Projects

Short Description:

Overall goal

Aligned to the National Key Result Area 9 on infrastructure, communication and improved public service delivery, the intended impact of the project is the increase in average satisfaction rating for public services from a scale of 3.8 to more than 4. The project will contribute to the following outcomes which correspond to the Agency Key Result Areas of the Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC):

(1) Enhanced Efficiency and Effectiveness of Civil Services, and

(2) Promotion of Gender Equality in the Civil Service.

Expected results

Four key outputs will contribute to the overall objective of the project:

1. Competency framework for teachers from Special Education Needs (SEN) schools and 4 other critical public sector positions is available;

2. Civil servants who belong to the 5 identified profiles, including teachers from SEN schools, are familiar with new competency frameworks for their specific position;

3. a Leadership Mentoring Framework for Women in managerial and executive positions in the civil service is available;

4. a Customized Common Assessment Framework (CAF) is available and piloted in one selected agency in the civil service.

Target group / Beneficiaries

The main target group of this project are the 65 members of the resource group who will be in charge of developing the competency frameworks for the 5 identified positions and who will provide future training and support for developing frameworks for other public sector positions and women in the civil service holding managerial and leadership positions.

The resource group is composed of 50 human resource (HR) officers and 15 domain experts (three for each of the five selected positions). These resource persons are civil servants working in the ministries, autonomous agencies and local government. The KDZ Centre for Public Administration Research, Austria, will provide Technical Assistance on the customization of CAF. The target group will benefit from trainings and workshops on developing competency frameworks, mentoring and customization of CAF.

Indirectly all 28,070 civil servants (17,845 M/ 10,255 F as per Civil Service Statistics 2017) and 744 students (438M/306F) enrolled in 20 SEN schools will benefit from fair and objective performance assessment within the public service.

Activities

Key activities of the project include the organisation of a series of workshops and institutional visits for master trainers leading to the development of competency-based human resource development frameworks and programmes. The competency frameworks for 5 selected critical occupational groups (positions) including one for SEN teachers will be developed. The 5 competency frameworks will define in detail the role description of the selected positions; competency required to perform the roles; training needs to acquire the competencies; and individual development plans.

Two workshops will be conducted to develop the leadership mentoring framework comprising an overall framework with individual frameworks. Experts from the KDZ Centre for Public Administration Research, Austria, will be contracted to customize the CAF programme through designing and planning, training of assessors, in-house capacity building and development of an IT system.

Context

This final phase-out project builds on the results achieved under two previous ADC projects that supported RCSC and led to the institutionalisation of the reforms of the Performance Management System (Managing for Excellence - MaX) and the Succession Planning and Leadership Development Programs:

Phase I: Institutionalisation of New Performance Management System and Leader-ship Development Programme and Civil Service Reforms and

Phase II: Civil Service Reforms for Excellence in Public Service Delivery.

The reform of MaX required the development as well as the assessment of performance based on a competency framework for civil servant positions.

The RCSC is aware of the importance of developing competency levels across all occupational groups in the public sector and has therefore initiated a Competency-Based HR Development Programme. This programme aims to further improve and consolidate the MaX system by aligning the required competency sets of civil servants to their roles and responsibility as per their occupational group. The specific competencies are aligned to the organizational goals and objectives of the various public sector institutions. A role specific competency framework for civil servants is expected to allow for a fair and objective performance assessment and improve civil service delivery and thereby increase satisfaction ratings for public services.