(Civil service; 03-03; p.2)

Although they may be of interest for all citizens, no public discussions took place so far.

To clear one assumption at first: the commission can hardly be seen as favour-doing club to legitimise job cuts; seemingly objective cost-utility analysis has not been provided.

 

Composition and task

The commission had been brought into life two years ago and consisted of 25 experts in total, among them 13 experts for civil service, five consultants, five managers of multi-national companies and two trade unionists.
The group of specialists for civil service was formed of eight scientists, i.e. mainly of jurists, and five professional administrators (The report in German can be downloaded: Regierungskommission "Zukunft des öffentlichen Dienstes - öffentlicher Dienst der Zukunft": Bericht der von der Landesregierung Nordrhein-Westfalen eingesetzten Kommission. Dusseldorf 2003).

Keeping in mind that the composition of the commission does not directly effect the results expected, one can at least state that neither cheeky consultants nor stubborn privilege defending bureaucrats were dominating the panel.
Invoking experts and information from Great Britain and Switzerland as well as the balanced appointment of civil service specialists and managers may indicate that a real interest in expertise about facts existed.

The main task of the commission was to define the main goals of the civil service in the future, how they should be achieved and if or which changes have to be brought about to achieve them.
It must be mentioned however that the civil service does not give itself its fields of activities - its "input" for that matter: consequently, the commission only analysed how processes have to be re-arranged to achieve wanted results - in this sense conditional "outputs".
(read on here)