Introduction

The Common Assessment Framework in the context of the Lisbon strategy towards a better-performing public sector

The 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.

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

and 3 years is a rather short period for a complete quality experience, starting with self-assessment and ending with better results. Nevertheless, the selected cases have run through their first round of continuous improvement in that period and should be inspiring for other public organisations still doubting on the effectiveness of this approach. They can be considered as good practices on the use of CAF and will be presented as such in the European CAF database at EIPA. They can be an interesting source for benchlearning in the future.

Philosophy of the book

Each successful improvement programme starts with a clear diagnosis of the current situation. CAF as a holistic diagnosis gives information on the quality of the managerial practices of an organisation in the areas of the enablers criteria and on the trends in the results achieved in the results criteria. In the results criteria in particular, the assessment is based on the conclusions of measurements of perceptions and specific indicators. Given the cross-connection between the enablers and results criteria and subcriteria, the analysis indicates which enablers should be better developed in order to improve low results and what actions should be undertaken in that respect. After these improvement actions, the specific measurements and a new overall CAF assessment should show better results. If not, the improvement actions have not been effective enough and will have to be adjusted.

The publication gives examples of effective improvement actions in public organisations of different European countries, based on the use of CAF. In this respect measurement is the key word and this publication attempts to underline its importance in the management and improvement of public administrations.

The selection procedure

The national CAF correspondents were asked to present a number of CAF applications they considered to be suitable for this study. The CAF Resource Centre received details of 62 organisations which had been nominated. 48 of them introduced 50 case descriptions on the basis of the proposed format, reflecting the objectives of the study. A jury made up of the Austrian Chancellery, the Austrian KDZ-Centre for Public Administration Research and EIPA selected 29 cases for the brochure. They used the following criteria: the conformity of the case description with the spirit of the format, the inner coherence of the case description, the presentation of clear information on its results and measurements, the spread of countries and sectors.

The structure of the book

The 29 case descriptions are the core of this publication. They are presented by sector: Customs, Tax and Finances, Economy and Agriculture, Health, Social Services, Education and Research, Local Administration, Regional Administration and Transport and Infrastructure. The heading for each description consists of: the name of the organisation, the country, the address of its website, the numbers of CAF use, the key words it has chosen and the results criteria it focuses on. After a short presentation of the mission, vision and most important resources, the major results are described. How these results were achieved is explained in the following paragraph: our way to improved results. “The CAF in practice” illustrates in a few lines how the self-assessment took place. In addition, the authors of this book selected a key statement for each organisation. The chapter “CAF works in a nutshell” provides an overview of the 29 cases and a short case description of each case. In the chapter “lessons learned using the CAF”, the authors try to summarise the comments made on the use of CAF itself. Many of these comments are a source of inspiration for the revision of the CAF that is currently taking place. In the conclusions, the authors describe the lessons which readers can learn from these cases.