Doc. 10015

9 December 2003

Civil Service reform in Europe
Recommendation 1617 (2003)

Reply from the Committee of Ministers

adopted at the 864^th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies (4 December 2003)

1.       The Committee of Ministers welcomes Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 1617 (2003) on Civil Service Reform in Europe which it decided to bring to the attention of governments. It considers it a further contribution to an impressive body of work on democratic institutions.

2.       The recommendation has been communicated for information to the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe (CLRAE), to the Steering Committee on Local and Regional Democracy (CDLR) and to the Integrated Project “Making democratic institutions work” (IP1).

3.       In June 2003, the Committee of Ministers adopted a Political Message to the World Summit on the Information Society (Geneva, 10-12 December 2003, and Tunis 2005)¹. This Political Message sets out a number of principles on the relationship between the information society and human rights, equity, the rule of law and the role of the media, followed by an Action Plan. Some of the issues raised in Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 1617 (2003), are also being addressed in the Political Message.

4.       The Political Message stresses, in particular, that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can “help to raise the quality of public deliberation, and enable citizens and civil society to take an active part in policy-making at national as well as local and regional levels. ICT can improve access to justice and make all public services more efficient, responsive and accountable. Democratic electronic governance, evolving through the concerted efforts of all members of society, should reach all fields of policy.”

5.       As far as citizens’ access to social rights and public services is concerned, the Committee of Ministers “looks to ICT for ways of overcoming the obstacles that prevent people from effectively claiming their rights. … Within a broad effort to make public services more accessible, transparent, and effective, we will seek ways of interlinking social and other public services and of improving user participation in their reshaping.”

6.       All the above-mentioned issues are then further developed in the action plan, which gives useful guidance as to the Council of Europe’s possible future priorities on issues related to the Information Society.

7.       The Committee of Ministers would also like to recall the work being carried out by the Steering Committee on Local and Regional Democracy (CDLR) on public ethics at local and regional level. The draft handbook on Public Ethics at local and regional level is currently the subject of national consultations in member states and will be the centrepiece of an international conference in Spring 2004 organised under the Dutch Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers. This handbook is also intended to offer guidance on how to enhance ethical standards and behaviour in local and regional administrations.

8.       Effectiveness, integrity, competence and accountability of civil servants depend on the quality of the legal and regulatory framework regulating the civil service. With this objective in mind, the Committee of Ministers has adopted Recommendation No. R(2000)6 on the status of public officials in Europe.

9.       In addition, the Project Group on Administrative Law (CJ-DA) under the aegis of the European Committee on Legal Co-operation (CDCJ) prepared the Report “The status of public officials in Europe”, published in 1999, and the Handbook “The Administration and You”, published in 1996, dealing also with civil service issues.

10.       Civil service systems of different European countries are based on many aspects unique to the countries concerned such as legal traditions, history and culture as well as the social, economic and political conditions. Nevertheless, the different systems in Europe have also many common elements and values that have been consolidated in the above-mentioned instruments. These instruments thus lay down the main principles in the field of civil service that should be developed by the domestic legislation of the member states.

11.       It is also worth mentioning the activities of bilateral assistance in the field of the reform of civil service in several member states such as Armenia, Bulgaria, Moldova, Russian Federation and "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", as well as the multilateral conference that will be organised in Warsaw on “The Right to a Good Administration”, on 4-5 December 2003.

12.       The work of the Multidisciplinary Group on Corruption (GMC) under the joint responsibility of the European Committee on Crime Problems (CDPC) and the European Committee on Legal Co-operation (CDCJ) resulted in the adoption of Recommendation No. R(2000)10 on codes of conduct for public officials.

13.       The rules relating to the rights and duties of public officials should take into account the requirements of the fight against corruption and provide for appropriate and effective disciplinary measures, and to promote further specification of the behaviour expected from public officials. This recommendation therefore invites the member states to promote, subject to national law and principles of public administration, the adoption of national codes of conduct for public officials based on the model code of conduct for public officials appended to the recommendation.

14.       Finally, civil service reform in Europe is going to be the subject of the next UniDem Campus seminar organised by the Venice Commission (November 2003).

15.       In addition to the above-mentioned activities and instruments generated by individual sectors of the Council of Europe, the Integrated Project “Making democratic institutions work” (IP1) ² is involved in several transversal activities which address the issues raised in Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 1617 (2003). The Committee of Ministers would like to draw the attention of the Parliamentary Assembly in particular to the following activities, which IP1 organises in partnership with several Council of Europe sectors:

-       Inter-institutional dialogue: In 2003, IP1 has focused on developing effective mechanisms of inter-institutional dialogue in South-East Europe, after having contributed in 2002 to strengthening the capacity of local authorities’ associations (NALAS) as political actors. For the first time, a regional seminar, organised in co-operation with CLRAE and the CDLR, will bring together representatives of central and local governments for a discussion on the practical implications of the CDLR report on Institutional dialogue between the state,

regions, local authorities and their associations. These activities are making it very clear that while the architecture of inter-institutional dialogue varies depending on context, the existence of an effective framework for that dialogue should be recognised as an integral part of the governance of a democratic state.

-       Ethics of public officials at local level: Further to the declassification of the draft Handbook on good practice in the field of ethics of public officials at local level by the CDLR in November 2002, a series of national consultations on the document have been held in order to further improve the Handbook in view of its adoption in 2004, and enhance its visibility and impact. In the light of the results of the national consultations, the Handbook will be finalised and adopted at a high level conference which will be held on 31 March - 1 April 2004 in Noordwijkerhout (Netherlands). The conference might also propose an action plan with a view to dissemination, follow-up and possibly periodical revision of the Handbook.

-       E-governance: In 2003, IP1 has pursued its work on a set of multidisciplinary policy guidelines on e-governance. Work already completed or in progress in a range of sectors (media, local and regional democracy, access to social rights, and e-governance in the management of capital and major cities) has been fully taken into account, thus avoiding the multiplication of guidelines and recommendations on narrower aspects of e-governance and leading to a truly comprehensive text. The multi-sectoral working group on e-governance has recommended to transform these guidelines into a draft recommendation of the Committee of Ministers to member states.

-       Access to official information: Following the conclusions of the seminar “What access to official documents?”, held in Strasbourg on 27-29 November 2002 with IP1 support, the Steering Committee of Human Rights (CDDH) has received an ad hoc mandate from the Ministers’ Deputies to evaluate “in the light of Recommendation Rec(2002)2 on access to official documents, the existing national legislations in this field with a view to examine the advisability of elaborating a legally binding instrument on access to official documents.” Moreover, a Handbook on access to official documents will be published in 2004, with the aim of facilitating a broad dissemination of the principles contained in Recommendation Rec(2002)2.

-       Improving citizen participation in policy-making at local level: Drawing on the results of the 2002 Conference on Development of Democratic Citizenship and Responsive Leadership at Local Level, two new pilot projects have begun in 2003, with IP1 assistance, in Serbia and Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The pilots have aimed at building community trust and a relationship of mutual confidence between local authorities and citizens. As a tangible and sustainable outcome of these pilots, handbooks on citizen participation are being prepared and will be published in each of the federal entities concerned. The handbooks will be widely disseminated among the local elected representatives, municipal civil services, NGOs and citizens.

16.       Towards the end of its three-year period of activity, IP1 will present a final report, which will reflect many of the themes taken up in Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 1617 (2003). This “White paper”-type report will analyse the main challenges with regard to the implementation of Council of Europe standards on democracy at national, regional and local levels, and put forward a set of recommendations on the future of democracy in the “Greater Europe”. The report will be prepared by a “group of eminent persons”, composed of representatives of each of the Council of Europe’s four institutional pillars (i.e. governments, Parliamentary Assembly, Congress of local and regional authorities of Europe, and civil society), leading political scientists and public policy experts.

¹ The Political Message is available as a working document of the UN General Assembly (doc. No. A/58/201) in all official languages of the United Nations. It was communicated to the Parliamentary Assembly on 24 June 2003 under reference CM(2003)87 final.

² IP1 (2002-2004) focuses on three key aspects of democracy: (1) Responsiveness/accountability of institutions, (2) Participation, (3) Democratic representation/elections. The Project has been set up with a view to improving information sharing between Council of Europe sectors and bodies as well as with external partners, strengthening the transversal content of sectoral activities and facilitating the identification of transversal links between sectors of activity, thus creating sustainable cross-sectoral partnerships.