Access to Civil Service (TN0048)

Facilitate access to services provided by the civil service
Beginning of October 2018 – End of August 2020
Lead implementing agency/actor
General Authority for Civil Service
Commitment description
The public sector plays an important role through accommodating a huge number of competencies. The develop- ment of skills and expertise in the civil service is an essential pillar to develop the administration and improve the quality of its services, thus making it an essential engine of economic and social development in the country. Therefore, promoting this sector by supporting its transparency and openness to all various users represents an essential tool to ensure that. In this context, this commitment aims to develop two electronic systems to promote transparency in this area:
- Developing an electronic system that enables all staff to view requests submitted by various heads of departments regarding vacancies in relevant posts.
- Developing an electronic portal for training in public administration that enables access to all information on training programs as well as online registration.
Problem/Background
Difficulty of access to information about administrative vacancies as well as on training and professional development programs.
Identification of commitment objectives/expected results
These platforms are considered among the most important mechanisms to promote civil service transparency and thus motivate staff to stay and work in the public sector as the training will strengthen and develop their competencies. Moreover, allowing all public employees equal and transparent access to information on public sector vacancies is an incentive for those who do not want to leave the public sector and who aspire to find an opportunity to work in an institution that is more in line with their skills and aspirations.
In addition, this commitment will support municipalities by the required human resources given that following the last local elections and the adop- tion of the code of local authorities on May 2018, these structures are still needed more the availability of competencies and experiences in several fields in order to strengthen the local governance principles as well as to promote the decentralization process.
How will the commitment contribute to solve the public problem?
Enabling all public officials equal and transparent access to information that could be of interest to them, which will enable the most qualified employ- ees to benefit from the opportunities available both in training and in the field of mobility and recruitment in public sector.
Relevance with OGP values
Transparency: transparency of the civil services field: benefiting from training programs and recruitment opportunities equally and transparent- ly without loyalties and mediation
Accountability: Follow up the implementation of training and recruitment programs to reduce nepotism and favoritism, mediation, and unfair treat- ment of staff who meet the requirements.Source of funding/
Relation with other programs and policies
Steps and execution agenda
Beginning of October 2018
End of October 2018
Contact Information
Name of the responsible person from implementing agency
1. Mrs. Fadhila Dridi
2. Mrs. Khaoula Laabidi

1. Director General of the civil service at the Presidency of the Government
2. Director General of the training and competencies development at the Presidency of the Government
Title and Department
E-mail address
1. fadhila.dridi@pm.gov.tn
2. khaoula.labidi@pm.gov.tn
Other Actors involved
State actors involved
CSOs, private sector, multilaterals, working groups
- Tunisian association for development and training

13. Facilitate access to services provided by the civil service

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan:

"The public sector plays an important role through accommodating a huge number of competencies. The development of skills and expertise in the civil service is an essential pillar to develop the administration and improve the quality of its services, thus making it an essential engine of economic and social development in the country. Therefore, promoting this sector by supporting its transparency and openness to all various users represents an essential tool to ensure that. In this context, this commitment aims to develop two electronic systems to promote transparency in this area:"

Milestones:

• Developing an electronic system that enables all staff to view requests submitted by various heads of departments regarding vacancies in relevant posts;
• Developing an electronic portal for training in public administration that enables access to all information on training programs as well as online registration.

Responsible institution: Presidency of the Government

Supporting institution(s): Tunisian association for development and training

Start date: October 2018                                                                 End date: August 2020

Editorial Note: This is a partial version of the commitment text. For the full commitment text from the Tunisia national action plan, see here.

Context and Objectives
This commitment aims to increase transparency in government hiring and develop civil service employees’ capacity to provide services.

The commitment has two milestones that both cover the development of an electronic system or portal. The first milestone entails an electronic system that provides information about internal vacancies in government. The second milestone plans to develop a portal for civil servants with registration information about training programs. This commitment is specific enough to be verifiable.

While this commitment addresses important public administration issues, it focuses on e-government development without using OGP principles for a citizen-lens in its design.

This commitment could represent a positive step on transparent hiring practices in the public sector. Tunisians widely believe that hiring processes are influenced by corruption, leading to the employment of underqualified staff. ^[lii] By introducing an electronic portal listing internal job openings, this commitment attempts to increase hiring transparency and mitigate the impact of government’s decision to freeze public sector wage raises and hiring (as a result of donors’ push to implement austerity measures). ^[liii] However, the commitment does not offer transparency into the selection process, provide anticorruption guidelines on hiring, or offer any enforcement measures. It also does not plan to offer public access, meaning that CSOs will not be able to provide oversight to increase accountability.

Next steps
Future commitments in this policy area could improve relevance to OGP values by adopting the following measures:

• Make information on vacancies available to the general public, providing feedback on the different stages of the process and highlighting those open to participation from citizens in general;
• Ensure training includes areas that impact implementation of OGP initiatives. For example, training on how to apply protocols on access to information or how to develop participatory approaches to policy development;

Include CSO and citizen input on decisions regarding information that will be available to citizens.

13. Facilitate access to services provided by the civil service

Limited:

This commitment aimed to increase transparency in government hiring and develop civil service employees’ capacity to provide services. [119] According to the government, the General Authority for Civil Service at the Presidency of the Government drafted and adopted the template for job descriptions and selected the pilot ministries that will adopt the job description sheets for six professional categories. [120] The General Authority for Civil Service implemented the second milestone to a limited extent. It organized two workshops on 14 and 15 January 2019 with training managers at the ministries to identify training-related data and to define the possible uses of this data periodically. [121] The General Authority also established the electronic platform for annual training plans of ministries at the end of August 2019. [122] The e-platform [123] is open to all ministries to create, develop, schedule, and conduct trainings. The platform is not public and only the ministries and their trainees have access to it. The government also reports that a platform was created for this purpose in local level government. [124] The IRM researcher could not find statistics on the training of public officials.