MINUTES
DISPA meeting, Budapest, 19-20 May 2011
Venue: Museum of Ethnography
19 May 2011
9.30-9.45 András Levente GÁL – Welcome Address
 “Strong Europe” – the motto and the aims of the Hungarian EU Presidency
 The concept of “Good Governance” – Public Administration Development Plan
 “For the benefit of the country and for serving the public.” – presentation of the
Magyary programme, the Public Administration Reform Plan
9.45-10.15 Norbert KIS – Opening session – Presentation of NIPA and introduction
to the major topic
 About the major topic of the DISPA meeting in Budapest
 Presentation of the Hungarian NIPA (National Institute of Public Administration)
 Training strategies reflecting to challenges of Public Administration: New
challenges-new strategies, New Governance, Changes in mentality, attitude and
behaviour, ICT development and Public Administration
 Strategy of the Hungarian Public Policies: Renewing strategy management in the
central government, New career path in the civil service 2012
 DISPA as driving force of training strategies
 See ppt.!
10.15-10.45 Jacek Czaputowicz – New challenges in Public Administration training
strategies – Polish perspective
 General trends in Public Administration and comparison of different governance
models (i.e. Weberian bureaucratic model, New Public Management, New Public
Governance)
 Systematization of kinds of knowledge in Public Administration (Models versus
Training Strategies) – Conclusion: Public sector is different than the private one,
the same solutions cannot be transferred directly.
 Challenges for the Public Administration in Poland (hierarchical, low horizontal
mobility, strong divide between the political level and the civil servants, low level
of civil trust, officials unwilling to share information)
 Challenges of training for civil servants (Programmes are law oriented, not
management oriented, Proposal for subject of training)
 See ppt.!
11.15-11.45 Eleni Gereoudakis - Challenges faced by Public Administrations:
Towards a more strategic approach to learning
 Challenges faced by public administrations (financial recession; knowledge-based,
digital economy and society; higher expectations of citizens; trade unions’ and
staff’s resistance to change; new methods of working; lack of political will for long
term, transformational change)
 The public sector is at a turning point: instead of short-term and short-sighted
reforms systematic change is necessary: PA has to be performance-oriented and
responsive to citizens’ needs;
 Experiences from recent PA reforms: too narrow focus; changing of rules and
procedures doesn’t necessarily lead to change in behaviour and culture; the
absence of holistic approach; the changing environment demands high-quality
leadership and management; learning and training plays a pivotal role  strategic
approach to learning is necessary; the aim is to transform the training system to
knowledge based from teaching based; leadership and management development
should be high on the agenda
 Role of European training institutes – the case of the Cyprus Academy of Public
Administration (background, non-structural/informal and structural/formal
weaknesses of the Cyprus civil service;
 CAPA’s mission and main strategies for the achievement of the mission: System
for the Decentralised Management of Learning in civil service organizations;
horizontal, civil service-wide, strategic learning initiatives; learning initiatives for
Local Administration organizations; international/regional activities
 Experiences of the last few years: internal challenges; moving away from
traditional methods; searching for funding outside of state actors: partnerships
with the academic and private sector; research has to be needs-oriented
 See ppt.!
11.45-12.15 Nikolaj G. Lubanski - The need for profound change – Reinventing the
Public Sector in Denmark
 The challenge – what the Danish welfare society faces? Deficit, public expenditure
is too high, there are less and less people in the workable age
 The Government’s plan for 2020 – the consequences for the public sector: a new
agenda, reinventing the public sector
 Consequences for training policy and curriculum: innovation is becoming more
and more a theme; new ways of cooperating between public and private and third
sector; efficiency and digitalization, public project management. The organization
needs to be changed: simplify the way mass public services are delivered.
Research based innovation is required.
 Cases: the Danish Immigration Service: innovation course; Danish Tax and
Customs Administration: digitalization; the National Board of Industrial Injuries
in Denmark: a new type of digital access between the injured and the parties of a
given case
 The next 10 years – four trends of training policy and curriculum development
 See ppt.!
12.15-12.30 Summary and concluding remarks by the chairman
 The landscape has changed: financial crisis; learning and education have evolved,
new technologies are developed
 learning and education issues have evolved
 Ways of teaching and learning has to be changed  this has to be addressed
 PA is expected to meet the needs of the citizens
 knowledge-based development  skills-based development: which is more
effective?
 pressure on training budget  has to be used wisely!
 Suggested titles of the four workshops:
 I. Targets of effective management training (cancelled due to lack of interest!)
 II. Changing topics and methods of training
 III. Effective transfer of learning
 IV. Feasibility of a European level training program
14.15-14.45 György Drótos – Opening statement to the debate

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Diagnosis of the public sector; challenges/issues to be tackled
New Public Governance – a new model is emerging
Questions for the four (three) topics / working groups
See ppt.!
20 May 2011
8.45-9.30 Side meeting - Working Group chairs reporting back –
See Reporting back of WGs - minutes
9.30-11.00 Conclusion from the Chair and discussions
See Reporting back of WGs debate summary
11.15-11.45 Bernard Boucault – Look back to the Strasbourg Manifesto
The actions, in line with the Strasbourg Manifesto – adopted unanimously in 2008 -,
can be analysed on three levels:
International cooperation
a.
IASIA/AIEIA (International Association of Schools and Institutes of
Administration)
- 80 countries, more than 200 members, 12 new members at each semiannual management board (among them we can find Arabic and Asian
countries as well)
- Next annual conference will be held in Rome, between 13-18 June 2011,
on the 50th anniversary of the IASIA/AIEIA. Two main topics of the
conference:
1.) Challenges and next stages for Public Administration in the
world, 2.) Respective roles of the State and society in the
fulfilling of public tasks
- Members have access to a reference dossier including guidelines for
trainings and standard of excellence that can be used by member
institutes. The use of these standards enables the institutes for a
certificate proving the good quality of their training courses
(international accreditation, common document of the association and
the UN)
- several high quality publications (ex. International Review of
International Schools and Administrative Institutes published in six
languages)
b. Two important meetings in this year
- 2nd meeting of the UNASUR (Union of South American Nations)
countries have also created a DISPA-like network in order to promote
Public Administration in South America (except for Columbia) –the
meeting triggered a lot of interest in the sub-continent, as they need
more exchange with Europe on curricula and on case studies
-
USA (Florida International University) - Europe (Polish Jacek School)
meeting in Strasbourg on the 13 September 2011. Symposium on “The
comparative development of training for administration in the United
States and in Europe. Main topics: training, recruitment and the values
of the civil service
c. There is a demand from three emerging countries (one from the ex-Soviet
Union, one from Latin-America and one from South-East Asia)
for
cooperation in organising academic and professional master courses
European cooperation
 25 cooperation actions were made with 12 countries since the Belgian Presidency
of the EU, which illustrates the usefulness of DISPA network
 The European Parliament also supports DISPA meetings (round tables on
financial solutions coming from the EU towards the DISPA, and on mobility in
civil servants’ European career)
 The ENA supports the initiative for creating a consortium offering wide-range
educational programmes
 ENA would like to launch a tender for institutions for the training of trainers of
administrators and as a specification it would like to ensure not to be monopolistic
and not to be in favour of the private sector
Research projects
 CRIPO (Comparative Research into Current Trends in Public Sector Organization)
programme, launched along the COST programme (European Cooperation in
Science and Technology) at the Leuven University, has published a comparative
study on the “agencification” of the public service, as central administration is
broken down into small agencies in Europe
 Joint research between ENA and a Dutch researcher on the mobility of European
civil servants that was also published in the magazine of ENA
 Cooperation between DISPA schools for exchanging experts and researchers for
time that varies – ENA is ready to welcome colleagues or experts from other
schools, as it already did it with a researcher from Ukraine
11.45-12.00 Sandra Schillemanns and Marie-Sophie Noël - The INCREASE –
follow up
Presentation of the INCREASE² project
 INCREASE² is an international consortium with the participation of academic
researchers and field specialists in education and evaluation
 Objectives: sharing experiences and practices, developing new projects and
disseminate results
 Platforms of communication:
implantation meetings
website,
annual
conferences
and
project
The first INCREASE² initiative: Open AMS (Open Assessment Management System)
 Target public: DISPA community and INCREASE² members
 Comprehensive software platform to empower the 4 steps (Kirckpatricks)
approach for evaluation and management
 Accessible in EU languages for the public, private and academic sectors
 See ppt.!
12.00-12.15 David Walker – DISPA website and Wiki; Managers for Europe
 Introduction of Public Administration Erasmus Program: 2 week long traineeship
in Brussels for young civil servants; visit all EU Institutions; short training
seminars with EIPA; the pilot program will end because of budget issues;
 DISPA website: DISPA did have a website once but it is no longer available due to
financial issues; there was a discussion about the website in 2008 but it was not
established
12.15-12.30 Marga Pröhl – Presentation of EUPAN website
 Introduction of EUPAN: consist of WGs; Presidencies invest money in these WGs
and they have products; question: how to make public use of these EUPAN
products?
 Introduction of EUPAN website:
 there is an existing website but it is not attractive: it has to be filled with new
data!  French Presidency decided to invest money in the website to make it
useful and attractive  it will be introduced at the next DG Meeting
 structure of EUPAN site:
 public part – worldwide publicly accessible, internet functions and features
 intranet – open to EUPAN members only, intranet functions and features
 navigation menus and functionalities; WGs and thematic areas; knowledge
centre
 Offer: there is a know-how in EUPAN and DISPA should take advantage of it;
DISPA should consider having a space on the EUPAN website. It is possible to use
intranet and public part also – or only one of them
 Questions to be answered:
 what do we want from the web-site, what is the purpose it serves
 relation between DISPA and EUPAN: DISPA is not a WG of EUPAN: this has to
appear be clearly on the website!
 what should appear on the site (content): preparatory work for Presidency;
documents; forum discussions; summary of Meetings; links to national schools;
common programs
 maintenance of the website: who will control the content (one school as a
webmaster? DISPA Troika? Presidencies?); who will pay for it (for a year it is
financed by the French government – but what after that?); who will be
responsible for updating the site: presidencies? DISPA Troika?
 Conclusion: the idea is welcomed but due to lack of time to discussion, the offer
should be debated in detail at the next DISPA Meeting
12.30-13.00 Jacek Czaputowicz – Invitation to Poland for the next DISPA Meeting
 Invitation of participants to the next DISPA Meeting in Warsaw on the premises of
the National School of Public Administration (KSAP)
 Introduction of KSAP, brief history
 Date of the next Meeting: early July
 Possible subjects of the next Meeting: ethics program; EUPAN/DISPA website;
continuation of raised issues. Any additional ideas on the subjects should be sent
via email!