On the civil service

It deserves such a commemoration because the public administration and the people who make it work are a key element for the smooth running of the country. Whereas a badly run public administration poses a serious hindranceand often representssetbacks.

Nearly two-hundred years after 1714, when Catalonia lost her political power, Prat de la Riba founded the Escola d’Administració Pública.With a Catalan approach aimed at a project for a country. Initially devised on a municipal and provincial level, it was envisaged to become the administration of all Catalonia.

Of a Catalonia that time would decide how much political power it would have but which would by no means be solely local.

A country needs all kinds of structures:physical (roads, railways, canals…), educational (schools, universities, research institutes...), economic,financial, cultural,etc. But not least a public administration, which given its huge infrastructure must function smoothly in all areas and at all levels.

Three things are needed to ensure its smooth running. First it must be well designed and structured. Neither weighed down, nor overlapping in jurisdiction.

Second, the civil servants, at all the various levels, should be competent. In so vast an administration, there will certainly be a bit of everything. But the average level should be good. And one hundred years ago, this is what Prat de la Riba sought to secure with the School.

However there is a third key factor. The civil service and its employees must have in mind the importance and the responsibility of the service it provides. There is a tendency to perceive the civil service asan overbearing bureaucracy. This should not be so. The civil service is and must be conscious of its vital role in the running of both the country and the society. And it shouldcompleteits competencewith a mind-set of serving the public and society.

President Mas,in his speech last Monday, said, “Competitive countries are those that have an effective public administration”. Naturally, this falls not only to the public workers, it also rests very much on the framework in which they have to work, and thus in part is the responsibility of politicians. The civil service will not work well with sloppy legislation, vague or contradictory political guidelinesor ill-conceivedpolices.

And obviously it will not work well if both the politicians and the civil service establish what for some time we have long denounced as the caste culture (see Editorial 118, titled “The caste”).

It’s crucial, therefore, that besides competence,the civil service should be aware of the importance of its work and of the need to fulfil it well, which would give rise to a sense of self-satisfaction and pride and an appreciation by the general public. In other words, as elsewhere, the civil service is a question of competence, priority,a good working relationship as well as a positive attitude and self-esteem. Given its usefulness, public service should be a job that instils a sense of self-esteem.
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At the conclusion of last Monday’s commerative ceremony, I was greeted by one of the guests, a former director of the French ENA (the Ecole Nationale de l’Administration).The ENA, founded by General de Gaulle in 1946 just after the Second World War, enjoys a good reputation in France. In fact, a great many high-ranking public officials and politicians have passed through its system. The director in question, whom I had known for some years, remarked, “I’m very pleased with what the President said. And I’m impressed that such a school was set up in Catalonia one hundred years ago. And also the reasoning that a schoolof this kind is a necessary instrument if a country is to build ahigh-quality public administration with an awareness of performing a service to the country. In fact, the ENA was founded in 1946,for after the war, we understood the importance of having a better administration than its predecessorif we were to rebuild the country and prepare it for the new and highly demanding world that was to come. And the upshot has been positive”.

It would now be a good time for Catalonia to reflect on the quality of our public administration, which, as we have observed, cannot be forged independently of policy, legislation or of values and attitudes that inform both society as a whole and the civil service. There are countries where processes,red tape and resolutions run smoothly, whereas in others they become frequently bogged down. It’s not easy to analyse this, because more than a technicality, it’s a concept of the civil service andof what is expected of it. It’s a social and a political question in equal measure.

But Catalonia needs to analyse its efficiency anddrive. If we seek to be a southern country, with the good assets we have, but also with the efficiency of the north, this we must undertake.