8
SPEZIAL
|
CONTROLLING INTERNATIONAL
|
ISSUE 12
|
SEPTEMBER 2015
CONTROLLER
Jasmina Očko,
Controlling Consultant,
Kognosko, Leader ICV
working group Croatia
Today, controlling is an essential part of modern
management – regardless of whether the private or
public sector is concerned. At a time of high costs
and growing demands of society, it is essential that
resources are managed optimally. In Croatia, control-
ling has been present in companies for many years,
but for a long time it was thought that public admin-
istration can do without it. This, however, is far from
the truth. Every day, more and more is expected from
public administration. On the one hand, citizens re-
quests are increasing and better service is expected,
and on the other hand, the budget foreseen for this
purpose is becoming tighter.
By joining the European Union, Croatia accepted the basic
principles of the EU’s acquis communautaire related to free
competition and the Europe 2020 strategy which is based
on modernised public administration as a public service for
citizens, the economy and investors.
Croatia has the obligation to modernise its public administra-
tion, not only in order to rationalise costs, but primarily to
increase efficiency and to make the public sector operations
transparent and market-friendly so that it can serve as an
engine for economic growth. It is to be expected that the
EU will monitor more intensely to see if these objectives and
obligations are fulfilled.
Croatia has launched a reform of its public administration in
order to strengthen administrative capacity, but the quality of
governance remains poor. The problem is not only in the lack
of expertise but also in the management staff within public
administration that should operationalise political goals.
Croatia is currently faced with the truth – setting clear objec-
tives and setting standards of performance and qualitative
and quantitative indicators of efficiency must become the
backbone of life and work in the public sector. At the same
time, objectives can not be fully controlled. Deviation from
set objectives is normality. The question is how significant is
the deviation, what caused it and what can we do to change
this. We should reflect on what we can learn from this devia-
tion and how we can make sure it does not happen again.
When viewed through the prism of controlling, our public
administration does not have too many employees, but their
efficiency is low. Activities and tasks are not carried out
quickly enough, promptly or properly. Therefore, the main
task is to define the processes that must be performed and
the resources appropriate for these processes. In the future
we will have to do more with less, and this requires focus-
ing on important tasks – what is the right performance that
we need to accomplish and what effective use of resources
is necessary to achieve this. The main question is not how
many resources we have at our disposal, but what we will
THE CROATIAN
PUBLIC SECTOR MEETS
CONTROLLING
CROATIA
