Central European Public Administration Review (E-Journal)
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Open Government, Social Media and Western Balkan Countries
Full text linkThis article analyses the presence and activity on the field of social media in the countries that belonged to the same state in the past: Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH), Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia – these named as Western Balkan Countries (WBCs) – and, Slovenia and Croatia as EU member states. The authors have analysed the official profiles of the respective countries on social media and calculated the Facebook Assessment Index (FAI) for WBCs, and Croatia and Slovenia as a benchmark. The results show that Twitter and Facebook are the most used social media. In WBCs group, the FAI index could not be calculated for BIH and Serbia, while the other two countries had high index values. Benchmark countries have lower values but they are significantly highlighted by individual sub-indices. The governments of the researched countries mostly publish promotional information about their work. Consequently, they have a relatively small number of friends/followers/subscribers and comments/shares/likes on social media. Therefore, these countries fail to use the full potential of social media to increase visibility and transparency of their work and to ensure communication channel for idea and information exchange between government and citizens, making the public policies design more inclusive and increasing trust between government and citizens. The findings provide an insight into the nature of activity on social media in WBCs. While FAI scores show that WBCs do not lag far behind established benchmarks, the research proves that some of the weights proposed in the literature and used in the calculation of FAI index are too simplified to adequately evaluate posts on the Facebook pages. Hence, this article contributes above all to the awareness regarding further potentials and the interdisciplinary aspects of stately social media usage, in theory and practice alike
Making Transparency Work: Experiences from the Evaluation of the Hamburg Transparency Law
Full text linkFreedom of information acts (FOIA) aim to improve the public’s opportunities to access official information from public authorities and hence to increase the level of transparency. Thus, it is important to know whether and to what degree the effects intended by establishing FOIAs are achieved and how their implementation could be improved. Hence, this article presents the evaluation of the Hamburg Transparency Law (HmbTG)– Germany’s first FOIA that binds authorities to disclose government information proactively. The purpose of the paper is to provide a valuable example of how evaluating FOIA might produce useful information for policymakers and public authorities. The analysis results, based on a mixed set of methods (i.e. standardised surveys, statistical secondary data, qualitative expert interviews, and criteria-driven document analysis), lead to the conclusion that the HmbTG was very effective in providing the direct access. On the other hand, it was found that strategies for implementing the law varied considerably between authorities, yet proactive disclosure was overall implemented effectively. Moreover, this law shows some weaknesses to be improved in the future. Besides providing practitioners with valuable insights into how a transparency law may be implemented, the evaluation of the HmbTG also provides researchers with ideas how FOIA evaluation might be conducted comprehensively
The Service of Documents in Administrative Procedural Law – A Comparative Analysis
Full text linkThis article presents a comparative and empirical analysis of the service or the delivery of documents in procedures, as the key procedural action to constitute legal effects in legal relationships. In Slovenia, service is largely defined by the three main procedural laws – the General Administrative Procedure Act, the Criminal Procedure Act, and the Contentious Civil Procedure Act. These relate to different types and specifics of relationships; for instance, in administrative proceedings, the public interest prevails over private ones. The presented research, applying predominantly normative and comparative methods and analysis of case law, aims to show the importance of the specificity of the different areas and of the rules of service in different proceedings. The results of the research suggest that in certain cases service should be regulated in a uniform manner. Yet the specific aims of various legal relations require individual solutions. Thus, the article opens up grounds for future comparative research and practical regulatory improvements
Neutrality and the Dutch Objection Procedure
Full text linkIn the Netherlands, if someone disagrees with an administrative order, he is only allowed to seek redress with the administrative courts after he has lodged an objection with the administrative authority responsible for the order. The objection procedure entails that an administrative body reconsiders its own decision. In this contribution we study the preference of objectors concerning the organization of the procedure and to what extent their preference is related to the perceived (lack of) neutrality of the person who conducted their hearing. In particular we focus on the effects of the use of neutral ‘outsiders’ when conducting hearings. Based on the literature we assumed that the use of outsiders would benefit the experienced impartiality of the person(s) conducting the hearing. The results of two discussed studies however do not support this assumption. The formal status of the persons conducting the hearing is a poor predictor of the extent to which they are perceived as neutral by participants of the procedure
New approaches to the right to be heard in relation to the application of alternatives to administrative sanctions
Full text linkThe right to be heard is one of the key instruments that ensure adequate protection of the participants´ rights during the proceedings before the administrative authority. This requirement is especially important in administrative offences proceedings due to fact that administrative bodies may issue also very serious sanctions and it is important to enable the offenders to influence the outcome of proceedings. Therefore may participants raise their objections, opinions, suggestions. The authors also focus on issues related to the possibility of alternative approaches to administrative sanctions and related issues concerning ensuring adequate position of offender. These questions have not yet attracted doctrinal attention. Article analyses the currently accepted new legislation on administrative offences proceeding, with overlaps resulting from the Council of Europe documents and including basic comparison with the processing on administrative offences in Germany and Poland. In addition, to the basic analysis of the new legislation benefits, the authors pay attention to the new instrument of “legal settlement” that allows administrative authorities to approve agreement between offender and injured party about committed administrative offence and the associated remedy. The new institute is worthy researching, particularly because it is one of the first attempts to adopt alternative approaches to administrative offences proceedings and brings new challenges for administrative authorities. This new institute is compared with the legislation in Germany and Poland. Also methods of analysis of legal requirements of legal documents of Council of Europe and national legislation, normative analysis, literature review and deduction were used in this connection. Authors reached a rather interesting conclusion that the approaches to ADR in administrative offences proceedings are in all three examined different while the article deals more closely with these differences
The Impact of the Public Procurement Control System on the Hungarian Public Administration
Full text linkThe complexity of public procurement and the related controls are a significant issue that public authorities are facing in Hungary. The “fear” of being controlled by state authorities and EU auditors is affecting decisions in public procurement. However, research on the effects of such a system is largely absent. The purpose of the article is to explore the functioning of the control system related to EU funded public procurements and to examine its actual and potential impact on the purchases of public authorities. The method is first an introduction of the features of the control system and then the analysis of data from the relevant bodies in order to see the effect of controls and possible difficulties with the system. The results show that despite the seemingly positive impact on the regularity of procedures, the interference in the decisions of public authorities and the delays caused are problematic. It is therefore suggested that the Hungarian government should consider streamlining the control process such as through checks based on samples or focusing on the most risky procedures. The research is the first academic analysis of data related to public procurement control in Hungary, yet it can already inspire the Hungarian and other governments to review the effectiveness of such procedures and to reduce administrative burdens for public authorities as much as possible
Organizacijska kultura v izbrani pravni osebi javnega sektorja [Organisational Culture in Selected Legal Entity in Public Sector]
Full text linkRaziskava postavlja v ospredje problematiko organizacijske in upravne kulture v povezavi s pristopi v javni upravi, z managementom sprememb in s strateškim managementom v organizacijah javne uprave. Empirični del razišče obstoječo in želeno organizacijsko kulturo ter obstoj odpora do sprememb v izbrani organizaciji javne uprave in podaja predloge za morebitno izboljšanje. Podatki in informacije so bile pridobljene z uporabo OCAI vprašalnika Camerona in Quinna, ki sta jim bili dodani še dve vprašanji za ugotavljanje odpora do sprememb. Rezultati analize kažejo, da je prevladujoči tip organizacijske kulture v izbrani organizaciji kultura hierarhije in da bi si zaposleni v bodoče želeli prevladujoče organizacijske kulture tipa klan v vseh njenih vidikih. Iz raziskave tudi izhaja, da zaposleni dojemajo organizacijsko kulturo v vseh organizacijskih enotah enako in da so statistične razlike v dojemanju organizacijske kulture med vodstvenim kadrom in ostalimi zaposlenimi le v organizacijski kulturi tipa hierarhije. Izidi raziskave obenem kažejo prisotnost odpora do sprememb. Stanje v organizaciji se sklada tudi s sliko javne uprave v evropskem okolju, kjer so prisotne tako tradicionalne vrednote in vrednote nove kulture, kot tudi strah in odpor do sprememb.The research focuses on the organisational and administrative culture in relation to the approaches to public administration, strategic and change management in the public administration organisations. The purpose of the research is to empirically determine the type of present and desired organisational culture, to establish the presence of resistance to change in the selected public organisation, and to design proposals for the improvement of its organisational culture. Data and information were collected using the OCAI questionnaire – Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument developed by Cameron and Quinn in addition of two questions referring to the resistance to change. The results of the survey revealed that AJPES is dominated by a hierarchy culture and that in the opinion of employees, the organisation’s preferred or future culture should be a clan culture type in all its aspects. The results also showed that the perception of organisational culture is the same in all organizational units and different regarding managers and other employees referring to the hierarchy culture. Moreover, the results revealed the presence of resistance to change. This is congruent with the European environment where traditional values, new cultural values, as well as fear and resistance to change can be seen as components of organisational culture in public administration organisations
Measuring the Efficiency of Public Health Services by DEA
Full text linkEfficiency is one of the most important principles in public health services due to the strive for rationality and, at the same time, the need to strengthen quality. The aim of this research is to explore and analyse the suitability of DEA to measure the efficiency of a range of different services offered by institutes of public health in Croatia. DEA is a technique that is used to measure relative efficiency. It is traditionally used for non profit organizations. This technique has so far mostly been used in assessing solely the efficiency of hospitals and not other public health preventive services. For that reason, the objective of this study is to identify units within one department of public health services that are relatively inefficient and to set targets for them based on the activities of units classified as efficient. We used data for 12 units (DMUs) for the period of two years, defining common inputs and outputs. The results obtained show projections of efficient and inefficient DMUs, projection of inefficient units at efficient frontier allows comparison between most similar units by efficiency and provides information on controllable inputs and outputs. This research has proven that relative efficiency obtained with DEA can be a useful tool in assessing efficiency of public health services on level of one institution and could support management decision-making process
Balancing Between Efficiency and Equity in Publicly Funded Health Systems
Full text linkThe purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical overview of efficiency and equity and give insights in the Croatian health system. Using selected indicators, a basic descriptive review of efficiency and equity in the Croatian health system was made, with an added comparison to other countries of the European Union. Observed at the macro level, Croatia shows relatively good efficiency of its health system, even above the average of the comparable countries by health expenditure per capita, but still significantly below the most developed EU countries. Still, Croatia requires further reforms that would enhance the efficiency of its health system (especially at the hospital level), without sacrificing equity which is a fundamental right of all citizens in need of health care. Although in total only small proportion of the population perceived an unmet need for health care, Croatia reported much larger inequalities in unmet need among different socio-economic groups, between high and low educated population, between women and men and among different age groups
Strategic Management and Performance Measurement – A Connected or Disconnected Duo? Evidences from Croatian Public Administration
Full text linkThe paper examines the link between strategic management and performance measurement in the public sector. The main hypothesis is that the stages of strategic management development are positively correlated with the number of performance dimensions measured by public organisations. In order to examine the stated hypothesis results from the empirical research conducted in Croatian public administration are being presented. A questionnaire has been sent to 253 central and local organisations and additional interviews have been conducted. The results confirm the hypothesis and determine that the enhancement of strategic planning and management is one of the main stimuli for performance measurement in Croatia