CAF_BROCHURE_ENGL
18.05.2006
12:56 Uhr
Seite 8
The Common Assessment Framework in the context of the Lisbon strategy towards a better-performing public sector he European Council of Lisbon in March 2000 stressed that the European Union should become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable growth with more and better job opportunities, greater social cohesion and a simplified regulatory environment. The successful implementation of this strategy depends to a large extent on a highly competent, professional and competitive public sector, characterised by effective governance structures, innovative and effective policy-making practices and a performance-oriented provision of services. The Ministers responsible for Public Administration in the European Union agreed in 2004 that more attention and effort is necessary from the Member States and from the European institutions in order to improve Public Administration, so that it can become an important factor in the achievement of the Lisbon objectives. At the end of the Luxembourg presidency on 8 June 2005, they congratulated the working groups of the European Public Administration Network EPAN for the successful implementation and development of activities and common tools, encouraged an innovation agenda in the fields of benchmarking and best practices as well as in terms of the development of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) and other quality tools and requested that this work be better integrated with the Lisbon agenda. As a result, in the new Mid-Term Programme for the period 2006-2007, they agreed to focus attention on the further development of quality management in the public sector. With respect to CAF, the Directors-General of Public Administration agreed at their meeting in Luxembourg to promote its further dissemination within Europe. In the meeting under the UK Presidency they set a specific target of 2,000 registered CAF applications by 2010. The Directors-General welcomed the initiative from Austria to produce a publication “CAF works – Better results for the citizens by using CAF” during the Austrian Presidency.
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Introduction 8
Purpose of the book This publication shows a selection from the current 900 CAF users in different European countries that achieved remarkable results through using the CAF. During the two European CAF Users Events in 2003 in Rome and in 2005 in Luxembourg, around 300 CAF users exchanged experiences, the obstacles they met and the lessons they learned. The Austrian presidency considered the time right to share these and other experiences of the Common Assessment Framework with a bigger audience by means of a publication. The brochure aims to provide a representative example of the way in which CAF is used in Europe. 29 applications in 15 countries have been selected. They first of all illustrate the extent to which the CAF is used as a common framework all over Europe to assess the quality of public administrations and to inspire them in their way to excellence. “Common” means that the same structure and scoring system is used by public organisations from different countries, with different socio-economic backgrounds and different administrative cultures. “Framework” indicates that this structure is just a set of quality principles put together in a logical and coherent way, covering all the aspects of the functioning of an organisation, so as to be confronted with the reality of a living organisation in order to make an accurate diagnosis of its health. This “assessment” must lead to actions on the areas identified for improvement. In focusing on this last point, the publication goes further than the previous studies published by the European Institute of Public Administration in preparation of the 2 European CAF Users Events. These were surveys of the practice of self-assessment with the CAF and its evolution since CAF had been launched in May 2000. The publication “CAF works” aims to close the circle of quality and present for the first time the type of improvement actions the self-assessments have brought about and details of the way these improvement actions have improved the results of the organisations, especially in the field of citizen/customer satisfaction. Most of the CAF applications have been carried out with the 2002 version of the model
