The efficiency of public administration in the EU is determined by staff professionalism and motivation

Leading EU experts on public administration discussed two important issues in Riga on 20 March - public services and human resources.

Addressing the participants at the meeting of the EUPAN Innovative Public Services Working Group and Human Resources Working Group, the Director of the State Chancellery, Elita Dreimane, emphasised that

"the greatest asset of any public administration is the people who provide the services, draft legal acts and modernise public governance. They are the ones who develop the country and the European Union through their intellectual work."

The two-day meeting was attended by leading experts on public administration from the European Union Member States, Norway, Turkey and the European Commission. The participants discussed the progress made on the key issues of governance reforms at EU level by addressing the following issues - more efficient public administration, the implementation of reforms, public involvement and digital technologies, cross-border services, leadership in public administration, organisational culture and attracting young people to work in public authorities.

"Latvia highly appreciates other countries' experiences in developing public administration; we assess their best practices and strive to achieve the optimum level of public administration," said Elita Dreimane. She pointed out that Latvia has done a great deal in the area of public administration reform. Latvia has developed a single website to evaluate administrative performance where each citizen can report cases of excessive administrative red tape; it has created a mobile application to evaluate the performance of public administration institutions; it has introduced a single work-time tracking system for the whole public administration and an electronic procedure for the circulation of public administration documents, etc.

"However, we have not yet reached the peak; we are still on our way, because there is always something to improve in public administration," said Elita Dreimane.

The Innovative Public Services Working Group focused on involving the public in public governance, strengthening central government functions, and developing a Tool Box of best practices from all Member States. The experts came to the conclusion that it is possible to further improve the efficiency of public administration reforms, because risks have been identified and the benefits of reform are clear.

Discussing the opportunities offered by new technologies in the area of public involvement, the experts praised the "Football" application developed in Latvia which provides an opportunity to immediately assess the quality of work done by public authorities. New technologies play an ever greater role in involving the public in the decision-making process. The participants agreed that they allow for improvements to be made in public administration work processes and services in close cooperation with citizens.

The Latvian experts reiterated that public administrations should continue to implement the principle of a centralised approach, where clients are not asked to supply documents that have already been submitted. The authorities should be centralised and also provide services at cross-sectoral level.

Those attending the Human Resources Working Group meeting discussed the role of managers in public administration, and how this is changing in the modern environment. The participants also shared their experiences of organisational culture and its peculiarities in different cultural contexts.

With respect to youth employment issues, the participants sought solutions to improve cooperation between the public sector and young people, thus fostering their interest in working for a public administration. At the same time, the experts noted that EU Member States as a whole are characterised by an aging workforce. The main objective of the EUPAN Innovative Public Services Working Group and Human Resources Working Group is to ensure the implementation of customer-oriented public administration and to promote reforms and improvements in public administrations. The State Chancellery will submit the outcomes of the meeting to the European Commission for future use in developing the human resources and public services policies of the EU's public administrations.

About the European Union Public Administration Network (EUPAN) EUPAN's mission is to improve the performance, competitiveness and quality of European public administration institutions by developing new tools and methods in the field of public administration, based on the exchange of opinions, experiences and good practices by participants. EUPAN's members are representatives from institutions responsible for public administration issues from the EU Member States, Norway and Turkey, as well as representatives from the European Commission and the European Institute of Public Administration.

During the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the State Chancellery chairs the EUPAN working groups, ensuring that jointly defined objectives are met. When preparing for the Presidency, Latvia, together with Italy and Luxembourg, defined the priority areas for action by the Presidency trio. A special focus will be given to revision of the future role of public administration, with a particular emphasis on two objectives - innovative and open public administration that promotes trust and honesty, and effective, uniform and transparent public services.