Public administration is facing a triple challenge: to manage “business as usual” in providing services and implementing policies; to anticipate upcoming changes and build capabilities to respond to any crisis that might arise, to respond to the effects that the profound transformation trends in the societies and economies have on them and adapt to be fit for the future.
While in the past decades there has been a very active PA reform activity, one of main interest was to increase efficiency – cutting costs, manage by objectives, regulate better and be more open. The quality of results, the focus on citizens, their engagement and trust, however, have not advanced as needed in all cases. The profound and unprecedented ongoing transformations - especially the changes in technology, demographics and climate - affect not only society, but also the public administrations themselves and render public management more complex, especially in combination with fiscal constraints. Public administrations’ internal efforts to innovate go beyond the mere adoption of new technologies and involve deep, systematic organisational change in every aspect of their work. Such change is based on capacity to learn and reflect acquired experience.
The workshop will explore different aspects of managing the adaptation. How to combine strategic vision of administrative change and iterative improvement? How to ensure the knowledge and expertise? What is the benefit external support? How can common values, principles and benchmarking help advance towards better quality of administration across the EU Member States.
Speakers:
- Florian Hauser, DG NEAR, European Commission
- Ursula Rosenbichler, Head of Department III/C/9 – Strategic Performance Management and Public Sector Innovation, Federal Chancellery, Austria.
- Matthias Peitz, Senior Consultant
- Mina Shoylekova, DG REFORM, European Commission
- Gregor Virant, Head of SIGMA