Best practice Cases of the 4th Quality Conference for Public Administration in the EU

A modern tool for public administration in Romania

Country:	Romania
Organisation:	Ministry of Administration and Interior
www homepage:	http://modernizare.mai.gov.ro
Contact person:	Claudia Lung
Address:	Bucharest, Eforiei street, no 3
E-mail:	claudia.lung@mai.gov.ro
Phone:	+40-21-3037080 int 11818
Fax:	+40-21-3103562
Level:	State
Sector:	General administration

Short description of the case:

The existence of an efficient public administration in Romania represents one of the most important criteria that define a modern country. This was the main idea of creating real evaluation systems for the institutions/organizations within the public sector. Considering these aspects, for Romania, it is very important to make a real reform through which the Romanian public administration will achieve the European standards and will be characterized by transparency, predictability, responsibility, adaptability and efficiency. CAF purpose is to give support to the public sector organizations in planning an auto-evaluation exercise, in order to identify exactly which are the domains that should be improved and to select the best way to do it. CAF gives a clear and a realistic diagnostic on the way of the institution functioning. Since 2005, the Central Unit for Public Administration Reform (UCRAP), within Ministry of Public Administration and Interior in Romania, coordinates the reform process in Romania, has started the process of introducing this modern instrument - Common Assessment Framework (CAF) both at the central and local level (Ministries, Prefectures and County Councils). In this way, at CUPAR level has been created a CAF team responsible for introducing it in public administration. At operational level, CAF implementation process focused on establishing a clear activities plan for 2005 and 2006, in which all the activities, prerogatives and tasks foreseen for CAF members within CUPAR, were detailed. For a better and faster understanding of CAF and the way it can be applied in public administration, CAF team has elaborated a CAF brochure, which is structured on questions and answers format. The introducing efforts of this instrument within public administration in Romania had been continued by training sessions on CAF for prefects and sub-prefects from the 42 Counties, followed by training sessions for the civil servants within Prefects’ Institutions and County Council. The purpose of these training sessions was to aware the participants, and not only these ones, about the importance of this instrument, about its advantages for their institutions. The introduction of this instrument came as a result of the citizens’ various demands related to the quality of public services. As a result of these training sessions, some of the Prefectures and the Country Councils sent to CUPAR official papers in which they asked technical support in implementing CAF within their institutions in order to improve their activities and performance which allow them to deliver quality services to their clients/citizens.

Main feature of the case:

- Strategic planning for achieving the targets set

- Developing and managing processes

Key words:

evaluation mechanisms, performance management, CAF, performance indicators, self-assessment

Further information:

Long case description (PDF-form)
Case presentation (PDF-form)