Administrative reform in Berlin
The administrative reform in Berlin is a dynamic process, begun after the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification , in which the two administrations of East and West Berlin grow together into one administration and this is to be modernized.
Reason and aim of the administrative reform
As a contribution to coping with the changed economic, social and political conditions since the reunification of the city, Berlin began a profound modernization of the administration in 1992, the aim of which is to develop Berlin's public sector into a high-performance and affordable service provider . The reform of the political and administrative system in Berlin is based on the model of an overall strategy of modernization policy, which is legitimized and legalized through constitutional amendments and administrative reform laws.
The fundamental reform of the Berlin administration, through which Berlin is to become financially more solid, more sustainable and more attractive as a business location, essentially comprises four components:
- Political and constitutional reform ,
- Regional reform 2001,
- Functional reform and
- Management reform.
Changes to the Berlin constitution to implement the reform
The implementation of the measures decided as part of the reform of the Berlin administration led to numerous changes. The Berlin House of Representatives was reduced in size and the number of Senate members halved from a maximum of 18 to a maximum of 9. The number of districts was reduced from 23 to 12 by amalgamation. The range of tasks of the districts was partly expanded by relocating tasks from the main administration. As part of the management reform , a “New Management and Control System” based on the “New Control Model” of the municipal community center for administrative management (KGSt) has been implemented in Berlin since 1992 .
Reform steps
In the districts and the main administration , the specific tasks to be performed were defined as products and a cost and performance accounting was established. Output-oriented budgeting and cost controlling take place in the district administrations . The cost awareness for the administrative services provided and the cost transparency have increased significantly in the districts. The reform-compliant restructuring of the administration through the nationwide formation of service and responsibility centers (LuV, corresponds roughly to the previous offices or departments, whose heads should, however, have more personal responsibility and whose term of office can be limited from the outset in order to avoid permanent wrong appointments), "service units" (corresponds to the previous "internal services" for personnel, budget, law and material procurement / property management) and "control services" (new organizational unit for cost controlling, as well as the previous internal audit) in Senate and district administrations has been largely implemented. LuVs were not formed. Through extensive internal public relations work and a broad-based qualification offensive, more than 100,000 employees in the Berlin administration were made familiar with the goals and instruments of the administrative reform.
In some cases in parallel, the district youth departments (the “youth welfare offices”) did not introduce youth welfare stations , but regions based on the model of Professor Wolfgang Hinte from Duisburg, with the aim of forming regionalized small municipalities that could provide all offers and services with their own budget SGB VIII (especially §§ 8a to 43) manage and plan decentrally.
Success control
Despite the implementation of a large number of reform instruments in the senate and district administrations, it has not yet been possible in any senate administration or in any district administration to implement all reform elements holistically and in a networked manner. There are numerous deficits in the implementation of the new control logic; this applies in particular to the reform areas of personnel and quality management, as the Berlin Court of Auditors has shown in two reports.
Appreciation of the results so far
The efficiency and profitability of the Berlin administration have increased, but often not because of the management reform, but because of organizational improvements such as the nationwide establishment of citizens' offices in all districts and because of the large number of budget consolidation measures, especially because of the considerable job cuts. Since 1991 the number of jobs in the Berlin administration has been massively reduced. Where in 1991 there were around 207,000 employees in the immediate state service, according to the Berlin Senate Department for Finance, almost half of the jobs were cut by 2008 (around 108,000).
The central problem of the Berlin reform process is that the relationship between administrative reform and budget consolidation remained unresolved. The extreme financial crisis that was the motor of the Berlin reform process at the beginning of the 1990s acts primarily as a brake on the modernization process today. A consolidation policy aimed at short-term savings endangers the success of modernization. It has not been possible across the board to compensate for the heavy burdens that inevitably arise for the individual in connection with the serious job cuts through structural and procedural measures of the reorganization.
Since there are only a few concrete and presentable examples of the practical overall benefits of management reform, there was a paradigm shift in terms of state and administrative modernization . Against the background of the dramatic financial crisis, the focus of administrative modernization was geared towards the requirements of the extreme budget emergency. The modernization and rationalization of the Berlin administration and the consolidation of the budget should be more closely interlinked. On the basis of the report of the “Expert Commission on State Tasks Criticism”, the “Reorganization Agenda 2006” was carried out from 2003 to 2006 with over 70 modernization projects under the motto “More performance - less costs”.
Continuation of the administrative reform
The Senate initiated a further phase of modernization of the Berlin administration in June 2007 with the modernization program “ServiceStadt Berlin” under the motto “More service - better quality”. More than 100 projects and plans make it easier for citizens, local businesses and investors to access the services and simplify administrative processes. The focus of the program is the implementation of the five key projects "Uniform Authority Number 115", "Electronic Building Permits", "Online Citizens' Services", "European Registration Information " and " Point of Single Contact for Economic Citizens ". The greater use of information and communication technology is also of great importance. With a view to continuing the “ServiceStadt Berlin” modernization program, the Senate Department for Interior and Sport commissioned the German Institute for Urban Studies (Difu) in March 2008 with the preparation of a study on the requirements for the Berlin administration in 2016. On a scientific-analytical basis, Difu has worked with administrative representatives to develop recommendations for politics and administration. With the publication of the study in summer 2009, the modernization results contained therein will now be implemented by 2016. The State Secretaries' Committee on administrative modernization, which is responsible for modernization issues in Berlin, accepted the study in June 2009 and commissioned various follow-up projects.
Conclusion
As a result of the reform efforts so far, it can be stated that final statements about the success and failure of the Berlin reform process are not possible. An administrative reform of the size that is unique within Germany in Berlin must inevitably be an open process with an uncertain outcome. Administrative reform is a complex organizational change process with a variety of interlinked cause-and-effect relationships. When modernizing, it must be taken into account that the conditional factors (political-legal, financial, organizational culture, technological and others) are not static, but are subject to dynamic change. That is why there are always unforeseen problems, misjudgments and setbacks. A prerequisite for a fundamental reform of the administration is the willingness to learn from experience in the sense of a continuous optimization of the administration system.
See also
literature
- Jürgen Nagel: Modernization Concept of the State of Berlin . In: H. Hill / H. Klages (ed.): Reform of the state administration . Stuttgart 1995, pp. 103-118.
- H. Hill / H. Klages (Hrsg.): Berlin - Enterprise Administration - A first report on the restructuring of the Berlin administration , Stuttgart 1997.
- S. Engelniederhammer / B. Köpp / C. Reichard / M. Röber / H. Wollmann: Hauptweg and Nebenwege: An interim balance sheet on the administrative reform in Berlin , Berlin 2000.
- Jürgen Nagel: The implementation of administrative management reforms and the contribution of external organizational consulting. The case study New Management and Control System Berlin (Diss.) . Publishing house Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8300-4501-4 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Berlin company administration ( Memento of the original from September 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Report according to § 99 LHO on the status of the implementation of the Administrative Reform Principles Act (VGG) in the districts of February 12, 2004 PDF file ( Memento of the original of September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link became automatic used and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (294 KByte).
- ↑ Report according to § 99 LHO on the status of the implementation of the Administrative Reform Principles Act (VGG) in the Senate administrations from May 19, 2006 PDF file ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically used and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (209 KByte).
- ↑ Reorganization Agenda 2006
- ↑ ServiceStadt Berlin program PDF file ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (34.4 Kbytes).
- ↑ Study ServiceStadt Berlin 2016 PDF file ( Memento of the original from March 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (3.96 Mbytes).
