Public Management
Central Government Reform
The Government Programme of Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen states that a project looking at the reform needs of the central government will be launched and the Ministry of Finance has set up a project. The term of the project is from 1 January 2012 to 31 March 2013.
The Finnish state administration has been traditionally very stable. During the two last decades the state administration has been renewed actively on the agency and regional level. In the division of labour between the ministries stability has been the state of affairs. During the 1970’s and the 1980’s only a couple of changes were made like setting up the Ministry of Environment in 1983. A big change was the forming of the Ministry of Economy and Employment after the 2007 Government programme.
The preparation of wide-ranging societal impact targets requires co-operation between ministries across administrative borders. There have been several efforts to enhance horizontality across the administrative fields and stovepipes of the ministries by developing collaboration and co-ordination, by for instance through financial co-ordination by the Ministry of Finance and during last years by the policy programme structure of the Government. According to international evaluations (years 2000, 2010) there is still however a lot of unused opportunity in enhancing horizontality in the central government. In the OECD Public Governance country review published in 2010 the three core challenges of Finnish public governance are named to be strategic insight, resource flexibility and collective commitment.
The tasks of ministries are law drafting-, policy-making, strategic and international questions. In strengthening the strategic capacity of the administration the emphasis is in the entity formed by the ministerial structure. The structure of this entity should also support the idea of continuous development and of a learning organisation. The reforms will lead to new reforms. In principle the administration will never be ready and forming one new ministry or combining several into one will not have a great effect on the government culture if the ministries do not have a firm connection to each other.
If the ministries would be reformed to form one genuinely uniform entity by making it structurally, resource-wise and process-wise a single joint organisation, instead of administratively separate ministries, it would also make possible a better mobility of both personnel and financial resources to implement the Government’s priorities. It would also help joining together the support functions and thus achieve productivity and quality gains.
The project’s targets include:
- Making the policy -, law drafting and resource steering more coherent.
- To better support the implementation of the Government’s strategic insight and impact in the public administration and in the society.
- To increase the mobility of personnel and financial resources and to enhance a joint organisational culture in the state administration.
- To map out as one opportunity the joining of the ministries into one single agency, but so that the project does not change the position of ministers as members of the Government and as leaders of their ministry.
- To project needs to work out by 31 May 2012 those different options that exist to achieve these targets set for the project and in the second phase then concentrate on how the chosen option(s) will be carried through.
For further information, please contact Financial Counsellor Katju Holkeri, e-mail: katju.holkeri(at)vm.fi.
Performance Management
Aiming to make performance management more strategic, lighter, more horizontal and more unified.
Finnish State administration has had a performance management system for twenty years. During those years the system has changed and new elements have been added to the system. Based on an evaluation of the system done in 2009-2010 a development project is now trying to find ways to make performance management more strategic, lighter, more horizontal and more unified. A cultural change has occurred in the performance management system and it is now more top-down than before. The aim of the current project is to further strengthen the role of ministries in their steering of their administrative fields, but in a way that the ministries on the other hand work with coherence and the whole-of-government view as their targets. One of the targets of the current project is to make it lighter. Often in developing new things are added on top of existing ones. The current project hopes to be able to do the opposite thus resulting in a better performance management with a lighter process. The project’s proposals will be ready by end of March 2012.
For further information, please contact Financial Councellor Katju Holkeri, e-mail: katju.holkeri(at)vm.fi.
Perspectives and ideas for an innovative approach to administrative governance
New solutions and innovations are urgently needed in the public sector. At the core of the reform are the competence and ability of organizations and individuals, which can then be refined into innovations that boost productivity and effectiveness. There is a great potential, and what is now needed is for public sector organizations to adopt a new type of attitude and a customer-friendlier approach, to be willing to take greater risks and be prepared to replace old, habitual ways of doing things with new, innovative ways.
The joint project´s aims at
- giving content and formulating procedures for innovation management within ministries and their administrative branch
- integrating innovation management as part of Performance Management System and practices.
The project partners are: Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Employment and the Economy, Ministry of Education and Culture, Ministry of Transport and Communication.
For further information, please contact Head of Development Virpi Einola-Pekkinen e-mail: virpi.einola-pekkinen(at)vm.fi
Organisational changes
The Public Management Department was re-organised to better meet the objectives of the Government Programme. As of 1 December 2011 the functions and resources of the Public Management Department were assigned to Department for Government Personnel Management and the Department for Municipal Affairs, forming two new departments:
- Personnel and Governance Policy Department – Office for the Government as Employer
- Department for Local Government and Regional Administration
The P.O. Box and e-mail addresses of the new departments will remain the same.
Preparations underway for a Nationwide Reform in Local Government Structures
In line with the Government Programme, the Government has undertaken preparations for a nationwide reform in local government structures. The reform aims to create a thriving local government structure built on economically robust municipalities able to respond to the impending extensive changes in the operating environment. Economically robust municipalities consist of customary commuter areas large enough to be able to provide basic public services. By reorganising local government structures, it will be possible to create a service structure where the power and responsibility for organising and financing services is allocated to a single authority equipped with a sufficiently large population and skills base.
Organisation
The ministerial working group on public administration and regional development is in charge of the reform, chaired by Henna Virkkunen, Minister of Public Administration and Local Government. A political steering group has also been appointed for the reform. The group’s mandate is the same as the current government term, i.e. from 14 September 2011 to 31 March 2015. The group will formulate the political principles related to the drafting of an act on local government structures, to overhauling the Local Government Act and to amending the legislative provisions governing central government transfers to local government. It is also responsible for the political policy preparations of the reform process. A political monitoring group has also been selected for the reform from representatives of the parliamentary groups of the political parties in Government. This group’s term is from 7 October 2011 to 31 August 2012.
The working group on local government structures set up in March 2011 will prepare the implementation of the Reform in Local Government Structures as outlined in the Government Programme. The chair of the working group is Päivi Laajala, Director General of the Department of Municipal Affairs. Other members of the group comprise delegates from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Social Welfare and Health, the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry of the Environment and two experts from the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities.
In the course of its work, the working group has examined the local government sector from various angles, such as service needs development, local government finances, housing and urban structures as well as commuter areas, business and services and accessibility. The specific conditions of individual areas are taken into account, such as language aspects, long distances, sparse population and archipelago conditions. In planning the development of service needs, population projections and changes in dependency ratios and their effect on future service needs and finances will all be taken into account.
The working group’s term terminated at the end of 2011. It will draw up a report on the most expedient local government and service structure for each area as outlined in the Government Programme. It will also draw up a list of criteria for the reform in local government structures and how to implement them, so that the Government can make use of them when defining more specific criteria and procedures for the reform. The working group’s mandate includes the local government and service structures of the Kainuu region and the metropolitan area.
The project manager for the reform in local government structures is Mr Arto Koski, whose role is to act as a coordinator for the reform and to be responsible for the civil service preparations of the reform in collaboration with the working group for the Local Government Structures. Mr Koski is in the service of the Ministry of Finance’s Department of Municipal Affairs.
Schedule
Surveys on the most expedient structure for municipalities and services, criteria for the formation of economically robust municipalities and measures to implement the reforms were completed by the end of 2011.
Following that, an extensive regional round of consultations will be carried out in early spring 2012 with a view to engaging in genuine interaction with the municipalities. The working group’s report will be presented during the round of consultations and the views and conclusions drawn by the municipalities will be heard. Besides the regional consultations, the report will be widely distributed for statements. On the basis of the consultations and statements, a government proposal for an Act on Local Government Structures will be submitted to Parliament in autumn 2012. The aim is to bring the act into force by the beginning of 2013 and to reach decisions on a new local government structure by the end of 2014.
Amendments to the Local Government Act and the Act on Central Government Transfers to Local Government in connection with the reform in local government structures
The reform in local government structures will pave the way for comprehensive amendments to the Local Government Act. The self-government of municipalities and local democracy will be further highlighted in the legislative amendments. A parliamentary monitoring group will be set up in connection with the reform in local government structures. The amendments to the Local Government Act will commence in spring 2012 and the government proposal is due to be submitted to Parliament in autumn 2013 with a view to bringing the amended act into force by the beginning of 2015.
The system of central government transfers to local government will also be overhauled as part of the reform in local government structures. This work will commence in autumn 2012 and the planned date of completion for a new system of central government transfers is 1 January 2015.