Annex 18:

2TA: Summer Institute on Public Management Reform

1. Project description

2.  Project purposes and goals

The goal of the summer institute on “Public Management Reform” was to provide a learning environment for considering the lessons learned from recent American public administration reform experiences, and their implications for Estonia and other Eastern European countries.

The objectives of the summer institute were defined as follows:

1.       Gain an understanding of the political, economic and social context for administrative reform in the United States during the 1990s.

2.       Assess the results of efforts to “reinvent” public administration at the national, state, and local levels of government.

3.       Identify major management issues and developments in contemporary American intergovernmental relations, especially those relating to decentralization and devolution of authority.

4.       Discern trends and future directions of public administration reform in the United States and Estonia.

5.       Foster linkages between higher education institutions, local governments and community and nonprofit organizations in Estonia.

6.       Develop information and analyses that can be made available to other NISPAcee organizations to assist their efforts to address public administration reform in their country or region.

3. Project realization

The summer institute took place over ten days of training. Morning sessions were four hours; afternoons were reserved for two-hour consultations were made via ad hoc appointments. Those 40 hours were divided into three equal modules delivered by three professors from University of Baltimore: Professor Carl Stenberg (“Reform in central local relations”), Professor Louis Gawthrop (“Reform of civil service and public service ethics”) and Lenneal Henderson (“Public management innovations”).

During the summer, institute visits to governing institutions and universities were organized for trainers who met with the Estonian Parliament, State Audit office (meeting with chief Auditor of Estonia) and the Bank of Estonia. Separate visits to Tartu and the Saaremaa Islands were organized for a look at local public life.

The institute was finalized with a closing session to which representatives of universities and the US embassy in Estonia were invited.  Besides the addresses presented from the institution, the general evaluation of SI was carried out.

Altogether 20 applications were accepted and 17 trainees successfully finished the seminar. Those trainees were from two universities (TPU, TTU) and from the Estonian Academy of Public Service.  They also represented four ministries (Economics, Environment, Education and Finance), two state agencies (Police; Citizenship and Migration), one county government, one local government, and two independent public institutions (The Bank of Estonia and the State Audit office).

            The technical assistance project went relatively well, but some problems occurred during its realization. One of the participants (Estonian Business School) could not take active part in the institute due to the changes in their schedule of lections. However, during the initial stage of the project Mr. Alman’s participation was of considerable importance.

4. Project outputs, outcomes and impacts

 The summer institute brought together 20 participants, providing them with comprehensive knowledge on recent public administration and management trends. After the training phase, the participants were expected to prepare and present their essays,. However, only seven of the 12 expected were prepared in time.

By publishing these essays, the summer institute achieved its general output: to develop information and analyses that can be made available to other NISPAcee organizations to assist their efforts in addressing public administration reform in their country or region via web pages, as the tangible output of the project.

            The specific outcomes were the knowledge transfer to the courses delivered at the universities, and the development of institutional cooperation between Baltimore and Estonia with the aim of developing a permanent institution of summer schools between the University of Baltimore and Estonian universities. The most important benefit for Tallinn Pedagogical University and for the Department of Government is the possibility of enlarging the research area and cooperation with partners across the ocean.