with numbers, in relation to other ministries.

The most difficult task remains: how to attract and keep those state employees that would not be pressured by political parties’ interests, led by the desire to change the public administration for the better, who have the knowledge on the weakest links and the advantages of our system, good practice and standards of the EU member states, who have a good knowledge of English language, who are willing to learn and most of all work.

Stevo Muk
President of the Managing Board of Institute Alternative

The text was originally published in the Forum section of the Daily Vijesti

Amendments of the budget – what actually happened and who is responsible?

During a 30 minute parlimentary discussion, when the rebalance of the budget for 2016. was adopted, the key weakest link that caused the necessity for amendements to the law on the budget was the so-called “compensation for mothers“. The representatives of the Ministry of Finance have accused the MPs for adopting the amendements of the Law on Social and Children Protection within a competely wrongful estimation of fiscal influence, which led to wrongful budget planning and the necessity for its rebalance.

Therefore, there is an impression that the rebalance is proposed only in order to increase social benefits, which are the Transfers for social protection.

However, by comparing the plan and the rebalance, one comes to a conclusion that all other categories of expenditures have increased. Therefore, current expenditures have increased for more than 31 million, transfers to institutions, individuals, non-governmental and public sector for 25 million, current budgetary reserve for more than 4 million.

The main reason for the rebelance that is rarely mentioned is the Law on Salaries in the Public Sector, since its completely wrong fiscal impact assesment misbalanced the state budget, and it also geopardised the budget of other subjects in the public sector, such as the local self-governments.

In that sense, the key point that needs to be the focus of attention is the gross salaries in the budget. Due to the Law on Salaries in the public sector, gross salaries for this year within the first version of the budget were planned for almost 34 million more than in 2015. With the rebalance, the gross salaries are increased for additional 19 million.

The announcmenets of the then Minister of Finance included that the budget influence will be around 13 million. In addition to that, noone even tried to foresee the influence of the law on the budgets of other parts of the public sector, local self-governments, regulatory agencies, entreprises and public institutions.

Therefore, we conclude that the ability of fiscal impact assessement of the legislation is not on an excellent level even in the Governement, and particulary in the Ministry of Finance, which was exclusively resposnsible for the Law on Salaries.

During the speedy discussion on rebalance in the Parliament, the necessity of the presentation of the budgetary documents to the MPs in an electronic form was mentioned. We wholehartedly support this idea, as we formally filed an initiative to the Ministry of Finance two years ago. The presentation of budgetary information to the MPs and the public in a machine readable form would facilitate the data analysis and would provide a possibility to the citizens to make their own conclusions on what is happening with the budget, besides official explanation. This year, we did it for you:

 

Lectures within the 3rd module of Fifth Generation of Public Policy School held

Lectures within the 3rd module of the 2016 Public Policy School were held on Friday and Saturday, 25 and 26 November in Podgorica. The lecture entitled “Evaluation of Public Policies” was presented by Dragisa Mijacic, Executive Director of Institute for Territorial Economic Development (InTER) from Serbia.

Fundamentals of public policies and the public policy cycle were presented in the introductory part of the two-day lecture, with special attention paid to the differences between often-misused terms of monitoring and evaluation. During the individual exercise, participants had the task to identify a public policy among newspaper articles and to assess which stage of the policy cycle have the identified policy reached. This was followed by the presentation of the theory of change and logical framework matrix while during the practical part of the module participants worked in groups on identifying the logical framework matrix or theory of change matrix within a policy, strategy or programme adopted in Montenegro.

The second day was dedicated to the definitions, as well as different purposes and types of evaluations. Particular emphasis was placed on the criteria for programme evaluations defined by the OECD: relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability and impact. During individual exercise, participants were asked to find examples of programme evaluations in Montenegro and to explain the OECD criteria through these examples. When it comes to conducting evaluations in Montenegro, it was concluded that although there are examples of strategic documents stating the need for carrying out monitoring and evaluation, evaluations of public policies and programmes are not done. Particular emphasis was placed on analyzing ex-ante evaluations of local development strategies in Montenegro.

The project Public Policy School – V generation is implemented with the support of the Commission for Allocation of Funds from Games of Chance and Think Tank Fund – Open Society Foundation. The School is licensed as an official program for the acquisition of knowledge and skills in the field of public policy by the National Council for Education of Montenegro.

WeBER Platform officially established

The WeBER Platform was officially established on the occasion of the 9th Annual Conference of the Regional School of Public Administration (ReSPA), on November 16, 2016 in Podgorica.

The Memorandum of Cooperation regarding the functioning of the WeBER Platform was signed by 22 civil society organizations (CSOs) from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.

WeBER Platform provides a venue for consultation and evidence-based dialogue between the civil society, government representatives and international and regional organisations (European Commission, ReSPA, RCC etc.) on public administration reform implementation and monitoring. Membership in the Platform will enable CSOs to take more active involvement in these processes at the regional level and in their respective countries. Also, the Platform will serve as a venue for exchange of experiences and good practices.

Prior to the signing ceremony, the Platform members discussed and adopted documents that will serve as guidelines for the Platform’s functioning and proceedings, and worked on further development of the PAR Monitor Methodology.

See the full list of WeBER Platform members