Functional Review of the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning

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horizontal communication and brings the immense problem in the strategic planning and coordination but also leads to separate capacities for each department that include such horizontal functions as policy and law drafting, resp. monitoring of environmental media. It is widely known that a multidisciplinary sector requires an enormous effort of strategic planning and coordination. Without due coordinating mechanisms, the administrative system for environment and spatial planning cannot function effectively. Unfortunately, the effective horizontal communication and topbottom planning approach are still missing. The cost of these unnecessary units is in the management cost of coordinating the very high number of units, in limiting flexibility in the use of human resources and in reinforcing the “silo” mentality of civil servants where they see only narrow horizons of their very small units. Recommendation II.1: decrease the number of units at all levels and remove incentives to create superfluous units by: i) explicitly stating that departments do not need to have divisions to exist as departments; ii) abolishing sectors except for divisions larger than a certain number (10 is recommended). II. 2 Integrating small units Some of the support functions are fractured across MESP. Primary candidates for a merger are some of the administrative tasks of the central MESP. Functions like HR management, procurement, internal audit, etc. have a relatively small number of employees and administrative transactions (e.g. procurement). With merging these non-core functions of central MESP into the Central Administration Department (CAD), one can expect savings through improved economies of scale. An integration of the Office for gender equality, human and minority rights into the Central Administration Department should be considered. There might be a dispute about its independence; however, independence can be achieved through managerial subordination. This can be achieved by limiting personal and financial decision making freedom of the director of CAD toward this office. A general consensus has been reached in the FRIDOM Project team that the EU Integration Office and the Information and Public Relation Office should keep their independence, despite their limited number of staff. This decision can be supported by the ever increasing importance of the EU Integration Office which, probably, in the short-term period will face an enormous challenge of EU accession process, as well as the need for coordination of the EU related activities across the whole government. Overall policy coordination is an important task that has not been addressed properly in MESP. Technical departments develop their intrinsic policies but there is limited capacity to analyze them with an environmental multi-disciplinary approach, transfer these policies into work plans and monitor on a regular basis the implementation process. Furthermore, there is little or no capacity to co-ordinate among different government planning documents (MTEF, EPAP, KEAP etc.) and Ministry yearly work plans. The sEU Integration Office is in charge of coordinating the European integration issues as they relate to the MESP. This job mainly consists of working with the Agency for Coordination, Development and European Integration (ACDEI) providing input and following the implementation of the European Partnership Action Plan (EPAP). Considering that the EPAP and the whole European agenda will continue to dominate the policy discourse in the near future, the EU Integration Office scope could be broadened to include general policy coordination issues as well. It should be noted that this would not include technical level details of the policy initiatives which would remain under coordination by particular technical departments. The EU Integration and Policy Coordination Office would be responsible for the following main functions: Leading development and holding responsibility for coordination of implementation of the ministry’s main strategic and business planning documents such as MTEF (priority and policy part), EPAP, KEAP and annual work plan; Being the focal point for the centre of government and other horizontal ministries, namely, the Office of Prime Minister, the Ministry of Finance and Economy, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Development; 13
Coordinating internal policies prepared by the Ministry and ensuring that they meet all quality standards as defined by the Office of Prime Minister and normative acts; Coordinate external assistance to the sector; and Advising the Minister and Ministry’s management team on priorities including budget priorities. Recommendation II.2: Transform the EU Integration Office to include Policy Coordination thus creating the Office for EU Integration and Policy Coordination. In the case of Information Office, the need for an independent position can be explained through specific tasks performed by the office and its need to be close to the decision makers on the Ministry. The Legal Office is a separate category among the small offices and units. There is no need for personal and financial independence and its role and responsibility are defined internally within MESP competence. Despite these facts, it is a common function performed by each Ministry and thus its affiliation should be regarded as standard for all of them. In the case of MESP adoption of primary, but mostly secondary legislation, is in significant delay. Therefore there is a crucial need for a separate and strong Legal Office. Thus the Legal Office will concentrate legislative experts in all fields of expertise covered by MESP (environmental protection, nature and biodiversity protection, waste management, licensing/permitting, inspection, etc.) and will actually coordinate and collaborate on all initiatives proposed by various policy departments. Recommendation II.3: Make the MESP organizational structure more vertical. Integrate some of the small offices / units into larger departments especially merging some departments to strengthen the capacity and to achieve economies of scale. The Department of Spatial Planning (DSP) and Department of Housing and Construction (DHC) are both subdivided in three divisions while DSP has 15 and DHC 12 employees. To follow the principle of making the MESP more vertical, merging seems unnecessarily. The benefit will also be the streamlined coordination of their daily activities. The current highest priority in Kosovo is to co-ordinate the planning process between the central and local levels by effective communication, assistance, consultations and decision-making processes and fighting against illegal construction and housing. The more detailed description of the mandate and task of the spatial planning and housing / construction is provided in the Section III. of this report. Recommendation II.4: Consolidate Spatial Planning Department and Department of Housing & Construction by merging them into one department. II.3 Position of the agencies and institutes The FRIDOM Whole-of-Government Review advises ministries to develop their internal capacity to oversee executive agencies and formulating policy in their areas of work. Agencies should have implementing functions only retaining policy departments within each respective ministry. Each agency should have a steering department/unit in the responsible ministry, and agency directors should report to the PS rather then directly to the minister. After the review of the MESP we have partially modified the original recommendation. The common practice in the environmental sector across comparison EU countries is that agencies formally report directly to the minister and the ministry departments to the deputy minister or the state / permanent secretary. However, all agencies also have their respective policy department at the central ministry which sets the policy and monitors execution and performance. MESP is responsible for 2 executive agencies in its portfolio. The Kosovo Environmental Agency (KEPA) consists of 3 internal directorates and also manages the activities of the Institute for Nature Protection and of the Kosovo Hydrometeorological Institute. Recently transferred, the Kosovo Cadastral Agency (KCA) is responsible for a well functioning, transparent and accessible land and property register. The specifics in 14
Page 1 and 2: Functional Review and Institutional
Page 3 and 4: ABBREVIATIONS ACDEI - Agency for Co
Page 5 and 6: Performance results are less satisf
Page 7 and 8: This survey did not included the en
Page 9 and 10: The above-mentioned mandate require
Page 11: SECTION II: CROSS-CUTTING FINDINGS
Page 15 and 16: and summed up for the whole ministr
Page 17 and 18: The common duration of an employmen
Page 19 and 20: SECTION III. RECOMMENDATIONS REGARD
Page 21 and 22: determine the charges for public ut
Page 23 and 24: SPATIAL PLANNING / HOUSING AND CONS
Page 25 and 26: SECTION IV. SUMMARY AND SEQUENCING
Page 27 and 28: ANNEX 1. PROPOSED MESP STRUCTURE Ma
Page 29 and 30: D Dep. State Secretary D.1. Investm
Page 31 and 32: ANNEX 3: LIST OF INTERVIEWS AND MEE
Page 33 and 34: 14. On Package and dump package 15.
Page 35: REFERENCES 1. Environmental Strateg

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