Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 17th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview III. Working Group on Civil Service Author(s) Virgil Pamfil Regional Training Center for Local Public Administration - Bucharest Bucharest Romania Ghete Georgeta, Georgeta GHETE -DANAU and Virgil PAMFIL Regional Training Centre Bucharest, Romania Title Occupational standards in civil service in line with European qualifications framework - a solution for Romania File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract The Civil Service is one of the country's largest employers, employing about two hundreds thousands people all over Romania. Jobs are advertised in the local and national press and on public administration bodies’ websites. There is a clear promotion structure, which is linked to the appraisal system. Most people tend to stay in the department they were recruited into, but anyone could apply for jobs in other departments or public bodies. The main goal of public governments is to provide customer-focused services. Therefore, they are seeking for best candidates to join the Civil Service, people who can be flexible, adaptable, fast moving and skillful, people who can take pride in their work, are passionate about improving and who will provide a high level of professionalism. Each governmental agency organizes its own recruitment and sets its own entry requirements. The selection procedure is accomplished according to the law and considers the formal requirements stated in the Status of Civil Servants. It consists of various stages which might include: • filling in an application form based on candidate’s skills and work experience • taking a written test to check your level of professional knowledge • passing more selection tests and an interview. The Civil Service is a diverse organization and the professional competencies for every post considered as a range of required knowledge, skills and behaviors is quite broad. To aid transferability of qualifications both within the Civil Service and across the wider economy at European level, the Romanian Government seeks to align to the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) by promoting the development of Occupational Standards under the authority of National Council of Adult Education and by establishing the National Authority for Qualifications. The joint interest for these Romanian Authorities is to develop a national qualifications framework to accredit qualifications at appropriate levels to meet the needs of Public Agencies. The solution is the development of occupational standards and provision of learning support at work together with regularly review of the suitability and availability of qualifications in order to ensure that the needs of learners, employers and the economy are met. Occupational standards are agreed definition and benchmark of knowledge, skills and competences needed to do a particular job. The occupational standard is to be completed for recruitment, performance management and role definition purposes. It should reflect role demands and required behavior at proficient level. Job-specific professional skills are related to the work. Everyone in the Civil Service requires some professional skills to do their job, whether they work in policy development, operational delivery or corporate services, or provide expert advice. Therefore, development of occupational standards for Civil Service implies the identification for each key position of the following information: • PURPOSE • KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES • PERFORMANCE INDICATORS • JOB REQUIREMENTS Considering the diversity of tasks that could be assigned to the most positions in Civil Service it is difficult to address them as common occupations with specific and general competencies needed for job holder, but as generic competencies to deal with planning, managing information, processes and people, controlling, budgeting, etc. In this respect a suitable approach to develop the competency framework has to be promoted. There are specific positions that have clear requirements and that allow the development of a clear competency framework for the most suitable position holder. For such Civil Servants’ position the current methodology of National Council of Adult Education of Romania for designing of Occupational Standards is fully applicable.
