Public administration reform in Hungary has reached a new phase. From January 2013 there will once again be administrative districts: these are the smallest geographical units of public administration, which used to be a traditional part of Hungarian public administration.
There will be 175 such districts outside Budapest, and the twenty-three districts within Budapest will correspond to the present local government districts. On 17 December Prime Minister Viktor Orbán spoke at an official reception for the leaders of the new district offices. Administrative districts were abolished under the Communist dictatorship, and it is expected that with their reintroduction public administration will become more effective and customer-friendly.
The formation of administrative districts is significant because from now on the division of tasks between the state and local governments will be clearer and more transparent. Since the political transition of 1989-90, the state has continuously demanded that local governments carry out tasks which should have been carried out by the state and central government. At the same time, it did not provide adequate financing for these tasks. Indeed, recent Socialist-led coalition governments imposed a continuous regime of austerity measures on local governments, which were thus faced with ever-increasing budget deficits. The system built on this flawed division of tasks played a large part in settlements’ indebtedness, and the amassing of debt by local governments. As has been previously reported, the present government has begun addressing the debt problems of settlements in order to stabilise the budget of the state and local governments.
On Monday Parliament voted that in the first half of next year the state will underwrite 40 - 70% of the debt of settlements with populations higher than 5 000. In order to avoid further debt, in the first quarter of next year local governments will not be able to take on debt. Exceptions will be credit for liquidity, debt renewal, down payments for funding and reorganisation.
At the inauguration ceremony for the leaders of administrative district offices, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that the offices being created on 1 January will be the points where the public will most often meet the state; this places great responsibility on the offices and their leaders, as they will be representatives of the state, ‘the people of the state’. Directors of offices will be responsible for the public feeling that a change in quality has truly occurred in public administration, and that the reorganised Hungarian state is capable of fulfilling the functions expected of it in the 21st century. Such a change in quality must also be apparent in their adherence to the following principle: ‘People are not at the service of public bodies, but the opposite is true – public bodies are at the service of people.’ The Prime Minister considers that in societies weakened by the crisis, in the near future the state will play a different and larger role than it has done up to now – not only in Hungary, but
across the whole of the western world. For this reason the state must be strengthened.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Administration Justice Tibor Navracsics is responsible for appointing the directors of district offices. In his address he said that the leaders of districts who have now been appointed must make every effort to serve citizens and the public good, to serve their country in good faith, and to subordinate their own interests to the public interest. The system of districts being introduced in January marks the third phase of state and public administration reform. He said that this reform began in 2010 with central state administration, continued with the formation of government offices, and is now are being completed with district offices.
More than one year ago the government decided on the creation of administrative districts as one of the important phases of a comprehensive restructuring of public administration. Several decades after the abolition of the administrative district system, the district offices created on 1 January 2013 will once again be an organic part of Hungarian public administration, as part of a new organisational order and with new objectives. The offices will offer the public services in the following fields, among others: guardianship, social and child protection and family benefit affairs, children’s services, animal health and minor offences. The formation of district offices has three important goals: redefinition of the division of tasks between local governments and the state; the better and more sustainable financing of tasks; and the creation of a public administration system that serves citizens to the highest degree possible.
(Ministry of Public Administration and Justice)