Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 15th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview Main Conference Theme Author(s) Mariann Veisson Ministry of Finance of Estonia Tallinn Estonia Eve Limbach Title Towards better leadership: have the initiatives in the Estonian civil service been justified? File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract Acting as an EU member state and implementing new developments in the administrative system have also set greater expectations and demands to the management of Estonian public service. More responsibility and freedom in management to individual organisations together with an aim of attracting and motivating competent top civil servants became one of the central principles in transforming the government draft Public Service Development Framework (2004). The decision to start the process by creating a competency framework that could be used in the recruitment and selection of top managers as well as for leadership development and succession planning therefore took place at an important time – almost ten years after adoption of Public Service Act. In 2005 Estonian Senior Civil Servants Competency Framework was designed, aimed at the recruitment, selection and development of the very top senior civil servants ((Vice-)Secretaries-General of the Ministries, Director Generals of Boards and Inspectorates, County Governors), aligned with the achievement of the state’s strategic objectives. The main aim of this paper is to analyse, based on the empirical data and the comments from this paper’s authors as the central coordinators of the system the process and first results of building up a centrally managed senior civil servants assessment and development system, relying on the Senior Civil Service Competency Framework. The results of the two annually held top managers competency assessment periods will be evaluated, together with a number of training and development activities designed based on these results and also bearing in mind the state’s strategic objectives. Also, the value of an electronic environment called E-Competence Centre, aimed to provide flexible and comfortable access to the management of the assessment and development system, will be evaluated. The competency-based development system of Estonian senior civil servants has had a promising start and the need for a systematic approach to senior civil service development has been clearly recognised. While working as a specific evaluation and development tool for the current leaders, the new approach is also hoped to have a value of promoting the modern management culture outside the current target group and work as a tool for raising the interest of potential top candidates in a long-term scale. Still, lessons learned in the recent years and challenges ahead in managing the whole assessment and development system, eg getting the target group involved and committed from the beginning, mutual trust in assessment and evaluation of the results, overcoming the gap between the ideal framework and the real results, transferring assessment feedback and lessons learned into practice, ensuring long-term sustainability, will be handled in this paper. In the light of the previous analysis, some further discussion is brought up about the general applicability of this centrally coordinated competence assessment and development system to other countries contexts and the future possibilities in mutual cooperation.
