The reform of public administration is a priority, Romanians think. A sociological study by IRES shows that over three quarters of the population think all administrations need urgent change because they do not care about citizens’ needs”, 76% of the people who attended the opinion poll declared.
Over half of the Romanians who had to deal with public administration offices are discontent with bureaucracy and wasting too much time in queues at these offices. A similar percentage thinks that administration needs change because it does not encourage the reduction of corruption.
Half of the interviewed Romanians consider that, compared to the last five year, corruption in the public environment has increased. Nonetheless, 76% of the questioned admit that, in the last year, no employee of the public system requested any bribe.
Three quarters of the subjects demand Health to become the priority of the administration, while 69 per cent suggest Education and half consider that important topics to be taken into account are the decrease of unemployment and national security.
Asked what they would recommend for the modernization of the system, 10 per cent answered that they suggested promotion based on competence-related criteria, while 5 per cent wished a simplification of procedures, a better communication of the promotion of young people inside of the system.
According to the sociological study, 75 per cent of Romanians rated the activity of the Parliament as “poor” and “very poor”. The Presidency is at the opposite pole, as 64 per cent of Romanians appreciate the activity of the Head of the State.
The IRES sociological study was conducted on December 2 and 4, on a group of 1,100 and has a margin of error of plus/minus three per cent.
Dancu: Inter-Ministry group to be created for state reform and modernization of administration
Vice-Premier Vasile Dancu (photo) declared on Saturday that the Government intended to establish an inter-Ministry group for state reform and modernization of public administration, mentioning that it would be an adviser group, destined to work on the “social dialogue between Ministries, the union area and business owners”.
“The fundamental idea was creating as early as possible an inter-Ministry group for state reform and modernization of administration, a group that could work on some of our essential projects targeting state reform. (…) We will build a team destined to work on the organized dialogue, some sort of a group of advisers, working on the social dialogue between Ministries, business owners’ groups, workers’ unions area and any other areas required by social dialogue, and we are at this point building a platform alongside the Ministry of Civic Dialogue, a platform targeting transparency and public debate”, Vice-Premier Dancu declared on Saturday at Palace Victoria.
He added that six points were defined in order to redefine the role of the state, adding that administration of public manners should be forwarded as close to citizens as possible.
“It is very clear that we must find a unitary conception in seeing what the state has to do concerning central administration and local administration. At this point, we noticed that there are several discussions about the state. The latest idea is that, when we are talking about central administration as a nucleus of the state, it is obvious that we must define the functions of the central administration of the Government and of the administration surrounding the Government. We defined as a strategic option the fact that we are talking about the function of strategy, the function of policies and two more functions: regulation and supervising. Basically, the administration of public matters should be sent as close to the regular citizen as possible, and this is the regional level, this is the local level of administration. We must make the principle of solidarity much more operational and create mechanisms to compensate and redistribute, without encouraging dependence on the centre”, the Vice-Premier pointed out.
Dancu mentioned that there was already a program of modernization of public administration, negotiated with the European Commission and “conceived for public space” yet, much more new elements need to be added.
“It is an assumed document, we will suggest it to our partners, to the European Commission. It will be an update of this document that will contain amendment elements and completions to this strategy. It is a strategy created for public space, it has many modern elements, it has elements that effectively depend on the modernization of administration. We started an analysis of this document and we will propose and negotiate updating it in a few essential points to our partners”, the Vice-Premier concluded.
