EUPAN HRWG MEETING, ROME, 16-17 OCTOBER 2014 QUESTIONNAIRE Managing Competencies in Public Administrations (MC-PA) NOTE FOR THE DISCUSSION 1. The Questionnaire MC-PA The questionnaire, launched by the Italian presidency of the European Union, is meant to gather information on the ways adopted by EU and other European countries to manage the competencies of civil servants, so as to develop the capacity of public administrations to meet the demand for services by citizens, associations and businesses. The questionnaire is also aiming at learning and diffuse knowledge about goals, methods and procedures for strategic workforce and competencies planning, a subject that is becoming more and more relevant for an appropriate management of public human resources. Six are the topics addressed, in their connection to competency management: 1. the institutional framework for regulating competency management in central government, 2. the ways staff and managers are recruited, and the role and modes of competency assessment, 3. national practices for Strategic Workforce and Competencies Planning and, in particular, the methods of competency mapping, forecasting and building, with respect to present and prospective population needs, 4. the presence and diffusion of specific ‘learning organization’ and/or ‘highperformance work organization’ practices, 5. the existence of national practices for performance assessment at various levels, and the role of competency assessment in them, 6. the extent and relevance of mobility practices or obligations for staff and managers, and the role competencies have in mobility. The HRWG meeting will provide room for discussing the results of the questionnaire and exchanging information and experiences around the focussed topics. The discussion aims at creating a common knowledge base for strengthening European competency building practices, in accordance with the relevance of increased public employees’ competencies as a fundamental pillar of any capacity development strategy. 1 Italy’s conviction of this relevance is attested by the launching of the first Italian survey on public employment competencies (Organization, Learning and Competencies in Public Administrations): a sample survey on 203 Institutions and 2,000 persons working in them1. A summary of its findings will be made available to the EUPAN Network, together with all the MC-PA questionnaires and the enclosed materials, and also some evidence deriving from a comparison analysis of European Countries PIAAC data on public employment. 2. The 16 October meeting of the EUPAN HRWG The HRWG meeting will take place on October 16, from 14.30 to 18.00. The meeting will start with a brief plenary session, introducing the goals and discussion themes. Afterwards, from 14.45 to 16.45, each participant will join one of three focus groups, in order to discuss there with ease the results of the questionnaire, as well as other connected topics. The subjects of the three focus group will be:  Strategic workforce and competency planning, recruitment and training.  Mobility, performance assessment, and turnover: the role of competencies.  Knowledge management and learning organization. The focus groups will be led by Prof. Leonello Tronti (National School of Administration), Prof. Giuseppe Della Rocca (Calabria University) and Dr. Massimo Tomassini (Roma Tre University) from the research team with the help of Claudiana di Nardo, Lorella Mastroianni, and Stefano Pizzicannella (DPA) Each participant is kindly asked to indicate at his/her earliest convenience to the Italian EUPAN Secretariat (eupan@governo.it) his/her preferences for every focus group, on a 1 (interested) to 3 (very interested) scale. According to the preferences, the Secretariat will define the composition of each group and feedback the information to all participants. Following a short coffee break, the plenary session will be resumed at 17.00. The session will host the presentations of the results of the three focus groups, underlining the topics discussed, the interests shown by the participants and possible lines for future work. The plenary session will end at 18.00. On Friday 17 October, at 9.00, Prof. Tronti will present the activities in the HRWG session within the Joint IPSG/HRWG Session. 1 The survey shares its methodological features, based on the Job Requirement Approach (JRA), with both the traditional British survey “Work Skills in Britain” and the OECD international survey “PIAAC”. 2