A new Law of Ukraine “On Civil Service” which introduces a transparent mechanism of recruitment for civil service and ensures equal access to the civil service offices came in force on May 1, 2016. The experts of the Reanimation Package of Reforms recognize considerable progress in the civil service reform in Ukraine in 2016 despite public criticism of competition to fill particular high-ranking offices.

Civil service has been formally de-politicized, political and administrative offices have been separated, the offices of state secretaries of the ministries and the State Secretary of the Government have been introduced.

It has been formalized that the offices of civil service of any category, including senior ones, shall be filled on a competitive basis only. A relevant selection commission has been set up, and the practice of calling the competition is being developed. The competition procedure is in the public limelight; the candidates and the procedure of their selection are subjects of ongoing discussions. It should be stressed that recently appointments to the senior civil service offices were made behind closed doors in the cabinets of politicians.

However, there is a number of issues:

• the available competition procedure does not ensure adequate transparency, as there is a lack of open information about the candidates and the scores given to them by the commission members;
• the competitive selection is not fully objective, as it is subjective considerations and unclear criteria of candidates’ assessment that prevail in this process;
• the procedure does not require to assess political impartiality and patriotism of candidates, their professional integrity and reputation, and the potential conflict of interests; a list of competencies assessed is incomplete;
• some members of the selection commission, required to join it ex officio, have no possibility and/or wish to take part in its work;
• there are some doubts concerning observance of anonymity requirements in the process of testing and scoring situational tasks;
• HR experts have not been engaged in the assessment of A-category candidates.

There are the following obstacles to ensuring proper competition for the high-ranking civil service offices:

• a lack of reforms in the governmental system which demotivates the candidates seeking an interesting job with clear rules and a possibility to achieve results. The authorities and the procedure of interaction between the minister and the state secretary have not been specified legislatively yet;
• a lack of governmental communication of the reform and promotion of the competition, at least for the key offices, in media;
• a lack of steps taken to ensure fair and transparent labour remuneration of civil servants and approaches to planning and quality assessment of their work.

Competitions in the ministries and other executive authorities also lack transparency.

Attempts are still made to roll back the civil service reform – there is a chance that a non-constitutional draft law No. 4370-1 authored by MP Artur Herasymov, representative of the President in the Rada, might be adopted.

The Strategy of the Public Administration System Reform for 2016-2020, adopted in June 2016, is not being properly implemented. In particular, the reform of ministries and central executive authorities has not been launched; working groups in charge of specific areas of Strategy implementation are not active; the Coordination Council which, according to the Strategy, should be the “headquarters” of the public administration reform is not functioning.

Therefore, the experts of the Reanimation Package of Reforms call on the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Verkhovna Rada:

1. To prepare a new procedure of calling competition to fill the civil service offices in cooperation with the public;
2. To launch the reform of ministries to increase their institutional capacity;
3. To ensure activity of the Coordination Council, the working groups in charge of specific areas of Strategy implementation, the ministries, and other entities responsible for implementing the Strategy; to clearly determine the political leaders and the responsibility for this reform of one of the Government members;
4. To ensure that the draft law No. 4526-д “On amendments to some laws of Ukraine in connection with adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On Civil Service” is adopted to provide for a fully-fledged reform of the ministries;
5. To prevent adoption of the non-constitutional draft law No. 4370-1 which violates the integrity of executive authorities and disrupts the basis for the formation of a professional and politically neutral corps of the civil service.

In return, the Reanimation Package of Reforms is ready to provide expert or any other assistance in the implementation of the public administration reform in Ukraine.