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Str. Vaso Pasha 7, Tirana-ALBANIA Tel: +355 4 247146/251010/251020; Fax:+355 4

234868 E-mail: ics@isb.icc-al.org; www.ics-al.org

Report

“Civil Servants Legislation in Albania: Improvement Options Deliberations”

Prepared by: Zhani Shapo, Artan Hoxha and Dr. Hans Achim Roll

Contract name: Review of Civil Service Law Implementation Challenges in Albania Project name: PHRD for Albania Development Policy Loan II

August 20 25, 2008

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Abbreviations and Accronims

CoMCSACSCDoPAECEUMoFTIPA

SAA Stabilisation and Association AgreementWB World Bank

Council of Ministers

Ministry of Finance

Civil Service Commission

Training Institute of Public Administration

Civil Servants Act

European UnionEuropean CommissionDepartment of Public Administration

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Table of Content

I. INTRODUCTION---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 II. PHASE ONE: CONSULTATION AND CONCLUSIONS ON THE ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF CSL------- 6 III. PHASE TWO: CONSULTATION AND CONCLUSIONS ON THE OPTIONS PAPER----------------------------------------10 IV. FINAL REMARKS ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------13 ANNEX 1 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------14 ANNEX 2 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------16

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I. Introduction

This Report is based on the work conducted by the Consultant during January – July 2008. The

report is the third and the concluding one, following the Report No. 1: “Civil Service Legislation in

Albania, an Assessment of the Implementation” and Report No. 2: “Options for Reform Civil

Service Legislation”.

The preparation of the first and the second report was associated with broad consultations with both

the demand and supply sides of Albania’s civil service reform process, through a combination of

research, desk work, interviews with stakeholders and discussions with focus groups. Both reports

are a common output of the Consultant and of the opinions of the main stakeholders.

At the third phase of the project, the final out put of the second phase “Options for Reform of Civil

Service legislation” was also thoroughly consulted with the stakeholders from both sides. During

this phase the Consultant organized an additional round of consultations on the draft options paper,

finalized in a one day Conference on the draft strategy “Cross-sector Reform of Public

Administration”.

This third report summarizes the results of consultations undertaken during the two phases of the

project and that of the additional consultations undertaken during the third phase of the project. The

report is divided in two parts. The first part summarizes the findings of the consultation and

highlights the areas of agreement and /or divergence between different key actors on the current

situation of the implementation of CSL, whilst the second part, summarizes the findings and

highlights the areas of agreement and/or disagreement between different key actors on the

objectives of the Civil Service Reform effort, the diagnosis of the challenges it faces, and the

recommendations for enhancing the odds that the core objectives of the CSL will be better achieved

in the future.

It worth mentioning that the third phase of this project was running at the same time as the process

of finalization by the government of the draft-strategy on Cross-sector reform of Public

Administration. The analyses, findings and the recommendations of our project have influenced the

works for the finalization of the strategy as well as the process of the preparation of the strategy

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itself served also to our project as a unique opportunity to build consensus upon major points for the

further reform in civil service.

Last but not the least, we want to express our gratitude to DoPA and WB staff, and to all other

officials and representative of stakeholders for the valuable contribution they had in supporting the

work of our team as well as in the identification and discussion of the valid policy options for the

improvement of civil service reform.

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II. Phase One: Consultation and conclusions on the Assessment of the Implementation of CSL

The first phase of our project was carried out during January- March 2008. During this phase our

team conducted a number of interviews with individual representatives of stakeholders combined

with focus groups discussions. In addition, working sessions with the Inter-ministerial Technical

Group on Public Administration Reform were held. The consultation targeted relevant actors from

the supply side (DoPA, Ministers, deputy Ministers, Civil Service Commission, Secretaries

General, members of Parliament, etc) as well as from the demand side (civil servants of different

ranks, opposition, business community) 1.

Our team combined the desk research with broad consultation. The preliminary findings were the

base for starting the consultations and, on the other side, the opinions of the stakeholders were

valuable for the preparation of the first report. Below we will provide a summary of the findings,

which are largely accepted by both sides, and some findings on which the different actors do not

share the same opinion.

In the report No1, on the implementation of civil service legislation, we pointed out two different

types of factors having an impact on the degree of the success/failure of the implementation of civil

service legislation:

(i) subjective factors, meaning the variety of political and non political interests that affects

the commitments to implement the CSL, and

(ii) objective factors, meaning, factors that emerge from inadequate policy choices on

certain elements of the current model of the civil service legislation and, underdeveloped

skills for human resource management in public administration.

Subjective factors

As reasonably expected, Governmental actors, are inclined to demonstrate that the commitment on

the implementation of the civil service law is serious, while opposition and some other non-

governmental actors have the opposite opinion. Despite the aforementioned positions both parties

accept that without a serious political commitment even the best model would tend to fail.

1 For more details see the Annexes 1 of this Report.

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Based on our observations and interviews we draw the following conclusions:

While political commitment is substantial for a successful implementation, it has been

insufficient in reality to face the hard challenges of an effective implementation of CSL. In

fact, political commitment is seriously compromised by the strong demand to be employed

in the public sector as well as that public officials, including civil servants, are more

trustable when they have the same political affiliation as the respective politician at the top

of the authority, is still prevailing. We do believe that this attitude is a common feature of

the Albanian political environment that is strong and will last for some time.

As a positive factor we have noted that the awareness of the political actors and Albanian

society in general of the importance of building a professional, merit based and depoliticized

civil service is increasing, slowly but steadily. (Example: we were able to identify that all

the actors become aware of the strong negative impact of the temporary contracts on the

trust of the potential candidates on the recruitment system. In November 2007 the

Government decided to strictly monitor and reduce the temporary contracts, while DoPA

has refused almost every request for temporary contracts);

We believe that there is currently an appropriate momentum to start further steps of

reforming the civil service. This reform needs to be underpinned in addition to the legal and

procedural improvements by a strong awareness and education campaign targeting all

relevant actors of supply and demand side,

and finally, the mechanisms of accountability and monitoring of the success/failure on the

CSL implementation have to be improved significantly, including information of all relevant

actors and the public in general.

Objective factors

We found out that there is a strong agreement between different actors on the objective factors that

affects the success/failure of the implementation of civil service legislation. We have noted certain

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disagreements only on few of our findings of secondary relevance. The most relevant converging

issues are2:

the knowledge and skills on the management of human resources are underdeveloped, the

trainings so far was not sufficient and that it is a necessity to further invest seriously in the

improvement of these capacities;

the system of recruitments for each position separately is costly, time consuming and

affects negatively the effectiveness of the implementation of the procedures and the output

of the recruitment system;

the testing methods, the relative weight of the testing instruments, the composition of the

testing commissions and the primarily knowledge oriented approach is not appropriate for

recruiting good civil servants;

both sides agree that the frequent use of temporary contracts to staff civil service positions is

seriously damaging the principles of recruitment;

due to the position based system the instruments of mobility in civil service are rigid,

unexplored and underdeveloped;

the position based system has lead to an unpractical and unnecessary fragmentation of the

administration while from a practical point of view there are enough possibilities to define

functionally related groups of positions requiring similar or at least comparable competences

(especially in the lowest and in the highest levels of the civil service).

the rigid and underdeveloped instruments of mobility may induce frictions between civil

servants and political level, especially at the highest level of the civil service;

the concept of the senior civil service as defined by CSL is underdeveloped;

the design of the rules for the disciplinary procedure is adequate; however, there are some

shortcomings with regard to their practical application.

2 Following the report No.1 in all its details, the topics of convergence are numerous, for almost all findings, but we are listing in the third report only the most relevant topics of convergence and divergence

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the performance appraisal does not yet play the expected role in human resources

management and it is not properly liked to the other elements of the career development;

the performance of Civil Service Commission related to its supervisory function does not

fully meet the expectations;

the limited scope of the civil service, while reasonable at the early stage of its

implementation, is not any more acceptable. The working relations of the greater number of

the public employees that are not under the scope of CSL are not governed by any special

legislation that can ensure at least some minimum standards of competitive and transparent

recruitment, stability and career development;

while there is a pretty developed system of monitoring of implementation of CSL by public

institutions under the jurisdiction of the central government (Ministries and Council of

Ministers administration), comparable information on the same issues with regard to the

other institutions (independent institutions and local governments) is only very selective, if

existing at all;

the principle that the civil service should be open for entering at all the levels and not only

at the entry level, should be preserved, at least on mid term.

There are few issues about which the two sides disagree to a certain extent, such as:

part of the stakeholders perceive the removal of DoPA from the Prime Minister to the

Ministry of Interior, as a important factor weakening of DoPA authority, whilst others think

that this is not the case;

part of the stakeholders think that the application of the salary supplements for the post-

university education (Master and PhD) is efficient and a proper instrument in attracting

qualified candidates in the civil service, whilst some other stakeholders consider that the

application of such supplements is not necessary even damaging, because it contradicts the

principle of “same salary for the same job” and, as such, distorts the salary system.

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III. Phase two: Consultation and conclusions on the Options Paper

The second phase of this project was carried out during March to July 2008. Preparation of the

options paper included desk work and consultations with focus groups and interviews of particular

stakeholders. Our team started by identifying a broader range of options for improvement of each of

the problems identified in the Implementation Report. These options, their advantages and

disadvantages as well as their implementation challenges were thoroughly consulted with the

stakeholders of both sides (DoPA, Ministers, deputy Ministers, Civil Service Commission,

Secretaries General, Inter-ministerial Technical Group on Public Administration Reform, members

of Parliament, civil servants, etc)3.

The proposals of the option paper were finally tested in the Conference of 8th of July 2008,

organized by DoPA/Ministry of Interior “On the Cross-sector Strategy of Public Administration

Reform”. The policy options related to the reform of the civil service were the core issues of this

conference. The respective discussions were held in the first and largest working group of the

participants in the Conference4. It is worth mentioning that participation in the Conference was

broad and diverse, with almost all the relevant actors being present. Representatives from

opposition, although invited officially by the organizers, did not attend. Nevertheless, our team

encouraged by DoPA/Ministry of Interior, conducted several meetings with key representative of

the opposition parties in advance and after the conference.

Below we will summarize and highlight the key issues agreed and/or disagreed by different actors.

We have noted that stakeholders agree on the vast majority of the proposals provided by the options

paper. The most relevant converging issues are:

the position based system should be adjusted in favor of establishing broad groups of

positions with similar/comparable job requirements allowing for pool recruitment and for

enhanced mobility and civil servants would be eligible for different positions inside a

broader group of positions.

3 For more details see the Annexes 1 of this Report 4 refer to the Annex 2 of this Report.

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in practice, this approach should be the rule at the lowest level (specialist) and at the top

level of civil service (General Secretaries and Directors general), while the particularities of

each job and specialization are more relevant for the level of chief of sectors and directors;

In relation to recruitment in the lowest (specialist) level of the civil service the following

pools of similar/ comparable positions shall be introduced:

o one pool of positions requiring general administrative skills, and

o several pools of positions requiring specific skills (e.g. IT, Foreign Service, genuine

legal services).

the organization of pool recruitments (for both types of aforementioned pools), based on the

planning of vacancies and producing a list of candidates eligible to be appointed to the

raising vacancies seems the most reasonable solution;

the testing methods, the relative weight of the testing instruments, the marking methods, the

composition of the testing committees have to be accordingly improved in order to recruit

the best candidates;

restructuring the highest level of the corps of senior civil servants (consisting of Secretary

Generals and Directors General) by recruiting, in an annual contest meeting of highest

standards, by enhancing horizontal mobility within the level, and by improving Human

Resource Management flexibility within the level through recruiting more candidates than

necessary to fill anticipated regular vacancies within the level.

introduction of various and flexible instruments of horizontal mobility within the groups

with similar/comparable job requirements;

introduction of a flexible system (based on needs and on the HRM management policies) in

choosing to use open competition vs internal promotion. Such policies ought to be, on mid

term, on the hand of executive (Council of Ministers). The law can define the instruments

while based on needs and competitive advantages of one method to the other ought to be a

midterm implementation choice. There is a common acceptance that for the coming years

(3-4) open competition at all levels of civil servants must be the dominant method. This may

change once the quality of HR is sufficiently improved.

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There are few issues abut which the stakeholders disagree to a certain extent, such as:

the stakeholders have different views on the reporting lines of DoPA (Centre of

Government, Ministry of interior, separate ministry). The government actors are inclined to

preserve the status quo, holding DoPA under the Ministry of the Interior, whilst some others

prefer a direct line of reporting to the prime minister or to the deputy Prime minister. None

of the actors thinks that the option of establishing a separate ministry of civil service is

viable.

the future role of CSC is another point of divergent opinions: some of the stakeholders

suggest that CSC becomes an effective monitoring instrument of the Parliament

(strengthening the supervisory role of CSC), whilst the appeal functions should be taken

over by the administrative courts which are currently under process of establishment. Other

stakeholders suggest that the role of CSC as a body with quasi-judicial functions in

resolving the appeals of the civil servants should be preserved. A compromise between

parties could be, at least for an interim period, that CSC continues with the appeals function

until the administrative courts are fully operational and the decision be postpone on time and

taken after careful evaluation of advantages and disadvantages of the two options including

a careful assessment of the performance of the administrative courts.

Speed and pace of expanding the scope of CSL is another point of divergence. Some actors

are in favor of rapid expanding the scope of the CSL, including the use of some tailored

made procedures with regard to territorial branches of ministries and their subordinate

institutions as well as communes, while others are more inclined to a much slower pace of

expanding such a scope. It seems that the actors tend to agree with the recommendation

provided by the Options Paper aiming at phasing the expansion of the scope of CSL.

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IV. Final remarks

As discussed above, our team believes that it is highly possible that relevant actors will converge to

almost all key elements that together would constitute a plausible, though piecemeal improvement

of CSL. As a matter of fact, the modification of CSL necessitates a 3/5 voting in Parliament, thus

requiring a broad and cross-party consensus on the changes. What is even more needed is, as we

think, a broader social consensus for such changes and credible signals that there is a strong

commitment that the adjusted CSL will be implemented correctly and in a fair manner by

whosoever will have the power at central and/or local level.

From the beginning of this year the Albanian political key parties are collaborating for giving shape

to some important reforms such as judiciary and electoral system. During these last months concrete

achievements have been possible in these areas.

Reform of Public Administration, with focus on CSL as the most sensitive topic part of this reform,

has been articulated by both political sides as another important reform agenda which could merit

the political consensus. Nevertheless, such political climate is fragile. Being closer to the coming

elections of next summer, higher the risk of loosing this momentum.

Under these circumstances we would strongly recommend that Government continues to undertake

initiatives for consulting the opposition and makes further attempts during the coming months to

define areas of political agreement with regard to modifications of the CSL and areas where such an

agreement does not seem achievable currently. The Option Paper, we think, is a valid document to

refer to and to be uses as basis for a possible consensus. The Donors’ Community can play an

important role to support this process. In case of agreement, undertaking the process of legal

modification of primary and secondary legislation of CS will be possible within the mandate of the

current Parliament.

But in case of delaying such actions, it is highly probable that the current momentum will be lost

and the issue of the improvement of CSL will need some years to reenter into the political agenda

of the country.

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Annex 1

List of stakeholders consulted in the first (assessment of Implementation of CSL) and second phase

(policy options) of the project and respectively for the first and second report

Table 1: Members of Inter-ministerial Committee for PA reform Name Institution First

phase Second phase

Gazmend Oketa Dep. Prime Minister + Bujar Nishani Minister of Interior + + Sherefedin Shehu Dep. Minister of Finance + + Eduard Halimi Dep. Minister of Justice + + Kastriot Sulka Dep. Minister of Social Affairs + + Halit Shamata Dep. Minister of Education + + Arben Ivanaj Dep. Minister of Health + + Albert Gajo Dep. Minister of Integration + + Florjan Nuri General Secretary of MoInterior + + Orjana Arapi Department of Koordination of

Strategies and Donors + +

Blerta Selenica Director of DoPA + + Table 2. Technical group for PA reform

Name Institution First phase

Second phase

Isuf Celaj General Director, Ministry of Interior + + Ledio Nuraj Adviser of Minister of Interior + + Blehar Lahi DoPA + + Enkela Dudushi DoPA + + Marjel Mejdini DoPA + + Fatmir Demneri Director of ITAP + + Luan Keta Director, Ministry of Education + + Xherina Haxhillari Specialist, Ministry of Integration + + Hekuran Skuqi General secretary, Ministry of Justice + + Iliriana Simo Specialist, Ministry of Finances + + Aida Joanidhi Director, Ministry of Health + + Astrit Kuka Director, Ministry of Social Affairs + + Nataliza lesi Chief of Sector, Ministry of Social

Affairs + +

Enila Hasani Chief of sector, Department of Coordination of Strategies and donors

+ +

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Table 3. Other persons Name Institution First

phase Second phase

Nora Zela Specialist, DoPA + + Valbona Shegani Specialists, DoPA + + Valbona Nazarko Specialist, DoPA + + Petrit Dollani Lecturer of HRM, University of Tirana + + Brikena Kasmi Expert on Administrative Law + + Gjergj Buxhuku Director of Albanian Confederation of

Industries + +

Enkelejd Alibeaj Minister of Justice + + Ediut Harxhi Dep. Minister of Foreign Affairs + Fatbardh Kadilli Adviser of Prime Minister on Anti-

corruption + +

Neritan Sejamini Adviser of Prime Minister + Pellumb Abeshi General Secretary of Ministry of

Environment + +

Mimoza Dhembi General Director of Budget, Ministry of Finances

+ +

Blendi Klosi Member of Parliament, Socialst Party, ex-minister of state dealing with PA reform and CSL

+ +

Sajmir Tahiri Director of Foundation “Qemal Stafa”” of Socialist Party

+ +

Ilir Beqa Expert in Social and institutional affairs, Socialist Party

+ +

Ylli Manjani Expert in Law at Socialist Party + Filloreta Kodra Expert in Public Administration at

Socialist Movement for Integration Party. Ex director of DoPA

+ +

Francisco Cardona SIGMA + + Gary Reid WB + + Alia Moubayed WB + + Evis Sulko WB + + Fatos Hodaj Association of Municipalities + + Agron Haxhimali Association of Communes + + Sokol Avxhiu Institute of Strategic Studies and

Training + +

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Annex 2

Table 4. List of Participants in the Conference on PA reform5

Name Surname Institution Fatmira Laska High Inspectorate of Declaration and

Auditing of Assets (HIDAA) Fjorida Kallco HIDAA Cardona Francisco SIGMA Fatbardh Kadilli Adviser of Prime Minister Brunilda Keta NEWS 24 (media) Bashkim Ahmetaj Ministry of Agriculture Fatmir Demneri ITAP Luan Dervishi GTZ Ledio Nuraj Ministry of Interior Albana Vokshi Director of Department of Coordination of

Strategies and Donors. Sokol Avxhiu PARSH Enkeljda Sula SDC Francesca Fondi Cooperazione Italiana Albana Agolli TVSH (public television) Darcie Nielson OSCE Silvana Malaj OSCE Astrit Muka Ministry of Social Affairs Seladin Kraja Ministry of Finances Musa Hyka Ministry of Finances Enerieta Tarelli Ministry of Justice Ardistaia Broken Embassy of the Kingdom of the

Netherlands Merila Pelushi Ministry of Agriculture Besnik Gozheli Ministry of Agriculture Adela Baboci Ministry of Agriculture Etleva Avdulaj Ministry of Agriculture Andrea Marti Ministry of Social Affairs Natalina Joci Ministry of Social Affairs Linda Gjermani SIDA Mimoza Hysenaj Civil Servant Commission Vera Shtjefni Civil Servant Commission Shahin Bistri Civil Servant Commission Afrim Krasniqi General secretary, Ministry of Health Denis Heta Ministry of Health Dorjana Teliti Ministry of Finances Eduart Rumani SDC Petrit Dallani University of Tirana, Faculty of Economy Fitim Balla Commune Evis Sulko World Bank

5 Source: Dopa. Note that some of the participants of High Level (political or civil service) are missing in this list. Nevertheless their names appear in the tables of annex 1.

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Pedhumb Madhi Ministry of Environment Arben Qesku DFID/BRITISH EMBASSY Linda sPAHIA IMF Luciana Deda Ministry of Justice Sabina Ymeri ISB Elira Jorgoni ISB Hansi Shundi Free lance expert Vilma Cansholli Ministry of Finance Christian Ruiz EC delegation Xherina Haxhillari Ministry of Integration Hamza Hartika TV 1 (media)