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Ukraine's Approach on Public Administration Reform: Recent Developments

and Key Challenges

Conference Paper · September 2019

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Igor Tkachenko
National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv
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 “Ukraine’s Approach on Public Administration Reform:
Recent Developments and Key Challenges”

Igor Tkachenko,
PhD, Associate Professor,
Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv
(Kyiv, Ukraine)
ORCID: 0000-0002-3029-4578

In the last four years Ukraine has provided significant steps to launch and implement Public
Administration Reform (PAR) based on the Association Agreement between European Union and
Ukraine. Since signing the Agreement Ukraine declared its commitment to construct a new
governance system based on creation of professional, stable and politically neutral civil service,
separated from political power. The unique character of Ukraine’s PAR experience distinguished in
promotion of integrity and non-tolerance to corruption culture among civil servants, as the PAR’s
beginning was primary supported with creation of a new anti-corruption bodies, such as the
National Anti-corruption Bureau, National Agency on Corruption Prevention and State Bureau of
Investigations.

Based on the experience of public administration reform in East European countries, four key
assumptions should be highlighted to ensure success and efficiency of such reform. First, the
leadership of reforms should be established and common understanding of reform objectives should
be set. Secondly, a clear strategic framework should be in place to enable prioritisation of reforms
and realistic planning of their implementation. Third element is financial sustainability of reform
that should also be ensured from the beginning. Fours component envisages a inclusiveness of the
process of PAR management and implementation; PAR must be accountable and have necessary
capacity for reform activities.

At early stage of PAR, The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine (CMU) has established a
comprehensive framework for reform consisting of two strategic planning documents: the Strategy
of Public Administration Reform in Ukraine for 2016-2020 (PARS) and the Strategy for Public
Finance Management System Reform for 2017-2020 (PFMSRS).

However, the financial sustainability of PAR is not ensured currently, as the PAR Strategies
do not include cost estimates for individual reform activities or their sources of funding. The PARS
includes expenditure estimates only at the aggregate level for reform areas, while the PFMSRS has
not been costed at all. While the overall implementation rate of planned activities as well as the
fulfilment of objectives is low, the situation with the PARS is slightly better compared to the
PFMSRS.

Financial unsustainability of PAR leads to disproportion in the level of civil servants’ salary
across the country, as a newly appointed policy officers in the ministries and state agencies
rewarded three times more remuneration than their colleagues, who came earlier.

The OSCD reports, that the PAR Strategies in Ukraine do not contain consistent information
on the costs of individual activities included in the planning documents on the sources of funding.
The PFMSRS does not contain any information on the funding required for the envisaged reform
actions.

Since two public authorities are responsible for PAR implementation in Ukraine, international
experts recommend to update PAR and PFMSRS to ensure they are fully aligned, set realistic
deadlines, assign responsibilities for implementing reform activities at the level of specific
structural units and include targets for all outcome-level indicators.

Public policy planning in Ukraine is primarily annual. However, the links between policy and
fiscal plans are limited. The central planning documents do not establish clear outcome-level
objectives for the Government. As a result, the reports mainly provide information on the
implementation of individual activities. The requirements for developing sector strategies have not
been established.

One of the peculiarities of Ukraine’s policy planning is limiting of line ministries legislative
drafting by the initiatives of individual Members of Parliament (MPs). Individual MPs in Ukraine
are submitting draft laws directly to the Parliament on behalf of line ministries in order to bypass
the consultation and decision-making procedures of the CMU. This disables inclusiveness of their
policy-making process. The requirements for evidence-based policy making and for consultations
with non-governmental stakeholders are not complied with in practice. Therefore, the quality of
supporting proposals on Ukraine’s policy analysis is weak.

A EU commissioned survey of business representatives also indicates problems with the

quality control of draft legislation, as only 33% of businesses agreed with the statement “laws and
regulations affecting my company are clearly written, not contradictory and do not change too
frequently”. Additionally, the perception of businesses regarding the clarity and stability of
government policy making is low. No deadlines are set for submitting items to the CMU agenda.
The CMU is not authorised to return items in case of substantial shortcomings, it does not chec k the
coherence of submitted proposals with the Government’s priorities and the review of financial
affordability is ineffective.

The next important indicator of the sustainability of PAR reform which need to be highlighted
is the institutional and legal framework for a professional civil service. In Ukraine it has been
established since the new Law “On Civil Service” (LCS) was established in 2015 and came into
force on 1 May 2016. Nevertheless, staffing plans are not in use, and the absence of a Human
Resource Management Information System (HRMIS) hampers proper monitoring of CS policy and
legislation implementation.

The institutional and legal elements to ensure disciplinary accountability and prevent
corruption are in place, as was mentioned above. However, the limitation period for imposing
disciplinary sanctions is inadequate and allows serious disciplinary offences to go unpunished. The
legal framework and institutional setting required to fight corruption are in place, but the updated
strategic policy framework has not been enacted. The lack of automated access to the relevant
registers is a major impediment to streamlining procedures for preventing and investigating
corruption.

In March 2016, the Government of Ukraine established the Senior Civil Service Commission,
envisaged in the Law “On Civil Service”. The Commission is an important step forward in the
PAR, as it is responsible for recruiting senior civil servants, nominating them for appointment to the
Cabinet of Ministers and for the disciplinary procedures affecting senior civil service.

Despite the international recognition, that Ukraine has already made considerable progress in
reforming some areas of its public administration, the described above factors lead to the conclusion
that the country still on the way to improve its public administration and do not meet the goals of
the PAR. The key challenge that PAR may face after the 2019 elections and appointment of a new
Government is sustainability of provided changes. The new Government will have to stand the test
of the PAR change. End 2019 will show the extent to which public administration is resilient to
political influence, especially on staffing the top offices, managing the system of salaries, and
continuing reformist positions in Ministries. Another worrying factor is that the system of strategic
planning, administrative procedure and government policymaking procedure are still far from being
fully operational.

References:

1. Association Agreement between European Union and Ukraine,

https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2016/november/tradoc_155103.pdf
 2. OECD (2017), SIGMA, The Principles of Public Administration, OECD, Paris,
http://www.sigmaweb.org/publications/Principles-of-Public-Administration_Edition-
2017_ENG.pdf
3. The Law of Ukraine “On Civil Service”, #889-VIII from December 10, 2015,
https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/889-19/print
4. the Strategy of Public Administration Reform in Ukraine for 2016-2020, Ukrainian
version, https://www.kmu.gov.ua/ua/npas/249175778
5. Strategy for Public Finance Management System Reform for 2017-2020, Ukrainian
version, https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/142-2017-%D1%80/print
6. KIIS (Kiev International Institute of Sociology) (2017), "Survey on business satisfaction
with policy making and public service delivery", a survey commissioned by SIGMA,
KIIS, Kyiv. The value of the sub-indicator is based on the percentage of responses
indicating “strongly agree” and “tend to agree”, Policy Paper Document
7. Baseline Measurement Report: The Principles of Public Administration, Ukraine, June
2018. OSCD, http://www.sigmaweb.org/publications/Baseline-Measurement-Report-
2018-Ukraine.pdf
8. Natalia Kupriy “Public administration reform in Ukraine: A review of accomplishments”,
http://prismua.org/en/pdf/2019-02-8/

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