The trade union organization of the employees of the Directorate for Inspection Affairs (UIP) sent an open letter to the Minister of Public Administration, Maras Dukaj, on the occasion of the announced decentralization and reform of the UIP.
In the letter signed by the President of the Trade Union, Ivan Todorović, it is stated that they are contacting Dukaj because of the ambiguities in the field of inspection supervision, about which the Government published information on January 16. The government then announced that it was planning public administration reforms, which would lead to the decentralization or shutdown of the UIP.
In the letter, the trade union requests that inspectors and experts from different fields be involved in deciding on important issues in order to improve this field. They believe that returning inspections to the ministries would set back the effectiveness of their work, while, as they claim, the expert and lay public would point the finger at the inspectors.
"Without the professional and impartial work of the inspections, the laws remain just a dead letter on paper. If you really have a sincere intention to make the inspections more efficient, which we ourselves believe, we invite you to turn to strengthening the personnel capacities of the UIP as an executive authority, introducing internal control over the work of inspections, improving the work of inspectors in terms of ongoing training, providing even better working conditions and, most importantly, amending the provisions of the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees in the part that prescribes the appointment of inspectors for a mandate period of five years, in order to enable inspectors to be permanent and stability of the function", said the Union.
The letter also states that Prime Minister Milojko Spajić previously said that he is not interested in whether the UIP will remain as a single body or will be abolished, but that he is interested in the inspections being effective. At the time, they say, Spajić also stated that the Ministry of Public Administration had conducted analyzes and decided to return inspections to the framework of the ministries through the reform.
In the letter, Todorović asks whether the Ministry of Justice has done a detailed analysis of the effectiveness of the inspections, what their results are, how the reform will be implemented and working groups will be formed to draft laws of which there are over 150, whether the laws will be sent to the European Commission for evaluation, how protect inspectors from political and other influences, how inspections will be financed and communication with citizens...
Todorović also asked how it will be handled when the application is the responsibility of several inspections, how it will be coordinated during the summer tourist season, whether there will be a single information inspection system - JIIS, how the granting of authorization to inspectors for supervision in another area will be resolved, whether 80 civil servants and UIP employees who are not inspectors will be assigned to ministries...
The letter states that according to their data, the efficiency of inspections operating within the ministries will not be higher than those within the UIP.
"Analyzing the work reports of the three inspections that are now part of the ministries, we come to the data that in 2022 they carried out 2339 inspections, while in 2015, when they were part of the UIP, they carried out 4520 inspections, that is, almost 50 percent more. In the same comparative period, certain inspections took about 80 percent more measures and actions against the subjects of supervision while they were part of the UIP," the letter states.
The union also claims that the work of inspectors carries great responsibility, risk and stress and that their professional integrity is fully protected in the UIP. It is emphasized that this cannot be expected by the transfer of inspectors to ministries, especially since they do not have permanent and secure employment, but are elected for a five-year term, which, as stated, is a unique case in the region and in Europe.
"In case of decentralization of inspections, they would be only one of the organizational units within the ministry, and we are sure that the inspectors would not be able to count on the same working conditions as they have in the UIP. Experiences of inspectors from the time when the inspections were operating in composition of the ministries, until 2012, are very negative", the Trade Union emphasized.
They state that the ministries did not allocate enough money from the budget for work, so the inspectors were housed in basement offices, unconditioned rooms, without adequate equipment, and not enough official vehicles for field work. They claim that it was demotivating for the inspectors and that it affected the results. They pointed out that the UIP has made significant progress in improving working conditions in the last three years.
"In most municipalities, new offices were provided, high-quality IT and other equipment was purchased, the Unified Inspection Information System (JIIS) was implemented, new official vehicles were purchased, which resulted in much greater satisfaction of inspectors during their work and significantly better work results" , claim the Syndicate.
They state that citizens can currently submit applications to the UIP very easily, via e-mail, phone or archive. If, as they say, the application refers to several jurisdictions, joint supervision is organized by communication between the competent inspections within the UIP.
"In the event that citizens refer the report to a non-competent inspection, which is a frequent case, the unique archive and information system of the UIP enables the report to be assigned to the competent inspection for work in a short period of time, within just a few minutes," the letter states.
That is why the Trade Union asks Dukaj how they would ensure efficient handling of reports if the inspection is separated into different ministries.
"We all know that communication between different state bodies takes place slowly, in writing, and it is necessary to act urgently on numerous complaints from citizens, in order to achieve the goal and purpose of the inspection," the union pointed out.
The trade union states that they do not see how quality coordination could be organized during the summer and winter tourist season, because previously, while the inspections were part of the ministries, there was no coordinated supervision, each inspection acted individually, and the supervisions, they say, were less effective. . They claim that the burden on businessmen due to inspections was also greater.
They state that all inspectors use the JIIS system, which contains a database, enables fast communication and facilitates the work of inspectors, and that its implementation cost more than a million euros.
"There is a justified concern as to whether this system will be able to be used within the ministries, considering that the ministries already have their own special systems, which are not adapted to the needs of inspections. Carrying out inspections without a high-quality information system would greatly reduce their quality." they point out from the Trade Union.
They state that in special cases, such as the coronavirus pandemic, inspectors are given the authority to supervise in another area and that they do not know who would be competent to grant those authorities, if the inspections are separated.
"According to the current legislation, the authority to perform supervision in another administrative area is given by the head of the UIP," the letter says.
The Directorate for Inspection Affairs, by the nature of its competences, belongs to the bodies whose actions depend on the protection of the public interest in almost all spheres of society. Accordingly, independence in the work of inspectors, good working conditions with a quality information system, as well as provision, networking and data exchange of various inspections and joint actions are one of the key factors for efficient and effective work of inspections.
If you really have a sincere intention to make inspections more efficient, which we ourselves believe, we invite you to focus on strengthening the personnel capacities of the Directorate for Inspection Affairs as an executive authority, introducing internal control over the work of inspections, improving the work of inspectors in terms of ongoing training, providing even better working conditions and most importantly, amend the provisions of the Law on Civil Servants and Employees in the part that prescribes the appointment of inspectors for a mandate period of five years, in order to enable inspectors to have a permanent and stable position.
There are numerous reasons why we are sure that returning inspections to the ministries would greatly delay the effectiveness of their actions, and we fear that in the end all the professional and lay public would point the finger at the inspectors themselves for such a situation.
Therefore, once again we ask you to include inspectors as well as experts from different fields when deciding on such an important issue, so that the effectiveness of inspections can be improved in the best way, for the benefit of the whole society.
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