Design of a National Competence Center (CZ0043)

1. What problem does the commitment aim to address?

The OECD recommendations in the OECD Public Governance Reviews: Czech Republic, 20231 strongly emphasize the participation of citizens and other stakeholders in the Czech Republic in public affairs. Although there are examples of good practice in the Czech public administration in involving citizens and other stakeholders in public affairs, these are mostly not having sufficient impact. There is no common and overarching vision of cooperation between the Czech public administration and a diverse group of stakeholders, and there is no unifying, coordinating and methodological role of the public administration in this area. The consequence is the lack of a uniform definition covering a wide range of different types of consultation processes, the ambiguous legal and regulatory anchoring of consultation processes that does not sufficiently promote transparency and accountability, and especially the absence of a center of expertise that would harmonize procedures across public administration institutions and provide professional, methodological and educational support to public authorities. The recommendation to establish a "Centre" is also strongly emphasized in the Action Plan for the implementation of the OECD Recommendations for the Czech Republic in the field of public administration from February 2024
The topic of consultation processes appears mainly in Czech strategic documents: • Strategic Framework Czech Republic 2030 - see section 6. Good Governance • Client-Oriented Public Administration 2030 - see strategic objective 5 Informed and participating citizens • Strategy for cooperation between public administration and non-Governmental non-profit organizations for the years 2021 to 2030 - see strategic objective B - support for effective partnership and cooperation between public administration and the non-profit sector Strong support for consultative, participatory and deliberative processes is also evident from the European Union - see for example COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION on promoting the engagement and effective participation of citizens and civil society organisations in public policymaking processes (C/2023/8627).

2. What are the causes of the problem?

The recent development of consultative, participatory and deliberative processes at all levels of public administration may have led to some good practice (e.g. participatory processes at local level, involvement of actors in advisory bodies at national level), but these were ad hoc cases without systematic anchoring, linkages and synergies. Despite previous attempts to anchor participation at the national level (see e.g. Methodology for public participation in the preparation of Government documents, Ministry of Interior 2009), there is no coordinated approach to the topic of participation from the central level. The topic of participation of citizens and other stakeholders is not clearly anchored at the central level, there is a lack of clearer definition of participation, including general legislative anchoring of participatory and deliberative processes in the development of public policies, there is an obvious lack of comprehensive methodological and educational support on the topic of participation, and there is also a lack of an expert unit in the Czech environment that would monitor developments abroad and initiate the transfer of new experiences and methods to the Czech Republic. Current data, including international comparisons and examples, are contained in the Public Governance Reviews: Czech Republic, 2023, OECD 2024.

Commitment Description

1. What has been done so far to solve the problem?

The problem has not yet been systematically addressed. Only partial measures have been taken.

2. What solution are you proposing?

The establishment of a national competence center focused on consultative, participatory and deliberative processes must be preceded by a thorough analysis of the situation abroad. Based on this analysis, the structure, mission and institutional setting of the center can be proposed. Currently, a project named " Supporting Member States' public administrations in designing and delivering meaningful participatory and deliberative processes – Implementing ComPAct COM(2023)667 and the Commission Recommendation 2023/2836" is being prepared, in which Portugal, Ireland, Romania, Slovakia and Finland are participating in addition to the Czech Republic. The project is being prepared within the Technical Support Instrument program funded by the European Commission. The project is expected to be implemented in the period 2025-2027. The objectives of the project proposal are to propose an appropriate form of legislative anchoring of the topic of participation in the Czech Republic, take into account international experience, and to prepare a proposal for the form of the competence center, including a calculation of future financial costs and identification of possible sources for their coverage (EU funds, etc.). The total estimated cost is approximately CZK 1 million. Its payment is expected from external project resources. If the draft project is not supported by the European Commission, the implementation of this commitment in the Czech Republic will be significantly jeopardized.

3. What results do we want to achieve by implementing this commitment?

• Analysis of similar centers in developed democratic countries. • Proposal for the structure and functions of the National Competence Centre of the Czech Republic. • Draft of possible legislative changes to promote participatory and deliberative processes

1. How will the commitment promote transparency? How will it help improve citizens’ access to information and data? How will it make the Government more transparent to citizens?
Centers of excellence of this type are also established to increase transparency. Opening up the policy-making process and involving citizens and other stakeholders directly increases the transparency of decision-making
2. How will the commitment help foster accountability? How will it help public agencies become more accountable to the public? How will it facilitate citizens’ ability to learn how the implementation is progressing? How will it support transparent monitoring and evaluation systems?
As a result of more frequent and better involvement of citizens and other stakeholders in public administration at central level, stakeholders will have easier access to information on how policies and documents are developed and will be better able to participate in transparent monitoring and evaluation of the measures taken.
3. How will the commitment improve citizen participation in defining, implementing, and monitoring solutions? How will it proactively engage citizens and citizen groups?
Improving the participation of citizens and other stakeholders in the design, implementation and monitoring of the solutions adopted is the main objective of the commitment. The role of the competence center should be to support different types of participatory and deliberative processes at different levels of public administration, to share good practice and to network relevant actors, to provide methodological and educational support and transfer of experience and innovative methods from abroad.

Milestones | Expected Outputs | Expected Completion Date

Preparatory phase: Start of cooperation and setup of communication with partners from abroad | regular meetings with TSI project partners 1 expert from the Republic and 2-3 external experts | 06/2025

Implementation phase: | Analysis of similar centers in developed democratic countries Proposal for the structure and functions of the National Competence Centre of the Czech Republic. Draft of possible legislative changes to promote participatory and deliberative processes. | 12/2026