In the field of functioning of the Polish State, the strategical objectives are poorly defined, the intended objectives are frequently not achieved, the services are rendered ineffective and many public projects fail. Polish public administration is systematically classified by the institutions of the European Union as 1 of the last places in terms of innovation.
The ruling teams did not attach much importance to improving the functioning of the Polish state. fewer attempts, specified as Jan Rokita's proposal to make the Main Office of Public Administration, are not supported by political forces.
How the State operates
Each organisation, including the state, implements 2 types of activities: operations and projects.
Operations These are the processes which consequence in the accomplishment of the objectives for which the organisation was set up. For example, the operations of the transport organisation are the movement of persons and goods between different places.
On the another hand, projects are these one-off actions to accomplish circumstantial objectives, usually improving the way in which operations are carried out – for example building a road or an airport (but you gotta remember that there are besides operational projects – for example, for a culture management organisation a one-off task may be the organisation of a cultural event). The activities of public organisations, both operations and projects, are mostly implemented through public purchases.
Public policies specify intentions for action (government, public organisation) for a certain period, in the area for which that organisation is responsible. In order for these intentions to be realised, a suitable set of actions – projects and operations should be defined. A full of these activities are called programme.
Policies have a multidimensional hierarchical structure: for example, the municipal transport policy is simply a component of the voivodship's transport policy, possibly the region, and yet the state's transport policy. The components of transport policy may be: road transport policy, rail transport, air transport and water transport.
Every area of state action – transport, agriculture, defence, education... – has its policies. These policies should jointly specify the way the state develops. A set of high-level state policies is called strategy The outline of the programmes implementing it is jointly called plan (in practice, these terms are frequently utilized interchangeably).
Public administration, and in peculiar the implementation of plans, programmes, projects, operations and public purchases, must be designed to deliver the best possible results – to accomplish planned or better parameters. These actions are called efficiency management.
This article will address horizontal areas of government administration: strategical governance, public policy management, task management, public procurement and efficiency management. These areas together cover the full functioning of public administration. On the basis of the presented solutions, akin solutions for local government can be developed.
The proposals are based on solutions implemented primarily in developed democratic countries.
Strategic management in Poland
Strategic management, i.e. defining and implementing the strategy, is the most crucial area of operation of the state apparatus. It is implemented by the government, which uses state institutions and, in particular, government administration for this purpose.
In Poland, during the PiS period, the main strategy for liable improvement (SOR) was only propaganda. The mechanisms for posting its tasks to state institutions have not been implemented, no systematic study on its implementation has been prepared.
The best example of disregarding the provisions of the SOR, as early as 1 period after its adoption, was undocumented, taken without any mode, the decision to replace the construction of the Central Airport required by the SOR by the implementation of the Central Communication Port.
Polish strategies can be modified in the same way as all another legal acts. This enables the strategy to be modified any number of times by each parliament, in peculiar they can be replaced in full by another strategy. As a consequence of this approach, strategies are losing their long-term character and, to be honest, do not make any sense.
Principles of strategical governance
In order to recognise that the strategy is actually implemented and managed and to accomplish certain results, it must be linked to the actions of the state institutions. In order to accomplish this, the tasks and objectives must be transferred downwards to the state's organisational structure. The values of the indicators must besides be planned for them. These actions are called cascading tasks and objectives.
Then, erstwhile the objectives of the strategy have been assigned, they must be effectively supervised utilizing the predefined values of indicators. Oversight consists of monitoring and control.
This monitoring is simply a comparison in pre-defined intervals, planned and obtained values. Monitoring must be carried out for all assigned tasks and objectives at all levels of implementation – from simple organisation to strategy as a whole. Monitoring results should be published.
Control is to respond to crucial divergences between planned and achieved indicators. The control may consist of the implementation by the institutions active of corrective tasks or of modifications to strategical tasks and objectives (maybe with consequences for higher and lower levels of hierarchy).
Proposed solutions
A law requiring effective strategical management in public administration should be passed.
Under specified a law each, in peculiar the central, public body should have a strategical plan, describing for a period not little than 5 years the measurable objectives and intermediate objectives for each year. The objectives of the subordinate institutions must be consistent with the objectives of the overarching institutions and yet with the country's main improvement strategy.
Adopting and modifying the country's main improvement strategy, i.e. a long-term government action plan (which should consequence in all the strategies of the subordinate institutions) should take place by a constitutional majority, which should guarantee that all applicable political forces are active in the implementation of this strategy, and prevent the strategy from being implemented unstrategic, cyclical, ad hoc changes.
The effects and manner of strategical governance should be clearly monitored and subject to efficiency management. strategical governance should be assisted on an ongoing basis by a specialised kind institution Government Implementation Unit.
Public policy management
The process of implementing public policy extends from defining it by planning the implementation of the public programme, its implementation and the evaluation of effects. The main task, which later determines the way state institutions operate, is to specify policies.
Public policies should be geared towards addressing problems and gathering social needs.
This is not conducive to their definition by politicians – usually representing the interests of ruling groups. There are respective ways to guarantee that public policies are so rational.
Government analytical units created in administrative structures. In the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, the Centre for strategical Analysis (CAS, late renamed the Government Analysis Centre) was operating. However, specified institutions tend to execute government tasks alternatively than social problems. There is simply a belief that CAS served primarily as a social analysis of the government's actions.
Teams of independent experts appointed by government units are to solve circumstantial problems. This way of solving social problems has, for example, been practiced since the late 18th century in the United Kingdom and has actually always brought solutions that actually improve the efficiency of the state, understood as better gathering social needs.
Defining a policy based on facts. In line with this approach, public institutions identify issues (problems, improvement opportunities) in their field of action. These data are then collected, which in turn are analysed utilizing statistical methods. Public policies are defined on the basis of specified data collected and analysed.
Proposed solutions
The definition and implementation of public policies in Poland should be depoliticised as far as possible.
The construction of a strategical analysis squad in government structures in Poland failed. In order to address identified social problems, teams of independent experts should be set up with social confidence. Public policies should be defined on the basis of facts.
Public programmes implementing public policies should have defined actions, indicators and their values planned to be achieved in specified intervals, not little than six months and not more than 1 year. Implementation of public policies should be subject to efficiency management and should be assisted by an institution of the Government Implementation Unit type.
Project management
Projects This is limited in time work whose completion is related to the production of a certain product or the accomplishment of a business objective.
Public project This is simply a task involving a public institution.
Projects may be designed to implement changes – specified as the establishment of a fresh ministry or the implementation of a strategy of information technology in public institutions that modifies work procedures. Projects can besides service to accomplish direct objectives: e.g. elections supply the option of democratically choosing state authorities, and housing provides premises for future residents.
The projects are an essential tool for the improvement of both individual public institutions and the state and society as a whole.
Although the liable improvement strategy was to be based on task implementation, task management in the Polish public administration is associated with many failures. Examples include building block C Ostrołęka Power Plant, flagship SOR projects: Batteries [the task concerns the shipbuilding manufacture – ed.], electrical car and besides flat Plus. The implementation of the CPK is delayed by respective years for the first plan.
The main processes affecting task success are their right choice and efficient management.
Selection of projects to be implemented
The basis of the decision to mention the task to implementation should be the presentation by the initiator business justification. This paper must show that the initiative is in line with the strategy (must have strategic justification). In the current Polish realities, where the strategical plan was fictional, it was not possible to make a strategical justification that would not be fictional.
Every proposal must besides have economic justification. Specify any public valuesThe task to be developed. The value of the public task may be e.g. improving the level of wellness care (measured by circumstantial indicators, e.g. reducing the incidence of a peculiar disease), shortening travel time between circumstantial localities, improving the level of education (also measured in a circumstantial way) or shortening the time of serving a peter in a public institution.
A description is besides part of the economical justification public costs. For example, it may be a threat to the environment (in projects to build mines or airports) or the request to expropriate residents in the area (in projects to make national parks).
The task must besides have Financial justification. The costs of the task should be estimated by year of implementation. For specified estimated costs, it should be demonstrated that adequate public or private backing can be raised.
Market reasons should show that there are operators on the marketplace that can supply the products and services needed to carry out the project. An outline of the purchasing procedures should besides be specified.
W management justification it must be demonstrated that the institution proposing the implementation of the task is able to manage it in specified a way as to guarantee success. It should have defined plan management processes and staff qualified in this kind of management. The basic capacity of the organisation to manage the projects is considered to be the ability to apply a method combining quantitative evaluation of the products carried out, implementation of the agenda and costs incurred, together called Analysis of Worked Values.
The problem with defining business justification is the sustainability of any projects or programmes. If the program is to last respective or respective years, it makes no sense to estimation the costs (and another parameters) for distant periods.
Long-term projects should be divided into stages. But there must be a regulation of ending stages by providing socially useful products. On the another hand, it is not appropriate to separate as stages of the planning or preparatory work itself (as done in the CPK programme) as they do not supply benefits to the public or the state.
The decision on the implementation of the task initiative should be taken on the basis of specified a document.
Project implementation
Each public task must be implemented effectively, in a transparent way to its most crucial stakeholders – citizens of the state. The main information on the plans and advancement of the public task should be available to the public, for example through the appropriate website. Representatives of the main task stakeholders, specified as their beneficiaries, should be included in the management or consultation teams.
The task must have Implementation plan, verified by independent experts and approved by an authorised entity. A very crucial component of the plan of each task is the definition of the structures of interdependencies between the actors active and the basic principles of the implementation of its processes – collectively called Government Project
Projects can be implemented in a traditional, alleged cascade way, requiring that the product produced is defined before work starts, agilely, erstwhile the task products are defined during its implementation and hybridly, combining these 2 approaches. The Cascade approach is usually utilized in infrastructure projects, while the agile approach in projects whose key component is the provision of IT solutions.
The main strategical projects should be subject to supervision by entities independent of contractors. specified actions are called Project provision. This process should consist of reviews carried out at the most crucial points of implementation of the project, starting with the improvement of business justification, through the main phases of implementation, up to the evaluation of its effects (and at the request of authorised entities).
Proposed solutions
Project management should be considered a strategical skill for all public organisations.
Existing recommendations for task management, developed by the Law and Justice Government, whose main intent was to imprudent all public projects by the government, should be replaced by methodologies describing how projects aimed at gathering real socio-economic needs can be implemented efficiently.
The first component of specified a methodology should be based on the business justification presented for the selection of projects, preferably gathering specified needs. This will prevent irresponsible decision-making on the implementation of projects, specified as in the case of CPKs.
The second essential component should be a description of task implementation processes from the improvement of its plan to the evaluation of the results obtained. Implementation of projects should be permitted in both traditional, cascade and agile ways. In addition to the apparent elements of management specified as a set of products, a agenda and a cost, the main elements of the plan must be, inter alia, the relation between the structures involved, the way in which advancement is measured and reported and the way in which the task is independently ensured. A way to affect public stakeholders in the task should besides be planned.
The State as a full is an organisation whose improvement depends on the efficient implementation of the projects.
The task of the applicable government institutions should, for example, be to specify the above methodologies, to identify ways of supporting projects at risk, to set up task providers, to identify the qualifications of the professionals active in task management, to store and disseminate the cognition needed to implement projects – and to carry out another activities ensuring the efficient implementation of public projects.
The full of specified defined processes, teams, regulations and another components is called the Government task Implementation strategy (GPIS). The body liable for the operational definition and operation of GPIS should be the functioning Government Office for task Management (RDP). The KPRM operates the Government task Monitoring Office (RBMP). However, according to the NIK report, it does not fulfil its role.
The creation of an efficient GPIS should be 1 of the strategical objectives of the Polish government.
Efficiency management
The management of efficiency is to find the required values of indicators characterising certain actions and then to take actions aimed at achieving or exceeding those values.
Let us presume that the public institution was to issue 50 permits for a circumstantial kind of activity each month, that the waiting time for the authorisation was to be no longer than a period and that no more than erstwhile per 20 cases (5%) were to be appealed against decisions taken. If it was found that little than 50 permits were issued in 3 consecutive months, the management of the unit should be required to analyse and modify the process (if it was due to inefficiency of the process).
Managing efficiency besides improves the planned parameters. This can be the consequence of exceeding the planned parameters – e.g. more than 50 permits in the above example. Enhancing efficiency can besides be the consequence of simplifying the process, modifying forms or implementing on-line handling of applications. Expected performance indicators are frequently determined on the basis of comparative analyses of the implementation of akin operations in another public institutions.
Similarly, public policies and State strategies should be the subject of efficiency management. They should have circumstantial implementation indicators for periods not exceeding six months. Managing the effectiveness of the strategy and at least the most crucial public programmes should be implemented by the Government Implementation Unit.
Effectiveness should besides be managed in task management processes. In addition to ongoing task management activities aimed at ensuring implementation in accordance with the indicators set out in the plan, implementation shall be carried out. Performance reviews. These are activities involving representatives of the contractor and the contracting authority, who jointly measure the level of advancement and the hazard of the project. If necessary, the parties shall jointly make ways to address risks or solve problems. If a crucial hazard is identified to accomplish the project's success, its management may be instructed to make corrective plan for the project.
Proposed solutions
Systemic efficiency management should be implemented in public administration. Efficiency management should focus on public strategies, policies and programmes, projects and operational processes. It should be organised, supervised and assisted by Government Effectiveness Office (which may be a component of the Government Implementation Unit). Its crucial component should be an application collecting data on the efficiency of the main processes implemented. Management of the efficiency of public projects, due to their specificity, should be supervised by the Government task Management Office.
Public organisations should specify sets of managed indicators and their expected values within certain ranges of not more than 12 months. The level of performance of these values should be reported in relation to the planned values to the Office of Government Efficiency.
In all public institution, starting with government level, it should act efficiency proxy (in the rank of Deputy Head of Unit). The manager of the Office of Efficiency should play this function at government level.
Innovation management is an component of efficiency management. Each public institution should have a defined process of managing innovative ideas, including an efficiency proxy as the individual liable for assessing these ideas. The environment for innovation is cognition acquired from the outside or created in the course of its own tasks. Repository and cognition portals should be created. Each public institution should have a strategy to get or make the essential knowledge.
Public purchasing management
The acquisition of goods by public administration entities takes place through purchases. The acquisition is preceded by the conclusion of a contract for its implementation, i.e. a contract which acts as an accessory in this process. buying takes the form of continuous processes (e.g. long-term supply of fuel) or projects (e.g. road construction).
Purchases carried out in a conventional form, erstwhile there is simply a strict division between the contracting authority and the contractor, consequence in a hostile attitude of the parties to the contract. In the partnership approach, the entities and persons active in the acquisition form 1 squad working together to accomplish success. A partnership approach includes, for example, joint engagement of both parties, trust, cooperation and open communication, the adoption of common objectives, the doctrine of wine-wine, methods of joint conflict resolution, justice, sharing of benefits and risks or open accounting.
Public purchases in Poland are carried out under the Public Procurement Law, the main focus of which is the award of contracts, not the execution of purchases. In the adoption of the Public Procurement Law (PPP) in its first version, in 1994 it was primarily about ensuring equality and fairness in awarding contracts.
Proposed solutions
At the moment, the main task facing regulations, alongside ensuring equal access to purchases, should be to guarantee the efficiency of their implementation.
Public procurement law should be replaced in its entirety by the Public Procurement Law, which gives fundamental importance to the efficiency of procurement.
Money spent on public purchases should be spent to maximise public benefits. Without a fundamental improvement of the public purchasing system, the Polish public administration will not increase its efficiency.
Therefore, the Public Procurement Law should regulate, among others, the reporting of advancement of work, emergency actions (derogation from the plan), cooperation of the contracting authority and contractor, support of the contracting authority for the contractor. Public purchasing law should take into account, in peculiar in the area of IT projects, the anticipation of their agile implementation.
In order to guarantee the efficiency of the public purchasing system, they should be required to be implemented in the operational expression of the partnership. The performance of each public purchase, and in peculiar of major projects, should be proportionate to both parties: the contracting authority and the contractor, who should cooperate continuously. Partnership by its nature is long-term. The past of cooperation with the tenderer afraid should be allowed as 1 of the selection criteria.
W Almost public purchases should be identified alongside supplies, services and construction works a peculiar kind of contract – a project. specified purchases should be addressed by the requirements set out in the Public Projects section.
When assessing the public purchasing system, the level of gathering public needs should be considered as the main indicator, not only the formal correctness of the procurement system.
Proposed support institutions
Office for strategical Analysis (BAS)
A strategical Analysis Office should be set up to make the main policies and strategies of the state. BAS should have a hierarchical structure and besides supervise strategical analysis departments in ministries and equivalent institutions. The BAS task should be to make standards of analysis and their results and to monitor the compliance of ministerial strategies with government guidelines. BAS should make and supervise the process of defining policies based on facts.
Government Implementation Unit
The Government Implementation Unit should operate in the government. Government strategies and policies must be coherent (in peculiar lower order policies must be consistent with higher hierarchical policies) and be defined in specified a way as to let supervision of their implementation (measurable indicators defined for each period).
The task of the JAC should be to supervise the formal correctness of policies and strategies and to supervise their implementation. advancement in implementation should be supervised by an analysis provided by institutions performing periodic reports. JWZ should besides collect and verify reports on the efficiency of public administration processes. Part of the efficiency management activities may be carried out by the Government's Office of Efficiency,
Government task Management Office (RDP)
At central level, there should be a Government task Management Office whose mission should be to guarantee the success of public projects. The RBZP should make and implement task management methodologies (different for the main areas of activity: infrastructure, IT, restructuring and tp). The RDP should supervise the most crucial public projects (including formal verification of business justification, task plan and advancement reports). The RDP should, inter alia, support public projects in addressing major problems and developing responses to major risks.
Summary
The Polish state needs major reforms. This survey presents the most crucial solutions for the full public administration activities to be implemented in order for the Polish state to function more efficiently.
Real implementation strategic governance which must not end with the adoption of a strategy. strategical governance must besides include delegation of strategical tasks and objectives to public administrations. Implementation of the strategy should be monitored by the Government Implementation Unit (IMI) and administrative units should respond to deviations from the implementation plan.
You should Implement public policy management processes. They must be based on state strategy and on facts. They should be defined so that the effects of their implementation on citizens are known. The implementation of public policies should besides be monitored and supervised by the JGM.
Effective implementation should be implemented public task selection processes, based on a formal, verified business justification. The implementation of the task must be based on a revised management plan. Public projects should print data on their implementation. The state of implementation should be assessed by an independent entity. It should be possible to implement projects in agile mode.
If no efficient task management processes are introduced, Poland threatens to waste money from the National Reconstruction Plan.
You should implement efficiency management in public administration, i.e. determining performance indicators, how to supervise their accomplishment and how to respond to deviations from the planned performance indicators. Efficiency management should be assisted by innovation management.
Public procurement law should be full replaced Public purchasing law, emphasising the efficiency of the purchasing process. Public purchasing efficiency should be considered to be an indicator of the level of satisfaction of public needs, not only of the formal compatibility of the procurement process with the applicable regulations.
In order for the reformed administration to work effectively, 3 institutions should be established (or completely reorganised):
- Office of strategical Analysis,
- Government Implementation Unit,
- Government task Management Office.
