Decision on number of employees in public sector in March 2017 – Public Administration Reform Council constituted

The next decision on the maximum number of employees in the public sector will be adopted by the end of march 2017, as the goal regarding the reduction of the number of employees for 2016 has already been achieved, it was agreed on Monday, December 26, 2016, at the constitutional session of the Public Administration Reform Council.

– Having in mind the goals achieved, the primary focus in the coming period will be to increase the efficiency of the public administration through reorganizing existing capacities and a more quality management, and not through further reduction of the number of employees – the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government reported.

As stated, since the end of 2013, when the ban on employments in the public sector came into effect, the public administration and local public enterprises have 36,600 fewer permanent employees, i.e. 22,850 fewer than in December 2014, when the rationalization process started.

The indicators show that the process of rationalization is being carried out successfully and that the quantitative goal for 2016 which was agreed upon with the IMF has been achieved and even exceeded.

As stated, the conclusion made at the constitutive session of the Public Administration Reform Council, where the opinion on baseline indicators for managing changes in the public administration was adopted among other things, was that, even with the all-encompassing fiscal consolidation and rationalization, the functionality of the public administration had been maintained, along with savings of more the RSD 4 billion in 2016.

With the adoption of the next decision on the maximum number of employees, the ministries will be given enough time to create and officially adopt visions of development of their sectors, as well as individual action plans for the realization of those visions, the ministry points out.

– In the coming period, the focus will be on functional reorganization within education, healthcare, central administration, social protection, local self-governments and all those sectors containing institution networks – the report emphasizes.

– An important message sent from this meeting is that, in the coming period, we will focus on increasing the efficiency of the operations of public servants and the administration in general. Serbia does not have a massive state sector. For the sake of comparison, there are 6.5 public servants for each 100 citizens, which is fewer than in the EU countries, where the number is 8-8.5 – stated Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government Ana Brnabic for the media following the meeting.

She added that Serbia didn't have an outsized, but inefficient public administration and that there were discussions about compensating for the lack of employees where needed in order to secure a high quality of services.

Providing more quality services to citizens was cited as one of the priorities in the process of reorganization of the public administration. To that end, the functions provided by the state need to be re-examined, the employee structure needs to be improved and the savings achieved need to be made sustainable and permanent.

It is on these foundations that the further reform of the public administration will be carried out, for which Serbia has been provided with EUR 80 million in aid by the European Union, the report points out.

In this process, the ministries will be helped by the Change Management Support Group, formed by the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government and presented at the session. The group will provide expert help to the ministries in managing changes, through additional new skill training, competence and planning approach to work. The group will assist the ministries in these fields in order to use all the available knowledge to the end of conceptualizing visions, goals, priorities and reorganization plans within sectors. Furthermore, the group will support the ministries in the areas of communications and financial planning.

The constitutive session of the Public Administration Reform Council, at which the State Secretaries Board was formed as the Council's working group, was presided over by Minister Brnabic.

Ministarstvo državne uprave i lokalne samouprave Republike Srbije

Međunarodni monetarni fond-MMF Beograd

Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self Government

Ana Brnabic

Public Administration Reform Council

decision on maximum number of public sector employees

International Monetary Fund

IMF

public administration reorganization

public administration reform

Change Management Support Group

education