Commission Report (2002): Poland

The executive

As reported in the last Regular Report, the State Election Commission (PKW) rejected the campaign statements of all twenty-one presidential candidates. Thirteen appeals were lodged and PKW's decision was upheld in every case. As a result property acquired illegally by 18 committees will have to be forfeited to the state treasury. The amounts to be forfeited vary from PLN 1.7 million (EUR 0.5 million) to PLN 358 (EUR 100).

In March 2002 some minor changes were introduced into the administrative map of Poland with the addition of seven new powiats, bringing the total number to 380. In addition adjustments were made to the borders of a number of gminas.

In November 2001 the existing Act on the Revenues of the self-government Units of 1998 was prolonged until the end of 2002, (see Chapter 21-- Regional Policy). The gminas, powiats and voivodships (self-government units) will receive slightly over PLN 43 billion (EUR 12 billion) from the state budget. This represents a decline in real terms of 2.7% in 2002 compared to 2001.

One innovation at the level of local government has been the introduction, through the law adopted in July 2002, of directly elected mayors for rural areas, towns and cities. After considerable debate within the parliament and the intervention of the Constitutional Court, it was decided that the elections would be via the d'Hondt method (a system of proportional representation which at the margin favours larger parties) and over two rounds.

In March 2002 the Sejm adopted the Act on Changes in the Organisation and Functioning of the State Administration and Subordinated Units and amendments to other acts. The new law abolishes 23 central administration agencies out of a total of 74 state administration bodies by the end of 2002. It also provides for amendments to nearly fifty laws, mostly related to details of the functioning of state administration bodies, in connection with the ongoing structural changes.

The functions of the abolished agencies will be taken over by relevant ministries or other agencies, either existing or newly created. Four new government bodies are being established this year: the Directorate-General for Domestic Roads and Highways; the Insurance and Pension Fund Supervisory Committee (created from a merger of the Pension Fund Supervision Office and the Insurance Supervisory Office); the Main Grain and Plant Protection Inspection Authority; and the Agency for Export Development, formed on the basis of a consolidation of the Polish Information Agency and the Polish Agency for Foreign Investment.

The changes are aimed at producing budget savings in the operation of central administrative bodies. These savings will be realised through the dismissal of half of the 7 000 staff working in the agencies. The remaining 3 500 will be transferred to the new agencies or ministries. One further proposed benefit is intended to be an improvement in financial control. In the past agencies have been criticised for a greater lack of financial rigour than that of the central administration. It is expected that the reorganisation will improve this situation. This should be balanced against the fact that the fourteen largest agencies, when measured by budget, were not included in the reorganisation.

With regard to the functioning of the executive, two amendments were adopted by the parliament in December 2001 to a number of laws relating to the functioning of the civil service.

Under the first amendment the presidents of the Supreme Chamber of Audit (NIK) and the National Bank of Poland (NBP) will now require a prior invitation to participate in Cabinet meetings. This revises the system put in place in 1989 whereby the presidents could participate without prior invitation.

The second amendment suspended until the end of 2002 certain provisions of the Civil Service Act of 1998. During this period the Prime Minister and the directors-general in state institutions are able to fill the most senior administrative posts with people from outside the Civil Service, who as candidates are no longer required to pass a competition. The Government justified the change on the basis of two factors: first, the small number of civil servants who had passed the competition for senior posts, which had resulted in numerous vacancies or ad interim appointments, and second, the fact that at local level the criteria necessary to be a civil servant, particularly the requirement to speak a foreign language, deterred candidates. Under the amendment new appointees can be recruited for only six months.

Civil servants can, under the terms of the Law, be recruited exclusively after an open competition or if they are graduates of the National School of Public Administration, entry to which is also by open competition. It is recognised that existing recruitment rates are insufficient to establish a fully staffed independent civil servant corps in the near future, however, there has been little acceleration in the rate of recruitment over the reporting period. In 2001 the number of civil servants increased by 276 of whom 218 people who passed the competition and 58 graduates of the National School for Public Administration (KSAP), to reach a total of about 830, or some 0.8% of the employees of the central administration. In 2002 there were 65 graduates trained by the KSAP to be independent professional career civil servants. It is apparent that recruitment of KSAP graduates of civil servants proved more difficult in 2002 than has been the case in previous years as the number of job offers made available to KSAP graduates by the government has been reduced by two-thirds.

For matters related to the everyday work of employees in the central administration, each ministry and central office has a disciplinary ombudsman, who reports to the disciplinary ombudsman in the Office for the Civil Service. Since 2000 the Office has provided a training programme on ethics in administration, which will be extended (through distance learning) to 1 000 central administration employees in 2002 and to a similar number in 2003.

A number of measures to improve recruitment and training are underway. These include developing a general human resource management strategy for the Polish civil service and putting into operation both a Civil Service Information Centre and a Recruitment Assessment Centre at the Office for the Civil Service. There will also be a pilot project to assess civil service training needs.

The civil service is under the constitutional responsibility of the Prime Minister, who appoints the Head of the Civil Service, and is assisted by the Office for the Civil Service. The current head of the civil service was appointed by the Prime Minister in July 2001 for a second five-year term. The number of staff has been increasing by four or five a year and is now almost 100.

Budget cuts imposed in 2002 have affected the Office much more severely than other parts of the public administration. The total reduction in planned spending for the public administration as a whole amounted to slightly more than 1%, while for the Office for the Civil Service it exceeded 19% (or 14% if compared to actual spending in 2001). This change will not affect the recruitment of new civil servants, as this is financed from a special reserve for the head of the civil service granted by the Council of Ministers, but it will affect other areas, notably training (not only for the Office's own staff but also for the whole of the public administration) and further development of the activities of the Office. The impact of these cuts on the proposed review of recruitment and training procedures within the Polish civil service remains to be seen.

As noted in the 2001 Regular Report, further efforts have been undertaken to publicise the work of the civil service and improve its image. While some efforts have been made to further address issues raised in previous Regular Reports, the long-standing disincentives to a civil service career, (perceived poor status, profile and rewards) remain and will need to be further addressed in the years ahead to ensure the recruitment and retention of a body of independent, experienced officials.

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