Minister Wideroos at the 4th Quality conference
Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear participants
Today closes the 4th Quality conference for public administrations in the EU. We have been engaged for three days hearing best practices, listening to high-level speakers and concentrating on emerging challenges discussed at the agoras and celebrating the launching of CAF 2006.
I want to thank each and every one of you who have participated in this conference
From a conference this large with almost 200 speakers everybody goes home with a picture a little bit different from that of the other participants. We have attended different sessions and different things in the presentations have caught our attention. I would like to share with you what were some of the things that I myself found notable.
The Greek philosopher Epictetus said, “No great thing is created suddenly”. In building sustainable quality we aim at guaranteeing that continuous effort goes into striving for excellence. At the same time there is a great need to ensure that whatever the changes public organisations have to face in the future, they could do so without having to give up the level of quality they have achieved.
It used to be that people trusted their government. It used to be that they also called it our government and not the government like is the case today. I know that it is a dream that is far from being a reality soon, but we need to work towards ensuring that citizens would start thinking again that they have a role in what the government does. We feel in Finland that we can strengthen people’s trust towards our government and towards EU by achieving concrete results. The results are a message that we try and that we can deliver to the people with the people.
The confidence of citizens lies also in the high quality personnel of the public sector. We must remain to be concerned on how we will be able to keep the best in the public sector also in the future. By increasing productivity we have a chance to cope with the diminishing workforce. The other crucial thing is to make sure that when people retire they will be able to convey their tacit knowledge to the next generations of public service.
One thing that is always obvious and has been clearly visible here at the 4QC is that we all - countries or organisations - have our own strengths and weaknesses. And we much rather prefer to talk about our strengths. But luckily enough we have also learnt to bring some of the development needs of our organisations into the table.
I am no exception. I would be much more prepared to share with you the things that I believe are our strengths in the Finnish Public governance. But I do feel that it is important also to tell about some of our weaker sides. So I will give you a glance at the not so good sides of our administration, hoping that when I have finished with our stronger sides you will have already forgotten what I am going to tell you now.
Our administration is not very big and the amount of civil servants is not very high and therefore one could imagine that co-operation and governing across administrative fields should not be that hard. Well it is. We have had excellent reforms in horisontal management - like our horisontal policy programmes - but the challenge remains. In Finnish administration we too much tend to think that we are doing our job right when we put our efforts into securing our own organisation or administrative field.
Co-operation between levels of government is another point that has been on the agenda for decades and where good solutions have been found but where the problem never seems to cease to exist. And these both are crucial elements if we at the public governance want to do our share for the Finnish competitiveness also in the future.
What are we good at in Finland then? Also just briefly. Openness of the administration is our core strength. Efficient use of knowledge for business compatibility and the effectiveness of our government lies in the fact that we know what is happening in the public administration, where and hopefully also why.
The businesses or other parts of administration do not have to use extra energy in trying to find the information and wondering if it is correct. We give out reliable, honest information and we try to do it as early as possible. This has also earned us a place among the nations that year after year are among the least corrupted. One of the corner stones in delivering information is that internal information sharing is also one of our key strengths.
Another thing I would like to bring up is related to the issue of diversity. I myself come from the Swedish-speaking minority. And although I still see a lot of things that could be developed when providing services in Swedish, I do think that we are one of the top nations in the world in how we have handled and secured in our legislation the rights for a minority that is not very large in means of population. Of course we have worked hard to achieve today’s situation and to secure public services also in Swedish and in this I give credit to the Finnish-speaking decision makers for being future-oriented and seeing the value of safeguarding the nation’s bilingualism.
I genuinely and truly think that the Quality Conferences and the European Quality Movement as it is called is something of a best practice itself. Today all of us do, by our presence here, prove that we can be proud of our European public administrations and especially proud that all of our nations are committed in the development work.
Therefore it gives me all the more pleasure when I know that this movement will continue and that in two years time we have the change to meet again in Paris - at the 5QC. My sincere thank goes to the French government for taking up this challenge and I want to wish you all the best in your preparations for the conference.
Wishing all the possible success for the 5QC, we end now the 4QC with a farewell wish in the form of a pas de deux.