Izvorni znanstveni članak
Charters of public services: an attempt to improve the quality of public administration and strengthen the role of citizens
Vedran Đulabić
Sažetak
The author analyses the specific initiative to improve the quality of public administration and strengthen the role of citizens as a special area of reform within the managerial reforms of public administration carried out in the last quarter of the 20th century. The basic areas of the reform are presented, by which the aims of small and efficient administration should be achieved and which would simultaneously be oriented to citizens and quality (administration as the citizens’ service).
The initiative to improve the quality of administration has led to the development of charters of public services as a special instrument serving to achieve these aims. Some of crucial questions opened by the initiative to make public charters are analysed. These are the questions of the modified role of the citizen who is considered as a consumer of the services of public administration, defining the quality of public administration, differences between the public and private sectors, questions of the legal character of the charters of public services and the concept of public services in contemporary states. Special emphasis is given to the concept of the services of general interest which has been built within the European Union.
The second part of the article deals with the possibility of introducing the charters of public services into the administrative system of the Republic of Croatia. The author analyses the obstacles and possibilities of such an initiative in respect of the domestic administrative tradition which is based on the Continental system of public law. Special attention is paid to the role of the politically responsible administrative leadership in the process of introducing public charters into the Croatian administrative system and a number of concrete steps which should be taken if such an approach is adopted are suggested. The author points out that Croatian administration should be refreshed by managerial reforms, but that at the same time it is necessary to plan them gradually and preserve the domestic characteristics which originate from the dominant legal culture of Croatian administration. In the end, the author concludes that it is necessary to carry out the initiative to introduce the charters of public services within the framework of more extensive and comprehensive reform of public administration in the Republic of Croatia.
Ključne riječi
public administration; charters of public services; public management; administrative reforms; services of general interest; Croatian administration
Hrčak ID:
5129
URI
Datum izdavanja:
20.2.2006.
Posjeta: 6.684 *