Reform State

Presentation

The reform of the State generally consists in making pass the State of an administrative operation to an operation of Gestionnaire, of a system Bureaucratique with a mechanism of the type Marché. In general the near total of the country having started a reform process of the State continued, among their objectives, the recovery of the situation of their Public finances.

Sometimes, the reform of the State consisted in applying precepts of the Economic liberalism and with to liberalize many Economic sectors, in privatisant the state enterprises. For example of England (government of Margaret Thatcher) and with the the United States (Ronald Reagan), the reform of the State consisted mainly of a policy of Dérégulation and Privatization S of very great width and a questioning of Social skills.

In other countries, the reform did not require strong reductions of not extended from the public sphere. Reorganization of the Public office and logic of results improved the effectiveness of the State. (Scandinavia)

According to the councils of OECD, the reform should consist with (for France):

to allocate in an optimal way voted budgetary equipments;
to increase the visibility of the arbitrations between the expenditure of State and the other public expenditure;
to make take part the Parliament in the budget trade-offs.

In France

The French Public office was often presented like the prototype of thereformable one, and State like an unattainable dream reforms it. Actually, the reform of the State is a continuous process, which proceeds on the long run, and which requires the implication of the politicians and the senior official S.

The public sphere in France spends much, as the level of the Taxes and social security deduction shows it, which raises difficulties within the framework of the economic Mondialisation. The liberals propose the problems of Brain drain and tax Expatriation: the weight of the public sphere would be more and more badly supported by the population and the companies, for a sometimes limited effectiveness. The liberal economist Jacques Marseilles writes that “the eleven developed countries which decreased their unemployment rate the most are those which the most lowered their public expenditure while making work less civils servant but more effectively”

The importance of the Taxes and social security deduction is not according to certain, for example the association Contribuables associated, not accompanied by a level of service higher than that with many countries foreign, which raises the question of the public effectiveness of the management system, extremely difficult to measure: planning programming budgeting system (RCB) in the years 1970 having failed on the insufficiency of the relative informations the public administrations.

France has in the past recruited a great number of civils servant. The generation of the Baby-boom arriving at the retirement age, the not-replacement of part of the agents would make it possible to reduce the full number of agents without breaking the contract of “work to life”.

The French administration posts official objectives of reform. These posted objectives do not take again certain recommendations, for example that of OECD to decrease the number of common.

Means of implementation

A direction was especially created to ensure a follow-up of the reform of the State: the Head office of the modernization of the State (DGME). It was created within MINEFI on January 1st, 2006 in order to control the reform of the State, in partnership with the other ministries. The DGME is attached today to the Ministère of the Budget, the Public accounts and the Public office.

The reform of the State was to be led on the basis of joining together triptych:

political will, considered as insufficient in France in the past;
sensitizing near the public opinion;
a social dialog with the trade-union organizations who must be recipients of the reform process.

The posted goal is to make the administration more effective and less expensive. “To better spend”, i.e. to optimize the use of the appropriations to achieve goals laid down for each program while answering waitings of the citizens, the users and the taxpayers.

It is also a question of sensitizing the civils servant with the results of the administration by the “responsibilisation” and the research of the effectiveness.

Official objectives

Each ministry will have:

to work out of a plan of estimated management of employment, manpower and competences (GPEEC)

(for example to allow teachers to reconvert itself into ministries or local government agencies).

to continue devolution by not replacing 50% of the departures to the retirement in the central administrations

to amalgamate different the body

to improve recruitment and mobility

to improve management of the careers

to modernize the management of remunerations:

removal of the upper limit of overtime;
possible repurchase of the days of RTT;
redistribution with the civils servant of 50% of the economies released by the ministries on the wage bill.

Law LOLF

The reform of the public office rests on the Organic law concerning with the finance laws (or LOLF) of August 1st, 2001.

Continuation of decentralization

The reform of the State passes by redéployement from the civils servant which would have become surplus in the central administration following the transfers of competence towards the areas.

Many departures with the retirement in the central administration will not be replaced, on the other hand the territorial collectivities should progressively engage transfer of new competences (example: possible future transfer of the management of the prisons).

Data-processing revolution and Internet

The work methods can be improved thanks to the Informatization.

The income tax return by Internet would have been a considerable success: million Net surfers declared their taxes by Internet in 2006. It is expected that in the 2008 all administrative approaches can be done by Internet.

Services with the citizens

It is expected that the reform of the State is done simultaneously with an improvement of the services to the citizens.

As of the second quarters 2006, offices of La Poste and Social security will be open up to 8 p.m. once per week and Saturday morning on the basis of voluntariate.

The semantics used in the public office also evolves/moves: replacement of the term of User by that of Customer…

Evaluation

the Court of Auditors of it is charged within the framework with LOLF.
Of new indicators on perception which the users of the services rendered by the Social security have, ANPE, the revenues from taxes and the prefectures is developed or under development.

Foreign examples

Reforms of the State took place

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