Remarks by Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General
Paris, 20 October 2008
C’est pour moi un honneur de m’adresser à la cinquième Conférence européenne sur la qualité, organisée par la Présidence française de l’UE.
Depuis le début du processus lancé en 2000, la Conférence sur la Qualité est devenue un rendez-vous majeur pour améliorer la qualité du secteur public.
Nous sommes là pour réfléchir sur comment placer le citoyen au cœur de la qualité publique, non seulement pour améliorer les services et les Politiques, mais aussi pour conforter sa confiance envers l’État. C’est depuis longtemps l’aspect le plus important et complexe des réformes engagées dans de nombreux pays de l’OCDE. J’entends vous faire part des progrès accomplis par quelques pays, des difficultés rencontrées et des défis qu’il leur reste encore à relever, particulièrement en cette époque de turbulences.
Trust in government is our most precious commodity. As we’ve seen in recent weeks with the collapse of financial markets, once trust evaporates, our complex economic systems falter. Our governments are having to deal with the most severe economic crisis in decades; including dysfunctional financial markets, plummeting housing prices, high and volatile energy and food prices, generalized economic slowdown and even some recessions.
Our governments are responding with short-term policy measures to restore confidence in financial markets so that lending to enterprises and households resumes.
But there is also a backdrop of longer-term global challenges, such as climate change, ageing, migration, or growing inequalities that require reforms in public policy areas such as health, education, social welfare or pensions, to name a few.
Our governments’ capacity to reform is becoming a comparative advantage. Governments which are successful at reforming can empower their people to make the most out of globalisation, creating a favourable environment for business, for innovation and for sustainable development. And governments’ capacity to reform will also contribute to strengthen citizen’s trust.
To respond to today’s economic pressures, most stakeholders now agree that our global financial system needs deep reforms. Once the immediate challenges are addressed, we will need to focus on the regulatory, supervisory and market failures that led to this outcome.
Pressures on public spending are intensifying, in particular as a consequence of ageing populations. Most OECD economies have very little room for raising taxes or debt to finance higher spending. In such a situation, reforms to curb the growth in public spending while raising its cost effectiveness are required.
There is a need to enhance the efficiency of the budget process. Many OECD countries have introduced or strengthened fiscal rules, but they need to ensure that there is an efficient allocation of funds across different spending programmes. For many years, a Network of Senior Budget Officials from OECD countries is facilitating the sharing of good practices in this area.
Management practices have become results-oriented, focusing much more on defining outputs or objectives that managers or services have to deliver.
Introducing market oriented services is enhancing the effectiveness of public spending. More competition can help providers of publicly-funded goods to improve cost-efficiency while better responding to the citizens’ needs. Benchmarking; subcontracting; open and transparent tendering; giving users the choice among alternative providers, are all useful, well proven tools. The first public management review done by the OECD in the case of Ireland shows the value of looking comprehensively at the public sector and its use of different tools to improve the performance of public services at large. Mexico has seen the Irish Study and has asked to do one for them.
Well-educated, better informed populations have high expectations about the services provided by government. People want services that are faster, more convenient, and responsive to their specific needs.
On speed citizens do not want to wait weeks or months to start up a business, or to obtain authorisations, permits, or other official documents.
They want the convenience of services that are delivered close to where they live. They also expect the same level and quality of services, regardless of where they live. (For example, broad-band internet). Also, citizens are increasingly aware of differences in the quality of schools and hospitals, and expect equal treatment, wherever they choose to live.
They want services that are adapted to their specific needs and circumstances. A student expects to find all the information on course applications, housing, grants, etc. in one place, adapted to his own particular situation. Governments are thus facing a huge diversification of demand in public services.
To respond to these changing and increasingly complex demands, governments are taking three avenues:
First, they are using new technologies. In the back office, e-government enables the administration to better co-ordinate and customise services. In the front office, it makes services available to citizens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Today, all OECD have web portals to ease access to online services. All over Europe, for example, citizens and businesses can file income tax returns on line. Increasingly, countries are moving towards individualising these services. This is a general trend that we have observed for many years through a series of e-government reviews of 10 countries.
Second, countries are shifting spending for service delivery towards the local level. In some countries this is coupled with decentralisation of competences to sub-national governments, such as Spain, Italy, and to a certain extend France. Others are opening local branches of central government offices. Countries like Greece and Portugal has for some years had physical "one-stop-shops" where citizens in one place can access a range of selected services.
Third, they are changing the way services are designed and delivered. In the past, services were designed by governments for citizens. Now, governments are moving towards services designed and delivered with and by citizens, a process known as “co-design” and “co-production” of services. An example of co-production is the “Villa Family” initiative introduced in a village in eastern France, where families share the task of caring for several elderly people. More and more, citizens are engaged in budget formulation, for example in France’s Poitou-Charentes region, where high school students are involved in allocating a share of the regional budget for their schools.
But putting citizens at the centre of public services is a journey, not a destination. We are only at the beginning of this journey. More needs to be done.
Nous avons besoin d’informations de meilleure qualité sur nos comportements. Nous devons mesurer les effets de nos décisions concernant la conception et la fourniture des services. Or il demeure très difficile d’évaluer l’impact de la participation du public à l’élaboration des politiques et à la fourniture des services. Ce type d’information est pourtant particulièrement important pour aider les pouvoirs publics à redéployer de ressources limitées dans un contexte de rigueur budgétaire. En outre, le fait de pouvoir démontrer les effets positifs des mesures prises sur l’efficience et l’efficacité peut contribuer à consolider la confiance placée dans l’État.
Nous devons rehausser les compétences et les aptitudes des fonctionnaires pour qu’ils soient capables de répondre à de nouvelles exigences. Nous avons besoin d’un personnel formé et expérimenté ayant une vue d’ensemble de ce qu’est le secteur public et capable de communiquer les bonnes informations aux citoyens et d’associer véritablement ceux-ci à la conception et à la fourniture des services. Il nous faut également renforcer les capacités des fonctionnaires au niveau local.
Si nous voulons réellement assigner aux citoyens un rôle de premier plan, nous devons leur donner davantage de pouvoir. Il nous faut donc leur offrir des occasions d’exprimer leurs préoccupations, d’intervenir dans le processus politique et d’apporter une vraie contribution à la conception et à la fourniture des services et leur donner les moyens de le faire (informations, ressources et connaissances). Presque tous les pays de l’OCDE disposent par exemple de lois sur la liberté de l’information.
Les administrations doivent se réorganiser. Pour que les citoyens aient le sentiment qu’ils ont affaire à une entité unique, il faut faire en sorte que le fonctionnement des différents services des administrations soit intégré et cohérent, ce qui suppose la mise en commun de données, de processus et d’infrastructures de telle sorte qu’au bout du compte, la même langue soit parlée dans l’ensemble du secteur public.
Un rapport va être publié prochainement : "Citizens at the centre: Public engagement for better policies and services". Il fait le point des progrès accomplis dans les pays OCDE et propose des étapes pour continuer sur cette voie. L’OCDE continuera à se pencher sur ces questions complexes et à encourager l’échange de bonnes pratiques entre les pays afin d’aider ceux-ci à donner la prééminence aux citoyens.
J’espère que les discussions qui vont se poursuivre au cours des jours prochains sur les solutions à mettre en œuvre pour placer les citoyens au centre des services publics seront fructueuses, constructives et ouvertes à tous. L’OCDE sera à l’écoute des conclusions qui s’en dégageront.
Merci.
|
