Regional groupings arrive | L’Economiste
It took a long time for the Government Council to finally adopt the decree on the organization of the administration. The various ministries were having difficulty agreeing to group together at regional level. It has to be said that the Devolution Commission, which met several months ago, finally broke the deadlock to set up regional groupings.
Today’s text sets out the standard organization, i.e. how the model will be applied at regional level. But it is up to the Government to decide which ministries should be grouped together in a regional cluster. There was disagreement over the number of clusters to be set up, between 7 and 9, while the Ministry of the Interior was in favor of 5 clusters (economic clusters, infrastructures, etc.). This new decree replaces the old text which organized the administration.
Today, one no longer talks of the creation of a delegation, but rather of a regrouping. The aim is to bring together two or more ministries with regional delegations to form a cluster with a status equivalent to that of a directorate, with its own divisions and departments. In other words, a ministry will be the subject of devolution at the territorial level, along with other departments. This grouping will be headed by a regional director, having the status of central director. He or she may be appointed by the grouped departments following a call for candidates.
In any case, according to the presentation note, the revision of the rules governing the organization of the central Government administrations is part of the drive to embark on a modernization process designed to support ongoing changes in various areas of development. This requires public administrations to reconsider the roles they play within a new framework for the distribution of missions between the central and decentralized levels. The central administration will be responsible for strategic missions of a national nature, or those that cannot be carried out by external services. The latter are responsible for managing local public facilities and implementing public policies. The same applies to their contribution to the development and implementation of public programs and projects planned on a territorial scale, reads the memo. Generally speaking, the goal is to establish principles and rules of reference for the creation or revision of organizational structures, based on the organizational audit, as a mechanism for assessing the efficiency of these entities. Secondly, the goal is to determine the organization of the central Government’s administrative entities at the central and decentralized levels. The idea is to ensure the reduction of central administrative structures and the consolidation of the principle of diversification at all levels of organization. It is then necessary to establish a governance mechanism to steer and monitor organization projects at central and decentralized levels, represented by the Organizing Commission of the central Administration. Finally, it is necessary to determine the scope of competences to be exercised by the central and devolved administrative entities. It is also a question of concentrating the role of general inspectorates on inspection and audit missions in the field of the ministerial sector concerned, as well as the state-owned entities affiliated to it.
M.C.
