SECTORAL BRIEF “PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REFORM” Ukraine Reform Conference / Vilnius, 2020 SECTORAL BRIEF “PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REFORM” Authors: Ihor Koliushko, Chairman of the Board of the Center for Political and Legal Reforms; Victoriya Derets, expert of the Center for Political and Legal Reforms Reviewer: Olexandr Zaslavskiy, Head of the Analytical Division, Legislative Initiatives Laboratory 1. Evaluation of reform policies of the Parliament The activities of the Shmygal Government were and Government during the period of September significantly influenced by the global COVID-19 2019 – September 2020 and its compliance with pandemic, which spread to Ukraine since it as- the Toronto Principles sumed the office. For several months, the Gov- ernment’s focus has put exclusively on disease Two governments were formed during the year prevention and maintaining the quarantine. of functioning of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (hereinafter - the Parliament) of the IX convoca- In September 2019, the new MPs introduced sig- tion. The Program of Activities of the Cabinet of nificant changes to the Law of Ukraine on Civil Ministers of Ukraine (hereafter — CMU) of Ol- Service. Most of them undermine the principles eksiy Honcharuk declared state policy-making of stability and democracy of the civil service among its main tasks. It also declared to make institute (in particular, changes concerning the every effort to turn Ukraine into a service-orient- competitive procedure for admission to public ed state by 2025. In March 2020, the Government service, dismissal of civil servants of category of Oleksiy Honcharuk was replaced by the Gov- “A”, etc.). Thereby, ten secretaries of state minis- ernment of Denys Shmygal. In June, its Program tries have been dismissed under the new Article of Activities was approved (although not support- 87 (on the initiative of the newly appointed Prime ed by a parliamentary majority), which identified Minister or a minister of Ukraine). It is proposed the improvement of the public administration to eliminate this erroneous article by the draft system as one of the areas for the efficient use law of June 26, 2020 № 3748. A number of other of resources for the maintenance of executive draft laws have been registered in the Parlia- bodies. At the same time, despite the rhetoric of ment to resolve certain points of the civil service. supporting the already existing vector of reform, the actions of both the Government and the par- At the same time, the Honcharuk’s Government liamentary majority could be assessed as “roll- declared its intention to continue the implemen- back of the reform.” tation of the Public Administration Reform Strat- egy of Ukraine approved by the CMU in 2016 for Both governments were practically formed by the period up to 2021, but interpreted its individ- President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and ual provisions rather subjectively. The provisions were formally appointed by the Parliament in of the Concept of Optimization of the System of one day without proper discussion and follow- Central Bodies of Executive Power in 2018 were ing relevant political procedures. The constitu- not disputed. Both documents were amended tionally defined influence of the Parliament on documents, primarily in terms of the timing of the process of forming the Government was their implementation. also reduced due to the appointment by interim Minister of the candidates who did not receive The Shmygal’s government, considering its the support of the parliamentary majority, but Agenda in the part of good governance, also did whose appointment was supported by the Pres- not refuse to pursue the public administration ident of Ukraine. reform. It made the first attempts to clarify the 1 need to adopt a comprehensive Law of Ukraine servants. “On the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and Central Executive Bodies” with the participation The Government has declared the introduction of experts. The draft of this document was pre- of a check-list system in the evaluation of gov- pared by a working group with participation of ernment draft acts, which should ensure the the European Union experts in 2018-2019. This formation of a standardized system of analysis issue was not even discussed in the Honchar- using policy analysis tools. In addition, the re- uk’s Government. port discusses the implementation of the Meth- odology for preparing forecasts of the impact of The December resolution of the Honcharuk’s the implementation of acts on the interests of Government enshrined the creation of directo- stakeholders and the Methodology for holding rates in all the ministries, not just in the pilot consultations with the parties concerned. ones. However, the compiled list of directorates did not stand up to criticism: instead of creating The Honcharuk Government’s adoption of the directorates that would cover all areas of pub- performance, efficiency and quality indicators lic policy, and then defining priorities for each of of civil secretaries and chiefs of other CEBs for them (CPI), it was planned to create directorates 2020, as well as the Government’s efforts direct- for the specific goals mentioned in the Program ed at improving the system of training and pro- of Activities. As a result, the number of the Di- fessional development of civil servants, can be rectorates exceeded the optimal number in 1.5 positively evaluated. times, while they did not cover at least 20 im- However, the appointment to the civil service on portant areas of public policy. So far, the Shmy- terms of a contract for the period of quarantine, gal’s Government has not introdused significant introduced by the Government of Shmygal, re- changes in that issue. However, he is systemati- ceived mixed reviews, especially in case it would cally increasing the number of ministries cut by remain in place after the quarantine. the Honcharuk’s government. In the area of administrative services, the key The amendments to the current Law on the CMU focus is on the issue of their electronification, expanded the powers of the Secretariat of the which is certainly appropriate in view of the es- CMU, and the amendments to the Law on Cen- tablished goals of the CMU Program of Activi- tral Executive Bodies (hereafter - CEBs) added ties; however, other important issues are being commissions to the types of other central exec- not resolved. Despite SIGMA’s positive conclu- utive bodies. This decision is ambiguous since sion, the Government decided to “refine” the they are considered to be “independent regu- existing, well-drafted bill on administrative pro- lators”, which does not provide the same sta- cedure. After about six months of constructive tus with other CEBs. However, the definition of work on the bill, the Government submitted it to commission in this law is absent, although other Parliament in May 2020. types of bodies are defined. At the same time, the National Commission for State Regulation in Thus, some steps of the both Governments can the Fields of Energy and Public Utilities was re- be assessed positively, while others are quite ferred to the CEBs with special status. controversial and questionable. Both govern- ments failed to systematically and rapidly re- Honcharuk’s Government approved new CMU form the public administration. Regulations. According to the Government Report on the Pro- 2. Current challenges / issues in the relevant gress and Results of the Implementation of the policy area CMU Program of Activities, a modern civil ser- vice personnel accounting and management It is difficult to expect significant positive chang- system – HRMIS – was launched in 2019 in three es in the reform of the public administration, pilot institutions (National Agency of Ukraine for unless the Prime Minister of Ukraine will take Civil Service, Ministry of Digital Transformation personal care of them. Oleksiy Honcharuk did of Ukraine, Ministry of Finance of Ukraine) and a not prove to be active in that respect. Denys knowledge management portal that will improve Shmygal also does not show proper initiative in the conditions for professional training of public that area. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2 2020 objectively hinders the situation. of delegation of powers for the provision of a number of basic administrative services to lo- The CMU Regulations did not fundamentally cal government and legislative regulation of the change the organization of the CMU work, as payment area for such services is hardly paid at- there was no new law on the CMU and CEBs, tention to. The process of decentralization of civil the provisions of which should be disclosed and registration services (DCRS) has been stopped. detailed in the Regulations. Instead, the creation of separate departmental Not all of the principles of organization and op- offices continues. Due to the disapproval of the eration of public administration as defined in the law on administrative fees, citizens suffer from Toronto Principles are adhered to. Thus, most of illegal payments for some administrative servic- the changes made to the Law of Ukraine on Civ- es and community budgets are underfunded by il Service indicate problems of compliance with the others. the rule of law. On the basis of the amendments, The Bill on the Administrative Procedure regis- dozens of civil servants of category “A” were dis- tered in 2018, was submitted to the Parliament missed. by the Government after almost a year of revi- The principle of the separation of political and sion, it was adopted in the first reading on Sep- administrative powers and positions is at risk. tember 2, 2020. For example, without denying the necessity of the existence of the institute of state secretar- 3. Recommendations for priority actions in ies, the amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On 2020-2021, in particular, for the agenda of Par- Civil Services” eliminated the guarantee of their liament’s fourth session stability, as well as of all the civil servants of cat- egory “A”.