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E-governance and Citizen Information 130 Catalonia in the International Context...istics of the market, state and family in the social organisation. In the “liberal” welfare state, forexample, social assistance is aimed at those who are proven not to have the means to providefor themselves, the state has restricted functions and the market is the principal mechanismof distribution (this system is characteristic principally of the Anglo-Saxon countries andamongst them the UK and Canada). In the conservative or corporatist model, rights are acquiredaccording to status – as a worker – and social class (this is the case in countries likeItaly and, in part, Spain), through which the family acquires a central role organising the structureof redistribution around the principal wage earner.In the social democratic model the rights are universal and based on an elevated decommodification.These relationships have consequences on the type and status of bureaucracy,with very rigid models, that correspond to the conservative regime and more flexiblemodels, which correspond to the liberal state (Salvador, 2003). Drawing out the consequencesof this organisation it is possible to expect the liberal states to be shaping ICT promotionpolicies in various ambits – from e-government to digital literacy – especially marketregulators, since it is to be expected that the private sector would be the principal actor inthe diffusion. The conservative regime will be more active but basing its protection on thestatus (of the working class). From the social democratic model universal policies promotingaccess aimed at all their citizens can be expected (Welp, 2004).The selection of cases we have made allows us to view the influence of these contexts in twomodels, and to analyse at the same time to what extent the central states and the regions coincidein their development. In other words, we shall see to what extent Scotland and Quebec(that fall into the category of liberal welfare states) and Catalonia and Emilia-Romagna (withinthe category of conservative welfare states) 32 respond to the same tendency, or if there areother variables that explain the strategies pursued by each government.32. Although Esping Andersen has proposed a fourth model, the “Southern European” model, which combines high familyprotection over decommodification and a hybrid state between an elevated protectionism according to status and a residualuniversalism, we take his first way of grouping countries owing to our interest in evaluating the current development of publicadministrations (rather than the development of the Welfare State).http://www.uoc.edu/in3/pic
E-governance and Citizen Information 131 Catalonia in the International Context...8.2. Structure and Function of Public Administration8.2.1. The Structure of the Public AdministrationThe administrations analysed vary in their volume and, related to this, in the distribution oftheir powers. Thus, whilst Quebec and Catalonia have a more populous civil service structure,Scotland and Emilia-Romagna have local governments with greater capacity for actionthan those of the other two regions mentioned and with smaller regional administrations.The organization charts are in general very similar, organised by departments and with fewinstitutions with transversal areas of responsibility. One of the first elements to emphasiseconcerning the public administrations under analysis is their tendency to reproduce managementmodels similar to those of the central states. Thus, although in Spain the statutes ofthe autonomous communities allow a wide margin for each regional government to design itsown organic structure and a certain amount of room to manoeuvre in the configuration of its systemof public functions, the majority of autonomous administrations have reproduced the generalAdministrative model of the state (Ramió and Salvador, 2002). This new level of Administration,which is based, initially, on the functions and resources (human and material) transferredfrom the state's general Administration, soon generates its own growth dynamic to theextent that it consolidates its areas of activity and gains its own space in the new administrativemap (Salvador, 2003).In other words, a tendency remains to reproduce the Public Administration's Weberian structure,which, albeit with some differences, is preserved in all the cases analysed. This is especiallyinteresting if we consider that some regional governments have come in to beingvery recently, as is the case with Scotland.8.2.2. The Recruitment of Civil Servants and the Administration's WorkersOne of the central points in the discourse that drives administrative reform is flexibility. In allof the cases analysed the interviewees raised the issue. Even so, the ways of achieving lessrigidity, more efficiency, etc. are very different. For example in the Scottish case despite beingaware of the expenditure generated by the administration, the planned aim is not to reducePublic Administration but to redirect resources to social policies. At the other extremeis Quebec, where the government has established the “2x1 law”, which requires that onlyone person is hired for every two that retire. This will lead to a great change in the structureof the government, a change that is expected to be supported by technological innovation.http://www.uoc.edu/in3/pic
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