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GOOD GOVERNANCE FOR DEVELOPMENT IN ARAB COUNTRIES INITIATIVE WORKING GROUP 1 ON CIVIL SERVICE AND INTEGRITY 6th december 2006. Agency governance in the Swedish state administration. Knut Rexed Former Director General Swedish Agency for Public Management.
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GOOD GOVERNANCE FOR DEVELOPMENT IN ARAB COUNTRIES INITIATIVE WORKING GROUP 1 ON CIVIL SERVICE AND INTEGRITY 6th december 2006 Agency governance in the Swedish state administration Knut Rexed Former Director General Swedish Agency for Public Management
The four public powers in Sweden • The Parliament adopts all laws, approves all taxes and allocates all revenues • The Government presents proposals to the Parliament and issues instructions to Government agencies • The Administration executes all instructions and applies the laws • The Administrative Courts try all appeals against the decisions of Government agencies
The public administration in Sweden • No central authority • A small government office serving the 22 ministers (about 4 000 employees in 10 ministeries) • More than 200 separately managed government agencies • 21 regional councils and 280 local authorities that are not under direct government control
The limits to the government’s powers • All government decisions have to be taken by the Council of Ministers • A single minister cannot take any decision except when specifically authorised by the Council of Ministers • All instructions to the government agencies have to be in writing • All instructions to the government agencies have to made public, unless covered by the Secrecy Act • The government is forbidden to interfere in an agency’s interpretation or application of the law
The format for agency governance • The Agency Act provides a set of general rules • A permanent instruction for each agency provides the mission and framework • An annual instruction for each agency provides monetary resources, goals and targets • Ad hoc instructions provides specific additional tasks • Agencies are evaluated on an ad hoc basis
After four decades of management reforms: • All management decisions are devolved to the agency concerned, including human resource management • An agency can have an Executive Board with external members • Agencies without an Executive Board are run by their Director General • All agencies provide an annual report on results and on resource use • Director Generals are appointed for a term of six years with no guarantees for continued employment after that
Human Resource Management in Government Agencies • Employment and conditions are regulated by the normal labour laws (including a general law on employment protection) • Each agency recruits and trains its own employees • Agencies set the wages for their employees and co-operate through the State Employer’s Agency • Agencies only receive a standard compensa-tion for wage and other price increases
How was it possible? • Continuous change through an reform process where each step was evaluated before the next step was taken • Strong civil service values are thoroughly internalised, leading to strong reactions against any maluse of public authority • A corps of professional public managers with clear incentives to achieve results • A free press with free access to public docu-ments provides an efficient monitoring, leading to a very low level of corruption • Strong trade unions for public employees that were partners in the reforms
Today’s main challenges • Creating a networked administration where agencies, regional councils and local authorities work together in serving the citizens • Reviewing and simplifying the agency structure • Improving the abilility to set effective and appropriate result targets • Improving the procedures for the selection of Director Generals