Come back, by appointment

  • Spanish administrations have suffered the ravages of the years of austerity and cuts

A few days ago, I took the opportunity to try to register a title at a nearby public office. To my surprise, I saw when I entered that there was no one, except the two officials who were serving the public. I hurried to the window, when a voice stopped me: Do you have an appointment? Caught at fault, as is often the case whenever one faces the all-powerful administration, I admitted with shame that no, I did not have an appointment. But, given that there was no one else and that my management was very fast, maybe they could attend to me. What if the one with the previous appointment comes in the meantime? I was speechless before such a forceful argument and I resisted pointing out the obviousness that we would be two attending and two attended. Well, give me an appointment, please. We can’t, that has to be done online.

I thought that my mobile had access and I started looking for the corresponding website to request it when they told me that, in any case, they would give me the appointment in a few days and not for that morning, since everything was busy. In a gesture of empathy, one of the officials came up with the solution: wait and if the one with the previous appointment does not come, we will assist you as an exception. Ten minutes, alone and looking at us, were enough to conclude that they could attend to me, without violating the rights of those who had done it well, requesting the mandatory prior appointment. Then, when the procedures to register my document began, the system crashed and, ten minutes later, I walked out the door with the title unregistered. (sic)

Returning home, with a hybrid feeling between frustration, understanding (deep down, I am also a civil servant, with a three-year minister of affairs) and anger, I thought about how many times I had reflected on the essential reform of our public administrations. Especially these days when we had just presented to the Government the document on “Thirteen proposals to reform the State Administration & rdquor; as a result of the work of the Group of Experts created for this purpose by the former minister Miquel Iceta and when I have been invited by the Ministry to participate as a speaker in the “7th State Conference on Quality in public services & rdquor; that took place this week in Malaga.

The health of a democracy can be measured by analyzing the state of its public administrations, which are in charge of guaranteeing the rights established by law. and, among them, the provision of public services that are the main mortar that binds a society together. It would not be true to say that nothing has changed in the structure and functioning of Spanish administrations in recent decades. But it is appropriate to point out that too little and too little has changed and that, furthermore, it has suffered the ravages of the austerity years and cuts with the result that, in the last decade, our public administrations have experienced a evident and severe degradation process.

In a modern state, public administrations directly manage around half of GDP, and influence, indirectly through regulation and supervision, the other half. Furthermore, in market societies like ours, they coexist with a hegemonic private sector, whose rights it must also guarantee. Specific, through three permanent self-control actions:

  • Controlling its tendency to expansion, checking whether what it does can be done better by the private sector.

  • Imposing a simplification that restricts the number of regulations in force (do you know that, among the three administrations, 45 regulations are approved every business day?).

  • Controlling the administrative burdens imposed on the private sector and citizens, including time costs.

In addition, in a multilevel state like ours, public administrations must coordinate to guarantee an adequate provision of the competences of each one of them. And, in those that are concurrent, they must find adequate co-governance mechanisms. Specific:

  • A statute of the Central Government that regulates its exclusive powers and how it should exercise those that are basic must be approved by law.

  • Regulating and institutionalizing the Conference of Presidents and the Sectorial Conferences

  • Creating shared structures between Central Government and regional governments for the management of competencies that must be coordinated effectively.

We are used to debating the size of the state. Debate that hides what should be the permanent object of concern: Does the State and its administrations do what they have to do, and does it do it efficiently? Our administrations maintain a vertical and siled organizational structure, when most of the problems in a complex society like the current one can only be addressed horizontally. This would push to hand over to specialized agencies the execution of those programs that need horizontal approaches on a permanent basis. An Administration by Agencies allows a better differentiation between the regulation of a public policy and its adequate execution, at the same time that it helps to advance an administration financed by objectives.

Today it is impossible to maintain an administration that does not work internally and does not interact with citizens, in a mostly digital way. Much progress has been made in this regard in recent years. But there is still more that remains to be improved so that the experience that users have when dealing digitally with the private sector can also be carried over to their relationship with public administrations.

In this sense, reforms should be governed by two very simple principles: Single digital window for all administrations, and that no administration asks citizens for documentation that is in their possession by another part of the administration.

Digital administration is not business as usual but over the internet, but rather taking advantage of the internet to change business as usual.

Public administrations that work for citizens, but under the instructions of politicians, must be able to guarantee the professionalism and independence of their public employees. For this, it is essential to develop the Basic Statute of Public Employees, approved in 2007, updating in a special way the following aspects:

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  • Advance in the differentiation between civil servant and public employee.

  • Modernize the rules of access to the public function, maintaining the principles of merit and capacity.

  • Develop the performance evaluation mechanism: officials must have their job insured, but not their job position if they do not perform it properly.

  • Regulatory development of the directive function.

  • Limit the interim to those absolutely justifiable cases.

We should take advantage of lever IV, Component 11 of the Reform Plan annexed to the Next Generation funds, to promote a modernization of our administrations. According to the CIS, 86% of those of us who have had a relationship with public health due to the pandemic value the care received as good / very good. Is this possible to do. It is necessary to do it. Let’s put the priority, the time and the necessary resources to do it. We will all win. By the way, a few days later, I registered the title in less than ten minutes, at a Post Office, taking the number when entering and without prior appointment.

Reference-www.elperiodico.com

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