Abstract
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The economical and technological developments and especially Europeanization trends have determined the reformation of civil service systems in Central and Eastern Europe states during past 20 years. The changes of civil servant role, function and civil service itself can be observed and analysed in the framework of public management paradigms. Nowadays, civil servants as main actors of public management cannot be seen as bureaucrats or political administrators just implementing political decisions. Civil servant plays active role in formation of public policy, orientating administration toward citizens needs. The efficiency, flexibility and transparency as important principles of public administration raise serious challenges for today’s civil service in Lithuania. According to World Bank report (2006), after the integration to European Union, the tendencies of reducing or even repealing horizontal management systems, embodied in civil service agencies or central human recourse departments, are observed in many new member states of EU. Meanwhile, the reforms of public administration and civil service in Lithuania can be named as exception. After 2004 Lithuania, comparing to Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland and Czech Republic, made the most progress in this sphere.
The academic debates on different paradigms of public management will be developed in the first part of the paper. The brief historical comparative analysis of Weberian, New Public Management and Neo-Weberian State concepts will be presented, by emphasising and comparing their main principles in relation to civil service.
The second part of the paper will be dedicated to the innovations of Lithuanian civil service system. Nevertheless Lithuanian Law on Public Service, after its entry into the 2002, has been amended more than 20 times, today there is still a need to make essential changes in legal regulation in order to improve management of public service. According to SIGMA report (2009), the Lithuanian public service has got the highest evaluation rates among other new member states of EU and CEE. However, it is still recommended to improve the selection principles of civil servants, to develop their motivation system, to set special regulations for selection and evaluation of head of departments. In this part of the paper the Concept of Public Service Development, adapted by Government of the Republic of Lithuania in 2010, 2nd of June, will be presented. It is pointed, that the development of public service management and regulation should be based on such principles as management professionalism, results orientation, flexible and efficient human resource management in public service, the differentiation of selection, evaluation and responsibility regulation for head of departments and specialists, etc. So, it can be concluded, that nowadays reforms of public service in Lithuania are orientated toward NWS model.
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