Abstract
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Key words: culture change in public administration, local leadership development, paradigm shift in local governance, experimental learning of community-based planning, learning of co-decision making
How to create a new culture in public administration in Hungary when the need is explicit; however, the fear of new, strange models is tangible, particularly in small villages, whereas they form the major proportion of municipalities in Hungary? (Out of 3152, 2393 municipalities [76 %] have less than 2000 inhabitants, and 1658 villages [56 %] have less than 1000 inhabitants.)
For the leaders of 77 of these small villages, a particularly attractive program was created by the National University of Public Service to make them experience a new culture of working with their real problems in real time. The EU-financed project was realized in cooperation with the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2014-2015. Current presentation is going to be focusing on the details of this initiative, the results of which have been presented as good practice to EPSA 2015.
Within the project, a free professional mentoring system was offered for mayors and city managers in order to help them realize a strategic plan, using a new approach. The strategic plan had to be developed community-based, involving stakeholders actively. In total, 2984 stakeholders were included as strategy-makers in 308 workshops, lead by 18 trainers.
Leaders of the local governments and the stakeholders participated in the programme, would become the nucleus of the so-called Local Knowledge Centers, that after terminating the project, were / are supposed to be the „vehicles” of the local economic progress and the bases of the local democracy.
Several innovative features of the project have been identified from the feedbacks of participants, such as specific experiential learning; building of a learning community of trainers and mentors, enhancement of social learning, participation into local strategy-making, creation of intensive knowledge network of several stakeholders. These elements may serve for enhancing social innovation in disadvantageous minor villages, and may be adaptable to other countries.
As a result, the program has planted the seeds of a new culture based on participation and collaboration in local governance, and created the basis of an emerging and locally driven public service philosophy in small villages with little administrative staff and other resources.
Though a participatory culture and the involvement of citizens in decision making processes is not a new idea in Europe (see the White Paper on European Governance [COM 428 EC, 2001] as first appearance, or the latest theories of the collaborative state [Osborn] or the relational state [Mendusa]) the project for local leaders of the PA met a completely different culture of governance in small villages in Hungary, where the idea and practice of participation almost lacks. The value of the project therefore has been to present and make experiences for local government leaders on the benefits of participative actions through content (creation of a participatory culture) and methodology (creation of a new culture through a leadership development program).
Method of data-collection concerning the project: participative (direct) observation; semi-structured online survey (answered by trainers).
References
EPSA 2015 Application with Local Community Academies (HKA). Application proposal. Name of Project: The Network of Local Knowledge Centers I, Post Graduate Training of Public Officers. Developing a knowledge sharing network; improving the strategic planning ability of the local governments together with the culture of local collaboration
Agnes Jenei (ed.) (2012) Communication with the public from the local governent perspective. Budapest: Ad Librum
Gaspar, M. (ed.) (2015) A közösségi bázisú helyi fejlesztésű stratégiaalkotás, National University of Public Service (Community-based strategic planning, handbook of the Network of Local Knowledge Centers project )
Kramer Robert, Agnes Jenei What “Develops” in Public-Service Leader Development? Using Transformative Action Learning to Reframe Leader Education at the National University of Public Service (NUPS) Paper presented at the Nispacee conference, 2015, Tbilisi
Osborne, Stephen P. Handbook of Innovation in Public Services. Edited by Stephen P. Osborne, University of Edinburgh, UK and Louise Brown, University of Bath, UK 2014
Mendosa, Xavier, Vernis Alfred (2008) "The changing role of governments and the emergence of the relational state", Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society, Vol. 8 Iss: 4, pp.389 – 396
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