Abstract
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Bellow is a short description on my present view of public sector reforms in the CEE, CIS, SEE region.
1. The region shares a common communist heritage, a strong World Bank and International Monetary Fund involvement in shaping (especially early) transition processes, and a common goal of integrating into the EU, which some countries have already accomplished and other are still awaiting as candidate countries.
2. Even though advanced, reforms processes in the public sector realm are still very much ahead of us. As I see reforms, they do not occur in a narrow time band, and they do not end by passing a law and establishing a government agency as regulator. Reforms are intertwined, they support and interfere with each other. In fact, reforms of the public sector run along side general economic and social developments. Once initiated, reform processes continue happening and need to be stirred. It is evident in areas concerning pension reforms, health-care sector reforms, education... but also public administration as the essence of public sector involvement in society...
3. Factors driving reforms include:
1. Global competition and pressure on governments to reduce taxation
2. Impacting efficiency and accountability in using public resources (tax money)
3. Managing the social costs of public sector transformation (superfluous labor)
Ţ as clerical jobs are being eliminated or transformed in professional jobs,
Ţ as processes are being restructured and activities outsourced,
Ţ as new technologies/procedures of performing and measuring work tasks are introduced
4. Defining quality
Increasing public sector quality is a worthy cause, but we should first take a stand on what is perceived as quality and how is quality measured.
I believe quality of public sector reforms should be primarily “measured” in terms of its effects on public welfare (as a public good). Nevertheless, economic efficiency is important so I do not à priori oppose more radical organizational transformation that will include private service providers (some re-engineering and outsourcing as it is termed in the business literature) or some other methods developed for and by the private sector (e.g. for process control) that my be adopted in the organization of public services.
Besides structuring quality, or defining items to be observed, a special problem is represented by metrics and the objectivity of quality measurement, and finally observability. I am concerned with measurement problems and the risk of not being able to collect adequate data, but I believe it is an issue to be discussed in May 2006.
5. Issues and dilemmas to be approached:
One of the most important issues, in my view public-private partnerships (PPP). I am still not certain on how I stand in confronting the question of how and when does competition (private, for profit entrepreneurship) enhance performance and actors’ motivation; especially when do rigid market structures (may happen for lack of scale-economies to be achieved in the national market) actually prevent competition and the disciplining effects of markets on private service suppliers.
Related issue concern public subsidies to actors in reforming sectors, the actual power of regulators.
Another important point I would be interested in pursuing research concerns Labor issues: Any reform implies radical organizational change that affects people. What are the possibilities of individual countries of coping with work related problems. The change in missions, roles and responsibilities implies changes in job content, job location, and most certainly may imply a contraction of jobs offered in public sector. At times and in regions were the private sector is developing to slowly to re-absorb its own superfluous (low-skilled) workers radical restructuring in the public sector poses a major social cost.
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