Governance and public management

Selected references

While it is essential to organise the involvement of beneficiary populations in the development process, it is equally crucial to strengthen public administrations at the central, regional and local levels.  Applying good governance principles leads to their improved management and functioning, and so their capacity to provide reliable and transparent services adapted to the needs of the beneficiaries (citizens and businesses), with direct and indirect positive effects on the economy and the political and social climate.

Ginger SOFRECO's assignments in the field of governance and public management concern a very wide variety of topics, the main ones of which are:

Good governance

• Development of professional codes of ethics.
• Strengthening of legality, control and accountability mechanisms so that the public administration responds to European standards of professionalism, conformity, efficiency, responsiveness and legal guarantee.
• Support for the improvement of relations between the administration and citizens, and raising public awareness on the services provided by the administration.
• Support to combat fraud and corruption by modernising the regulatory and organisational audit framework in the public sector and designing new systems and procedures.
• Improvement of access to public information.
• Strengthening of civil society: development of populations' participation in planning, decision making procedures and institutions.
• Support for the strengthening of populations' participation in local development.

Administrative reform

• Analysis of the remit, organisation, procedures, methods and human resources of public administrations. Proposals to improve their capacity to provide reliable, transparent administrative services adapted to the beneficiaries' needs (public and private).
• Support for the reorganisation and restructuring of public administrations: revision of organisation charts, setting up of more efficient and reliable management procedures, development of procedures manuals, training of users.
• Establishment of clear regulations and procedures for civil servant recruitment, professional careers and promotion, governed by competition and performance evaluation principles. Support for the drafting of the corresponding legislation and regulations.
• Support in the decentralisation process: study of local authorities' financing mechanisms with a view to the effective implementation of decentralisation; support - particularly through targeted training action - to municipal and regional authorities to improve their management, programming capacities, etc.
• Support for the development of public-private partnerships.

Public finance

• Implementation of overall budget reforms: introduction of programme budgets, revision of nomenclatures, development of medium term expenditure frameworks / public finance frameworks, revision of budget preparation procedures, etc.
• Analysis and support for the revision of public expenditure implementation procedures.
• Support for the reform of State charts of accounts.
• Technical assistance for the certification of public accounts.
• Establishment of a master plan and drafting of specifications for the computerisation of public finance procedures.
• Drafting of legal and regulatory texts in all the above mentioned fields.

Audit and control

Revision of the legislation, organisation and systems for:

• Internal control of public finances: transition to a management control system.
• Internal auditing: setting up of internal audit approaches and methods within public administrations.
• External audit: modernisation of approaches used by Courts of Auditors in accordance with international standards (INTOSAI, EUROSAI, Lima declaration).

Tax and customs administrations

• Adaptation of the EU "acquis communautaires" to the national legislation of candidate countries.
• Institutional development and decentralisation in tax and customs administrations.
• Revision of the human resource management systems of tax and customs administrations.
• Introduction of modern management systems (strategic planning, internal audit, etc.) in tax and customs administrations.
• Support for the modernisation of tax and customs procedures.
• Harmonisation of customs procedures and working methods in conformity with EU best practises.
• Training of tax and customs administration staff.
• Support for the drafting of legal provisions in the aforementioned fields.

Public procurement

• Development and implementation of Public Procurement Codes.
• Development of public procurement standards and procedures.
• Development of standard documents for the implementation of the Public Procurement Code.
• Development of public procurement guides for proposers.
• Training of public administration and private sector staff concerned by the public procurment process.

Training

• Evaluation of training needs.
• Design and implementation of training plans and programmes.
• Design of study programmes and training systems.
• Feasibility studies, design of training institutions and support for their creation.