Croatia and Slovenia continue to strengthen cooperation in improving and modernising public administration

Minister of Justice and Public Administration Ivan Malenica and Slovenian Minister of Public Administration Sanja Ajanović Hovnik met at the Ministry of Justice and Public Administration on 14 April. This was the first official visit of the Slovenian Minister to Croatia after taking office.

The main topic of the ministerial meeting was modernisation of public administration by digitalising procedures and improving the quality management system. The two ministers expressed their satisfaction with the joint efforts of the two countries to ensure better public services.

Minister Malenica pointed out that the bilateral meeting reflected friendly relations between the Republic of Slovenia and the Republic of Croatia and the partnership of the line ministries in numerous reform processes in the field of public administration. Minister Malenica thanked his Slovenian counterpart for the exchange of experience on the development of the new Act on Salaries in the Civil Service and Public Services, which will introduce a new evaluation system in the public sector. They also discussed the introduction of a centralised employment system in Croatia, which will be implemented through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

Minister Ajanović Hovnik showed interest in the implementation of the project introducing quality management into public administration, the optimisation and standardisation of processes, as well as the implementation of measures to strengthen the capacity of the public sector through strategic planning.

The delegations exchanged experiences regarding the introduction of smart working in the civil service and public services, the challenges of new work models and the importance of quality human resources management and improvement of working conditions.

The ministers also discussed changes in the Croatian system of local and regional (regional) self-government through a reduction of the number of local officials by 1438 and through functional integration as an instrument of change within the policy of balanced development. Minister Malenica presented the key outcomes of the project “Optimisation of the local and regional self-government system”, which had collected over 400 sets of data on all municipalities, cities and counties and produced 190 indicators that the units will be able to use for local policy making and functional integration.

In addition, the two ministers discussed the importance of civil society in shaping both national and local/regional development policies.

Minister Ajanović Hovnik and Minister Malenica concluded that public administrations around the world have been facing numerous challenges, but their mission remains unchanged – to provide citizens and businesses with high quality, efficient, easily accessible and largely digitalised public services.

Photo Hina/ Dario GRZELJ/ dag
 

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