Citskovskis intends to reform multiple state institutions

State Chancellery’s Director Janis Citskovskis considers performing reforms in minor state institutions like Latvian Institute, Latvian Council of Science and Data State Inspectorate.

In total, the director of the State Chancellery has identified 24 small state institutions that have a small number of employees. Among those institutions is Latvian Institute with five posts, Latvian Council of Science with seven posts, State Railway Administration with eleven posts, Lotteries and Gambling Supervisory Inspectorate with nineteen posts, State Administration School with twenty posts and Data State Inspectorate with twenty five posts.

The State Chancellery has sent a request to the State Audit to assess the situation with small institutions. After receiving a report, Citskovskis will make his decision in regard to reforming those institutions.

State Chancellery’s director emphasizes that he does not plan to liquidate small institutions, but rather merge them with larger ones or of the same size.

Citskovskis admits that there have been discussions about the liquidation of certain institutions, such as Latvian Institution or its merging with a different institution. Still, there has not been any real progress so far. He does remain prepared to assess the possibility of keeping such institutions independent.

‘Many different conceptual documents have been developed, even legislative drafts. However, there has been no progress so far because someone has had very strong lobby in the Saeima or someone had used excuses like whether or not EU regulations state certain institutions have to be independent, etc. In addition, each small institution has a self-preservation instinct. They fight for their existence by claiming that they can only perform their functions in one specific format. I believe we have to assess the pros and cons from the existence of many small institutions. If they do provide tangible benefits, we ought to consider merging,’ says Citskovskis.

The Cross-Sectoral Coordination Centre will be evaluated as well in the context of state management reform. Still, Citskovskis refrained from predicting whether or not PKC will be merged with the State Chancellery. ‘We will look if there is a way for us to work together and if the merging our institutions can bring benefits,’ he said.

BNN/LETA 

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