A public policy is a course of action that a Government takes in order to achieve certain economic and social goals
Public Policy Secretariat of the Republic of Serbia prepares the Action Plan for the Implementation of the Government Programme which defines priority objectives of the Government, monitors the implementation and reports on the realization of the Action Plan for the Implementation of the Government Programme, in collaboration with all state administration bodies.
Public Policy Secretariat of the Republic of Serbia carries out specialized technical activities relating to the pursuit of regulatory reform and regulatory impact assessment prepared by ministries and special organisations, which includes: providing a prior opinion on the need to carry out impact assessment and on the completeness of submitted impact assessment; providing support to institutions proposing new regulations to establish the mechanism for the monitoring and impact assessment of regulations in the course of their preparation; collecting and processing initiatives submitted by business entities, other legal entities and citizens for the amendment of inefficient regulations on the republic level and the development of a public-private dialogue; forwarding initiatives for the amendment of inefficient regulations to responsible institutions that propose regulations; participation in the organization of trainings of civil servants involved in the development of public policies and impact assessment of public policies and regulations; carrying out tasks related to the monitoring and analysis of institutional and staff capacities for the implementation of regulatory reform, as well as other activities as laid down by law.
Public Policy Secretariat of the Republic of Serbia carries out specialised technical work relating also to: enhancement of the business environment through the development of the strategic framework in the area of regulatory reform; measurement of administrative costs borne by the business sector; management of the single registry of administrative procedures for businesses and citizens and, if necessary, undertaking of activities to ensure coordinated development of public policies of general importance for competitiveness and sustainable development.’
The system of evidence-based public policy creation and management
Finally, this law envisages that the PPS takes over from the Regulatory Reform and Regulatory Impact Assessment Unit the employed and appointed persons, as well as rights, duties, files, equipment, work resources, and archives for performing activities specified by this law. In addition, the PPS takes over from the Ministry of Regional Development and Local Self-Government the employed and appointed persons, as well as rights, duties, files, equipment, work resources, and archives for performing activities in the field of strategic analyses and research. As a newly founded ‘Centre of Government’ organisation, the PPS will continue to perform all duties that used to be the responsibility of the integrated state administration bodies.
Ensuring the quality and harmony of public policies, public policy documents and laws drafted and proposed by decision-makers (creators of public policies and proponents of regulations); advancement of the process of public policies management (planning, analysing, creation, adoption, monitoring, evaluation of implementation and coordination of public policies) and the linking of the process of strategic management and budget programming; and setting and monitoring the implementation of strategic and operative priorities and priority objectives of the Government, as well as coordination of the process. In this way, i.e. through the setup of an efficient system of coordination of the entire process the room is created to fully implement public policy documents and laws, and to monitor progress in the achievement of strategic and operative priority objectives of the Government.
The PPS is responsible for a segment of the public administration reform in accordance with the Strategy for Public Administration Reform that the Government of the Republic of Serbia adopted on 24 January 2014, and that for the realisation of particular objectives under the heading ‘Improvement of organisational and functional subsystems of public administration’ and ‘Raising the legal safety and promotion of the business environment and the quality of provision of public services’.
The mission of the PPS as an expert agency is to provide support to the Government in the creation and adoption of public policies and regulations that are of greater quality, better harmonised, and more efficiently implemented.
In this context the reform pursued by the PPS will create mechanisms for the process of adoption of Government’s public policies to rest on evidence-based decisions and tools that would make public policies oriented towards desired outcome and effects, and based on reliable data. This also entails that public policies are mutually coordinated and in line with the budget framework.