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Monday, 04 December 2017

The training programme for senior personnel of the Municipality of Athens has been successfully completed

The Institute for Local Governance and Policy Innovation in cooperation with experts from the Institute for Regulatory Policy Research (INERP) organized a series of seminars for all of the senior personnel heading the general directorates, the directorates and the departments of the Municipality of Athens.

In September 2017, 134 members of the Municipality’s senior personnel, directors and heads of departments were trained on issues of strategic planning, development of human resources, public innovation and strategic management. The programme was tailored-designed to the Municipality’s needs so as to offer knowledge and to develop the modern managerial skills required by its senior personnel in a period when public organizations are expected to offer more and qualitatively better services, while also deepening their interaction with the citizens and making best use of available resources.

The senior personnel of the Municipality of Athens became acquainted with the tools that are necessary for frictionless and effective public administration of its human resources, through the use of examples from domestic and international best practices. The purpose was to further develop their critical faculties, their capacity to take initiative as well as to draft policy proposals and their pre-existing knowledge and skills on issues which require the design and implementation of public policies. The programme was also designed with the aim of highlighting the administrative role of the Municipality’s senior personnel.

In light of the personnel reductions which have taken place in the last few years, the day-to-day operations and the pressing needs which they face regularly has led senior personnel to experience a sense of alienation: they expend the largest part of their working lives sorting out routine affairs and often leave underdeveloped that part of their role which concerns the formation and monitoring of the Municipality’s public policies. For this reason the seminar was designed following a systemic approach according to which public administration constitutes a system whose intrinsic parts include the public servants, the Municipality’s budget, the regulatory framework which governs its operation and strategic planning on the direction which the Municipality will follow. The themes on which the training of the senior personnel of the Municipality of Athens were the following:

  1. The role of senior personnel in forming and implementing the Municipality’s strategy
  2. The design and implementation process of regulations
  3. Modern trends  in the development of human resources in the public sector
  4. City branding and the introduction of innovation in the Municipality
  5. The budget as an intrinsic part of the Municipality’s strategy

The programme was designed on the basis of modern educational methodologies on adult training seminars and was tailored-made to the real needs of the Municipality. For example, the resilience strategy for Athens 2030 was employed in the creation of case studies and simulation labs which took place during the course of the programme. Moreover, an evaluation of the programme itself was sought which indicated the validation of its methodology and also the desire of the personnel for further training and education in the future.

tags: Institute for Local Governance and Policy Innovation,Municipality of Athens, Regulatory Policy Research (INERP)