Eliminate unnecessary bureaucratic procedures at central government level (RO0076)

Which public issue will be addressed by this obligation? Currently, all fields of activity in Romania are directly affected by bureaucracy in public institutions. The main problems created by the cumbersome bureaucracy that is felt at the level of central administration (limited efficiency of civil servants, lack of transparency in decision making, significant bureaucracy costs to citizens and the private environment, poor internal and external communication of public institutions , the overlapping of many rules and regulations that hinder the smooth running of public institutions and thus private activities) can be improved or even eliminated by introducing mechanisms to reduce the current bureaucracy and prevent some of the future bureaucracy.

Description of the commitment What is the obligation? Identifying and eliminating cumbersome, unnecessary or redundant bureaucratic procedures at the level of the central public administration, as well as creating a mixed government-civil society mechanism to ensure the sustainability of the implementation of the new measures.

How will the fulfillment of the obligation contribute to the solving of the public problem? - By developing a continuous way of evaluating forms and other administrative procedures for the interaction of citizens and economic operators with the central public administration, by creating a methodology for scaling the costs / benefits brought by their existence; - By creating a mixed government-civil society collaborative 35 mechanism with a high level of independence and sustainability, followed by the development of a methodology for assessing the level of bureaucracy existing in various public administration institutions.

What is the main objective? Increasing the efficiency of the functionality of the central public administration, as well as facilitating the interaction of the civil society and the economic operators in the relationship with the central administration.

Goals/activities Responsible (institution / partner) Start date End date Evaluation, at the level of the target group consisting of central public administration institutions, of the current framework of administrative procedures used at the level of the ministries and institutions subordinated to them. (Questionnaires / Direct meetings) Proposed results: - scoring on the cost and benefits generated, at the level of the entire Romanian society, by the forms and procedures intended for the interaction of citizens & economic operators with the central public administration; - mechanism for updating the parameters and variables used in the evaluation of costs / benefits, parameters from ministries and their subordinate institutions; - publishing dashboard with the evaluation performed - - ensuring the sustainability of the mechanism. GDPPSIMC Ministries/ NGOs 2021 2022 Creation of a joint collaborative mechanism government - consortium of NGOs monitoring the level of bureaucracy Proposed results: - joint collaborative mechanism government - NGO consortium; - development of a methodology for assessing the level of bureaucracy within each ministry and its subordinate institutions in collaboration with the proposed consortium - - regular evaluation and publication of the results of the evaluation carried out on the basis of the GDOPPRC / NGOs 2021 2021 36 methodology, including on the websites of the respective ministries and subordinate institutions

Action Plan Review

Commitment 11: De-bureaucratization for the central public administration

Lead Institutions: General Secretariat of the Government through the Directorate for Information Technology and Digitization, the General Directorate for Open Government, Public Relations and Cooperation — Open Government Service and the General Directorate for Public Policies, Strategies, and Internal Managerial Control Chancellery of the Prime Minister through the Secretary of State for de-bureaucratization

For a complete description of the commitment, see Commitment 11 in Romania’s 2020–2022 action plan here.

Context and objectives

According to the General Secretariat of the Government, this commitment was proposed by the Chancellery of the Prime Minister. [15] It aims to identify and eliminate cumbersome or redundant bureaucratic procedures in the central public administration. To do so, the commitment entails continuously evaluating administrative procedures within the central public administration by a joint government-civil society group. The group will evaluate the costs and benefits of procedures and publish a dashboard with the performed evaluations. The group will also ensure sustainability of these new measures.

According to the action plan, problems related to cumbersome bureaucracy in Romania are mainly felt at the central level of administration. [16] The Bertelsmann Foundation’s 2020 Transformation Index notes that for companies operating in Romania there can be a “maze of frustrating procedures required by the state bureaucracy in areas such as tax payments or inspections.” [17]

The action plan does not detail the composition of the joint collaborative mechanism. However, according to the technical coordinator for this project, it will merge two committees (one on de-bureaucratization and one on e-government) that existed before the action plan. [18] The technical coordinator informed the IRM that he was not involved in consultations for this commitment and was not familiar with the concrete content of the OGP action plan. [19]

Reducing bureaucracy in public administration is not directly relevant to open government. However, as this commitment will evaluate public institutions in collaboration with civil society, the commitment contributes to the OGP value of civic participation. Furthermore, the commitment calls for publishing the evaluations on a dashboard, which contributes to the OGP value of access to information.

Potential for results: Substantial

Implementing this commitment will result in the institutionalization of bureaucracy evaluations across Romania’s entire central-level public administration. The joint committee will evaluate all central-level public institutions using a single methodology, which can help better identify which public institutions and sectors are more prone to excessive bureaucracy. This, in turn, could help these institutions to more efficiently locate, reduce, or eliminate their own excessive bureaucratic procedures. If acted upon, these evaluations could save citizens, businesses, and the government time and money by removing overlapping rules and regulations and improving internal and external communication between public institutions. Lastly, the commitment will create an evaluation dashboard, which can improve transparency in how Romania addresses bureaucracy going forward, depending on the level of detail provided in the evaluations.

Two key elements of this commitment—the joint collaborative group and the evaluation methodology—existed before the action plan. An e-government committee was created in 2016 and the de-bureaucratization committee was set up in 2020. As noted above, this commitment merges these two committees. During implementation, this new committee plans to invite CSO input on the evaluation methodology and standards. [20] The aim is to create an institutional partnership so that the committee’s work on de-bureaucratization receives civil society feedback. [21] The existing mechanism does not include CSOs, but by the end of 2021, the e-government committee will select expert CSOs who have thematic experience and create a calendar for meetings and deliverables. The General Directorate for Open Government mentioned that the joint committee will be an important tool, as it would be chaired directly by the Prime Minister. [22]

In addition, according to the technical coordinator for the de-bureaucratization and e-government project, there is already a methodology in place that was developed several years before the action plan. [23] The joint committee will use this existing methodology for the evaluations but will possibly revisit specific parameters and criteria, such as affected populations, frequency of reporting, and processing. [24]

Overall, this commitment could fundamentally improve how the public administration in Romania operates. Given the comprehensive scope of this commitment (covering all central-level public institutions in the country), the IRM considers its potential for results substantial. Although the mechanism and methodology existed before the action plan, there are plans to expand and revisit these foundations by inviting civil society stakeholders to join the committee. Therefore, this commitment could also be a game changer in how civil society collaborates in the de-bureaucratization process.

Opportunities, challenges, and recommendations during implementation

Although the commitment anticipates that this initiative would be sustained long-term, its potential for results may ultimately depend on how the central government acts upon evaluation findings. The action plan does not detail how this commitment may actually reduce unnecessary bureaucracy or obligate the government to make changes based on the evaluations. Therefore, the most important challenge during implementation will likely be ensuring that the evaluations translate into actions to reduce bureaucracy. To do so, the IRM recommends the committee:

• Include specific recommendations for each public institution to reduce bureaucracy. The committee should accompany its evaluations with a series of steps for each public institution in order to assist them in reducing the identified unnecessary bureaucracy. Public institutions should have a clear path forward on how to utilize the findings, including a financial estimate for the reforms and the specific expertise that may be required.
• Ensure that the evaluations published to the dashboard are easy to understand. Given that excessive bureaucracy can impact the average citizen, as well as civil society and businesses, it is important that the committee’s findings are presented in a manner that is clear to a layperson and avoids excessive jargon. They should explicitly state how the evaluation findings can benefit citizens and the government (i.e., by saving both groups time and money) if acted upon by institutions. This will also encourage greater transparency in how the central government operates and reforms itself.

While much of the groundwork for this commitment was laid before the action plan, there is still opportunity to expand the scope of the joint committee’s perspectives and participation. As the joint committee merges two existing government-led committees, there is a risk that civil society may play a marginal role in the decision making. Therefore, during implementation, the IRM recommends the committee:

• Ensure a robust role for the joint committee in de-bureaucratization. The commitment does not explicitly describe the influence of the committee in Romania’s ongoing de-bureaucratization. Depending on the scope of its influence, the committee could directly impact how Romania reduces bureaucracy or it could be relegated to an advisory role. Ideally, the committee should be afforded the greatest possible influence on de-bureaucratization, and its role should at least be clearly defined in its remit.
• Ensure a robust role for civil society in the joint committee. For this commitment to effectively institutionalize civil society’s involvement in de-bureaucratization, their influence in the joint committee must be clearly defined. Preferably, the committee should establish its own rules and procedures on how it functions and who is involved, where all members (government and civil society) have an equal voice on how public institutions are evaluated. The role of civil society should go beyond advisory; they should be actively involved in the committee’s decision making.
• Ensure that civil society participation in the committee is representative. As noted above, by the end of 2021, the two existing committees will select expert CSOs to join the committee for de-bureaucratization. The selection process for civil society participation should be transparent and open to any interested organization. For this commitment to fundamentally change how civil society collaborates in de-bureaucratization, particular attention should be paid so that CSOs selected for the committee are as representative of the country’s civil society as possible. This will help ensure that a wide variety of civil society opinions and priorities on de-bureaucratization are considered as the committee conducts evaluations.
• Invite business-sector representatives to join the committee and actively solicit their ideas on bureaucratic reduction. Businesses bring valuable perspectives in their interactions with the public administration and may have ideas on where and how bureaucracy can be reduced. Therefore, the joint committee should expand to include business representatives to ensure that their perspectives are considered in the evaluation methodology. The committee could also actively seek ideas from the business sector when carrying out the evaluations. As an example, Estonia’s third action plan (2016–2018) included a commitment to crowdsource proposals on reducing bureaucracy from the country’s business sector, many of which were implemented in collaboration with the relevant institutions. [25]
• Collect feedback and ideas on bureaucratic reduction from citizens as part of the evaluations. In addition to businesses, effort could made to understand what the priorities are for average citizens regarding bureaucracy reduction. For example, Latvia conducted surveys on how to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy as part of its third action plan (2017–2019). The Latvian government used the results to resolve situations where government institutions asked for citizen information despite already possessing it. [26]

Finally, the IRM recommends addressing specific civil society priorities for bureaucracy reduction during implementation. For example, the Center for Public Innovation (a CSO on the multistakeholder forum) [27] recommends simplifying fiscal and legal procedures for small organizations, improving the functionality and open access to data from the National Registry of Associations and Foundations, decreasing administrative burdens derived from various legislation (for example, anti-money laundering), and simplifying procedures for registering and updating the legal status of associations.