Opening remarks By V. Suprun

Since independence the Republic of Kazakhstan passed through major reforms of the whole economic and political systems, including the administrative reform.

The President in his Address to the Kazakhstan’s Nation “Kazakhstan – 2030 Prosperity, Safety and Welfare Improvement of All Kazakhstan People” has put an important goal - to create effective and modern civil service and management structure in Kazakhstan that would be effective in market economy conditions and focused on population and securing public interests.
Large-scale transformations in public administration system occurred in the course of the passed period. 
There was gradual optimization of the central administrative bodies’ structure, which allowed eliminating duplication of functions between various public bodies, to reduce number of administrative bodies, to ensure interagency coordination and mainstream responsibility and accountability issues.
As a result, laws that demarcated powers between public administration levels in such spheres as environmental protection, agriculture, land resources management, architecture, urban development and construction activity were issued in two stages.
The work on administrative obstacles reduction and private sector development became more systematic, and included wide range of public measures, implemented in the course of collaboration with business representatives.
Some amendments were introduced to a number of legal enactments in the area of licensing; large amount of licensable types of activity were reduced, the procedures on acquisition land slots and customs procedures were simplified.
It is very important to realize that improvement of the public administration system is a continuous process requiring systematic monitoring, analysis, elaboration of proposals and continuous adjustment of public administration system to changing realities both in the country and abroad.  
The analysis of public administration system held in the beginning of the current year upon instruction of the President proved that nowadays we have significant problems in public administration, i.e. lagging behind world practice in difference of using public administration methods. It has significant impact on the quality of taken decisions, quality and quantity of provided service, outcomes assessment and other elements of the state.
A significant gap between the status of public administration and socio-economic potential of the country creates a real threat of public administration becoming a “bottleneck” for socio-economic development and increasing country global competitiveness.
Currently conducted administrative reform suggests bringing in new elements of public administration.
First, public planning system is to be radically revised and targeted on achieving national strategic development objectives and goals.
Each public body shall independently determine strategic development goals for its activity based on country strategic performance indicators for a five-year period; those goals will be reflected in the Strategic Plans for public body development, adopted for five-year period.
At the same time individual responsibility of public bodies’ heads for achieving performance indicators will significantly increase. Performance indicators will be recorded in memorandums, signed between the Prime Minister and head of the respective public body.
Each public body will have a five-year development program in order to reach the goals, achieve performance indicators and outcomes of the Strategic Development Plan.
Based on the Strategic Development Plans for each public body the Ministry of Economy and Budget Planning will develop a flexible Mid-Term Socio-Economic Development Plan for three years.
Second, with an increase of public bodies’ responsibility for achieving outcomes public bodies simultaneously will be given more independence in allocation and use of budget funds.
Planned amounts of budget funds, including expenses for staff salaries, provision of goods and services for staff operation (communication, transport, public utility services, scientific and analytic researches, information systems, etc.), business travel expenses, expenses for advanced training are suggested to be allocated between corresponding public body structural divisions each of which is responsible for implementing individual concrete goal.
The list of public bodies’ budget programs will be developed for three years on the basis of Medium-Term Plan for Socio-Economic Development in accordance with the public bodies’ goals and functions.
Performance evaluation of public bodies will be done through performance evaluation system being introduced at this time, based on certain system of indicators that will help to assess management quality, public services delivery, effectiveness of programs under preparation and implementation, and progress in achieving strategic goals.   
This analysis will be conducted by newly established in public institutions internal audit and authorized external control bodies.
Third, in the light of conducted reform it is necessary to clearly demarcate political and administrative functions. To ensure stability and continuity in public body work regardless of the changing management it is suggested to introduce to the system of public administration a new position – Responsible Secretary. This will allow for political management concentrating on policy development in corresponding area of public administration and for Responsible Secretary - implementing sector development programs determined by the political management.
Amendments introduced to the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan shall serve as a basis for introducing a new position of Responsible Secretary.
“On Government”.
In accordance with such allocation of functions the management structure of public bodies is currently being revised. 
The Responsible Secretary has the right to independently determine staffing amount within the staff limits authorized by the Government.
Forth, the work on demarcation of powers between the national level public bodies is under way.
All public functions have been analyzed. Amendments were introduced to the legislation with regard to definition of public functions grouped as follows: strategic, regulating, implementing and controlling. It was discovered that implementing and controlling functions were performed by the ministerial committees.
Fifth, the reform on demarcation of powers between the levels of public administration continues.
It is proposed to demarcate the functions of local authorities and regional Government bodies in such a way that territorial branches of the central government should primarily control equal compliance with the unified national legislation and unified public policy implementation.  
Sixth, civil service reform has been started to cover issues of organizational and legal support of civil service, labor remuneration and public bodies’ work regulations.          
President Decree issued in March of the current year flagged the beginning of labor remuneration system improvement. According to this Decree heads of public bodies shall have rights to make decisions on staff reduction and use of saved funds for increasing labor remuneration of the corresponding specialists independently. 
It is assumed to reduce hierarchy of public officials’ positions in order to increase efficiency and ownership of decisions taken.
Personnel shifting and bonus payments will be done only based on the results of objective performance evaluation of each public official. Bonus system of premiums for political officials will be introduced based on the results of rating public bodies’ activity. Such measures will help to increase responsibility and accountability of public bodies’ management to the society.
At the same time attention will be paid to staff advanced training and professionalism. New standards of public official training will be tested in National Administration School being established under Academy of Public Administration.
At last, the seventh. Population and businesses are especially interested in public administration segment delivering public services, which will also be optimized in the course of current public administrative reform.
Government must ensure elaboration and introducing high quality standards of public service delivery.
Thus in order to improve public service quality the register of public service delivered by the government was established.
In terms of legislation the following definitions were introduced: “public service”, “public service delivery standard”, “public service delivery standing order”, “public service register” and norms of providing information services to individuals and legal entities by public bodies were established.
Standard standing order and standard public service delivery norm which should serve as a basis for each public body in elaborating corresponding standing orders and standard delivery norm or each public service were established by the Government.
Elaboration and introduction of public service delivery standards in public bodies and organizations delivering services to population is planned for 2007-2008.
Since 2008 it is planned to regularly conduct population polls what would allow evaluating public service delivery quality disaggregated by public body and region to analyze and elaborate recommendations on improving public service delivery quality.
Implementation of above named measures shall be a basis for improving public service quality delivered to population and businesses.
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, you are free to discuss key measures on reforming public administration system aimed at increasing transparency, accountability and effectiveness of operation of the whole public administration system.
Thank you.