Promoting Performance and Professionalism in the Public Service

This is a report on human resources management practices in the public administrations of four centraland eastern European countries: Albania, Estonia, Hungary and Poland. The report is based oninformation from 1996. Since then significant changes have occurred in at least two of the countries. InPoland a new Civil Service Act came into force in January 1997 (certain provisions came into force 30days after the Act’s promulgation) and in Albania the current situation in the administration is difficult toassess due to recent political upheaval. When this report was prepared in 1996, Albania, Estonia andHungary all had civil service laws in force, while in Poland the1982 Act on Civil Servants still regulatedemployment in the state administration.The report’s purpose is to determine to what extent the implementation of a specific law for employmentin the administration would lead to significant changes in personnel management or in the preconditionsfor management, selection and promotion of staff. This report is therefore about public personnelmanagement systems, management procedures and management practices and how they either support orhinder professionalism and appropriate conduct. To a certain extent it is also about the legislation andinstitutions as well as the training necessary to promote suitable civil service behaviour.The study was based on a common guideline document developed together with experts from the fourcountries. These experts are Odeta Dibra, Lawyer, Albania (now with UNESCO) Professor Georg Sootla,Tallinn Pedagogical University, Estonia Istvan Borbiro, Lawyer, Jutasi &amp Partners, Hungary andWojciech Marchlewski, Co-operation and Partnership, Poland. The four experts used the guidelinedocument as a reference tool for conducting interviews in the administrations of their countries and forreporting their findings.