Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 18th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview IV. Working Group on PA Reform Author(s) Vera Menshova Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation Novosibirsk Russian Federation Title Opportunities of civil service development in Russia: Challenges of the time File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract Beginning with the statement of the Concept of civil service reform in Russia (2001), this process is progressive and stable. The building of a legislation and federal program for reconstruction of civil service is discussed. It is very important because the stoppage of this development means the competitive reduction of government management system of Russia as compared with the constantly improvement of government management in other countries. During the period of reform we can see the fluctuation of different theoretic models elements in the Russian civil service model. In conditions of globalization and diffusion of international norms into the public administration sphere the M.Veber “rational bureaucratic” model doesn’t correspond to modern requirements. On the other hand the effort to include the ideas of «New Public Management» (NPM) in the Russian public administration model didn’t lead to prospective results either. The reasons are that the NPM logic is directed toward increasing open and clear civil service, customer orientation, use of new payments based on the estimation of activity efficiency and results, but doesn’t allow for specific of state-service relations, restrictions and proscriptions. Unfortunately, this model disregards many functions and types of professional activities that don’t have exact orientation to the customers, but are directed to the essence and social usefulness of public administration. The world economic crisis influences on the improvement of civil service in Russia is both negative and positive. The budget is reduced in the public administration sphere and doesn’t keep the deadlines and opportunities of the reform. The undeveloped government management system of civil service and social community that institutes all of these can’t allow for the positive influence of the crisis in this sphere, such as 1. Due to economic crisis, budget practically doesn’t afford payment for civil servants. Financial stability strengthens the prestige and authority of public administration among young people. 2. As the results of increased availability of highly qualified people from private sector, public administrations have a chance to select the best from the many candidates for civil service vocations. The number of candidates has increased 4 or 5 times. 3. The Russia President officially orders formation of reserve of managerial resources. Now we can say that because of the crisis, the usefulness of a market economy is practically finished. It’s necessary to strengthen the role of the state, both through regulations and procedures in the public administration sphere, as well as dialogues with various social sectors and use the subtle motivation and moral instruments. So I’m sure that civil service based on quality can be a new paradigm for public administration improvement that supplements the traditional “rational bureaucratic” model and NPM model. The management quality concept can be the instrument that integrates restrictions and proscriptions with social responsibility, searching for new approaches and technologies to management activates, as well as readiness to civil service, moral and civil maturity. The management quality system can give new opportunities to improve public administration in Russia. Unfortunately there is the danger of distortion this idea and limitation of documentary procedures and formal descriptions. But documentary procedures and formal descriptions are not enough. It’s necessary to create the personal quality culture and orient this to the external and internal customer’s services. There are many questions that must be solved. So professional retraining and qualification-improvement programs must include the disciplines and courses about the quality management framework as well as cognition of methods, means, the principles of the system quality project based on native and foreign experience.
