The coalition government’s ambitious public sector staff review procedures may be at risk, after the National Center for Public Administration and Local Government (EKDDA) sent the Ministry of Administrative Reform a memo on the 20th of June, pointing out that the new review process “will result in further deregulation of the operation of public administration, rather than contribute to the elimination of the problems”.
As such, the EKDDA has requested that the Ministry reexamines the statutory framework of staff review process for the public sector “so that it may be improved and it becomes truly functional, rational and efficient, thus contributing to upgrading the quality of public administration and provided services”.
The president of EKDDA’s board of directors Pavlos D. Pezaros told To Vima that he personally delivered the findings to the Deputy Minister of Administrative Reform Evi Christofilopoulou and stressed that the intention is to “create an efficient and objective review system, with an emphasis on objectivity”. Mr. Pezaros argued that the current system is based on two laws with different philosophy; the recent staff review law, which is based on quotas, came improve the current goal-orientated system.
The problems that the EKDDA has noted arise from the fact that the older, goal-orientated laws are based on accurate measurements, which the newer laws of quotas eschew. In fact, the EKDDA argues that a quota-based system inherently demands non-accurate measurements. This essential contradiction results in both systems not being able to be implemented.
Mr. Pezaros stressed that while the intention of the Ministry may have been to improve the existing staff review system, he argues that the quota system creates many problems and cites the arbitrary way in which the quotas have been decided upon and expressed his concern about their mandatory nature.
