PROJECT NUMBER: 1064201

International EPSA 2009 Knowledge -Transfer Workshop in combination with the Santcugatribuna on The EU 2020 - What Public Management Model for the next Decade

27-28/Oct/2010  •  Sant Cugat - Barcelona (Spain)  •  Fee: € 360

Introduction

Interpretations available in English, Spanish.

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Project Leader
Alexander Heichlinger
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The European Public Sector Award (EPSA) (www.epsa2009.eu) brings together the best, most innovative and efficient performers from the European public sector. The EPSA’s objective - as the first European learning platform for public administration - is to make these valuable experiences transparent, available and usable. After a long process of assessment and during a spectacular and high-level event in Maastricht, the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) handed over the European Public Sector Award 2009 last November in 4 categories:
  • e-Bourgogne (France): A regional Platform for e-Services for all which is a time- and money-saving online system that facilitates enterprises to access public markets. This innovative project which has shown to save time and money for business society won the first prize in the theme Performance Improvement in Public Service Delivery.
  • The Cologne Participatory Budget (Germany) got the first prize in the theme of Citizen Involvement. This project created the opportunity for citizens to participate in designing the municipal budget focusing on three areas - playgrounds, streets and sports - by setting up an e-platform. Through this new method a new culture of participation was created based on transparency and ability to activate huge and different target groups in the territory.
  • Award winner in the third theme, New Forms of Partnership Working, is the Oldham Local Strategic Partnership (United Kingdom) project. This project aims to build a partnership between statutory bodies, third sector agencies and the private sector with the long-term objective of reviving the declining local economy, raising the level of local aspirations and addressing underlying ethnic tensions which went well beyond their statutory obligation to co-operate.
  • In the fourth theme, Leadership and Management for Change, the final winner was the project on Management in Sant Cugat City Hall (Spain) - Budgeting the Strategy. The traditional expenses culture of this municipality was changed into a cost culture by introducing contracts between politicians and top public managers (PACTE). This project achieved that both the politicians and public managers think in the same direction and pursue the same values, therefore making better policies.
All four EPSA 2009 winners’ projects were initiated at local and regional level, where the actors are found behind innovative and efficient public performances.

It is in the latter case and location - Sant Cugat - where the 1st EPSA 2009 Knowledge Transfer Workshop will be organised to present, share, award and inspire the EPSA good practices.

Sant Cugat del Vallès is one of the most important growing economic poles in the area of Barcelona. It is a city with a high quality of life which attracts many young families for which the city has uncommon ratios such as approx. 40% university degree holders and more than 80% internet connection in households. Some leading international companies have established their headquarters or European hubs in the city.

This workshop will be organised in combination with the next Santcugatribuna (www.santcugatribuna.cat) which is a regular meeting point created in 2003 in order to build economic, scientific and citizen partnerships, and new platforms (with regular approx. 300 participants) for networking leading to business opportunities in the territory, through the periodic discussions and lectures it host. The topic selected for this debate is the new European “EU 2020” strategy to boost the economic recovery process as well as to sustain the high quality of life in Europe for the next decade. This new European vision (and mission) will be addressed from the public sector perspective, i.e. what administrative model will need to be developed to support the progress and implementation of the EU 2020 agenda as a catalyst for the well-being, competitiveness and success of their society and actors (people, communities and companies).

Objectives and methodology
Promoting the exchange of the EPSA 2009 best practice is a valuable mechanism to ensure maximum benefit of lessons learned across Europe. It contributes to a faster adoption of good practices by other public administrations, as well as to better understanding its trends and needs. The EPSA transfer workshop(s) will not be stand-alone activities, but is organised in a way to ensure that the take-up and facilitation of good practice cases are happening on the widest possible scale. It will focus on the promotion of accurate information in the locations where the projects have been implemented and will provide an opportunity for the exchange of experience between the “champions” who have already successfully achieved good results, and those who are in the process of working on this.

Another essential element is networking. The activity will provide the unique opportunity for participants and experts to meet peers and other decision-makers in the same areas. The workshop will thus provide support for building up a community for future activities or co-operations and to create a common European administrative space. These networks will also offer support for disseminating the results and achievements of EPSA, leading to synergies and customer-centered dissemination. Finally, by participation in this workshop one will get a taste of what’s to come in the EPSA 2011 edition (road-maps, themes, conditions of participation, etc).

Target Group
The event is open not only to the EPSA community, but to all levels of European public administrations aiming to reach “public excellence” with their reform and modernisation efforts.

Methodology
The activity will combine a mixture of presentations, discussions, on-site inspection and executive summary notes from the EPSA evaluation process. Participants will receive the full case studies of the selected winners, nominees and best practices of EPSA 2009: samples of the official EPSA 2009 publications (project catalogue and research report) will also be made available. Furthermore, participants will have the opportunity to learn from the EPSA evaluation about the strengths and weaknesses of the rewarded applications (Evaluation Summary Notes). Scientific and practical accompanying comments on the projects and the thematic trends will round up and boost the learning approach.