Knowledge Base

Public administration is a strictly standardised and structured environment, which makes it calculable and predictable to a certain extent. This includes, for example, a sufficient number of qualified employees. Also for the public administration employees in our focus group, this strict organisational framework seems to be important in order to complete their work and task. On the other hand, it would be desirable that this frame allows certain freedoms within it. This (limited) flexibility can be helpful in responding to unexpected developments.

The public sector is facing demographic changes and has to compete with the private sector for talents. Incentives like, for example, an adequate payment or the possibility of mobile working, seem important to retain young and qualified employees in the long term and to increase the job satisfaction of all employees. The interviewed public administration employees criticised a lack of appreciation of their work.

The head of the administration modernisation division on a regional level confirmed that one of the most important needs of public administration is cooperative working. Hierarchy is an important part in public administration but it also represents a limitation for its work. The more complex social problems become, the more complex are the governmental answers to them. Public administrations should be more open and flexible in the cooperation between different stakeholders, partners and hierarchy levels.

Standards require a certain legal basis and binding specifications. At the same time, they must be also accepted by the target group. If standards are enforced, they offer the advantage of planning and investment protection. This provides a good basis for further digitisation of processes.[1]

For making administrations not only more efficient but also more effective, activities and their costs should be closely linked to strategic outcomes and broader policy objectives. A monitoring with restricted focus on financial aspects in order to assess success of public services and political programmes is not enough. To reach a holistic view on success, it is more important to consider financial ratios interlinked with quality data, impact measurements and other performance indicators.

Information is an asset that is constitutive to the effective and efficient supply of public services. To ensure that information meets the purposes for which it is intended, it must be accurate, accessible, valid, timely, complete and relevant (relevance especially means regional explicit information). [1]
In all the interviews that we conducted, it has become very clear and verified that information plays a very important role in policy making processes.

Knowledge management affects the organisation´s technical assets as well as the employees’ willingness to share knowledge. Knowledge is an essential resource in public administrations and has to be stored in order to not get lost for the organisation. As a main reason for the loss of knowledge, participants of our focus group with a socialpolitical background named the retirement of employees. That is why it is important to build up a learning culture, to ensure and promote knowledge transfer within the organisation, as well as with relevant stakeholders.