Functional Review of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare

Functional Review and Institutional Design of Ministries
Functional Review of the
Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare
FRIDOM – Functional Review and Institutional Design of Ministries is a DFID-funded project, implemented by
HELM Corporation, Consulting and Public Management Group, Governance institute Slovakia and Altair
Asesores.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................ 3
INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................... 5
SECTION I: THE MANDATE AND THE STRUCTURE OF THE MINISTRY ......................................... 6
I.1. The mandate of the ministry ......................................................................................................... 6
I.2. The size and structure of the ministry ........................................................................................... 7
SECTION II: CROSS-CUTTING FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ......................................... 10
Organization of the ministry .............................................................................................................. 10
Processes ......................................................................................................................................... 11
Human resources ............................................................................................................................. 13
SECTION III: RECOMMENDATIONS CONCERNING SPECIFIC AREAS ......................................... 15
III.1 Employment / Labour ................................................................................................................. 15
III.2 Social / Family Portfolio ............................................................................................................. 18
III.3 Other areas of the ministry work ................................................................................................ 22
SECTION IV: SUMMARY OF CHANGES AND THEIR SEQUENCING .............................................. 24
IV.1. Summary of short-term changes and their sequencing ........................................................... 24
IV.2. Summary of medium-term changes and their sequencing: ..................................................... 25
IV.3. Gender impact of the recommendations .................................................................................. 26
IV. 4. Interaction with the European Partnership Action Plan ........................................................... 28
ANNEX 1: LIST OF INTERVIEWS ....................................................................................................... 29
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report presents the results of the functional review of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare
(MLSW) in Kosovo and has been prepared by the FRIDOM project. The functional review focuses on
the administrative capacity issues in the labour and social welfare sector, reviews the objectives,
functions, structures, procedures and personnel of the MLSW (and its 1 subordinated agency) and as
the result proposes recommendations for improvement of the existing state in order to the MLSW be
able to achieve its objectives to the best possible level.
Looking at the overall MLSW mandate, the combination found in Kosovo – where labour and social
affairs are together and separated from other portfolios (education, economy, health) – is quite
frequent. At the same time, it needs to be said that some countries prefer to combine employment
with economy, which sometimes leads to a combination of the social affairs with health. In the Kosovo
context, the economy-employment link seems more significant than the employment – social welfare
link. The review confirmed that within the ministry, there are very few horizontal linkages between the
two areas. Therefore, shift of the employment out of the MLSW agenda should be considered, if it
leads to creation of am economic development ministry (with the Ministry of Trade and Industry and
the Ministry of Energy and Mining). On the other hand, the idea of merging health and social welfare
is not suitable in the Kosovo context.
The review presents 9 recommendations that concern the overall organization, processes and human
resources of the ministry.
The first group of proposals deals with the organization. Recommendation II.1 is to decrease the
number of units at all levels and remove incentives to create superfluous units by explicitly stating that
departments do not need to have divisions to exist as departments, and abolishing sectors. It is worth
noting that the Ministry of Local Government Administration in Kosovo has already implemented the
latter step by abolishing all sectors in its recent reorganization. Recommendation II.2 is to decrease
the managerial distance between the political and civil service side by re-introducing ministry
management board meeting and rebalancing the staff numbers away from the minister’s cabinet.
Recommendations on the processes follow. Recommendation II.3 is to progress with strengthening of
the e-government in MLSW. Recommendation II.4 is to introduce a more explicit performance
management system via creation of qualitative and quantitative standards for administrative and
service delivery performance. Recommendation II.5 is to create an institutional anchor for quality
assurance and monitoring and evaluation functions. Recommendation II.6 is to centralize IT services
in the ministry. Recommendation II.7 is to create and enforce a checklist for implementation of
reforms that will then be used by officials responsible.
Finally, two recommendations deal with human resources. Recommendation II.8 suggests that the
ministerial management take stronger steps against political nominations at all levels.
Recommendation II.9 is to strengthen actual HR management capacity.
Shifting to specific departmental issues, the first three recommendations were in the area of labour
and employment. Recommendation III.1 is to build capacity for labour/industrial relations as a new
division in the current Employment Department. Recommendation III.2 is to spin off the VET Division
(including VET Centres) as a new agency in the short-term and privatize it in the medium-term.
Recommendation III.3 is to spin off, in the medium term, the part of the current Employment
Department that provides employment services as a stand-alone agency, which could be called the
Employment Service.
The next group of suggestions is concerned with the complexities of the social and family policy
affairs and has 6 points. Recommendation III.4 is to create a strong policy-making function in the
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social and family area by creating a unified Social and Family Policy Department based on current
Department of Social Welfare. Recommendation III.5 is to merge the Institute of Social Policy into the
Social and Family Policy Department. Recommendation III.6 is to build pension policy function in the
Social and Family Policy Department. Recommendation III.7 is to spin off the Department of Pension
Administration into a new Pension Administration Agency. Recommendation III.8 is, in the medium
term, to consider returning administration of martyrs’ affairs into the Pension Administration Agency
and build the martyrs’ policy function in the Department of Social and Family Policy. Lastly,
Recommendation III.9 is about creating a special Appeals Department to manage all 2 nd instance
decision-making in the ministry.
Last three proposals are about specific crosscutting functions. Recommendation III.10 is to clarify the
distinction between the archiving and the registry and fully centralize the archiving function for the
ministry. Recommendation III.11 would mean bringing budget and finance and procurement into
DCAS to unify support functions. Finally, Recommendation III.12 is to build specialized support
(EU/foreign relations etc…)
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INTRODUCTION
This report presents results of the functional review of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare
(MLSW) in Kosovo and has been prepared by the FRIDOM project. The functional review focuses on
the administrative capacity issues in the labour and social welfare sector, reviews the objectives,
functions, structures, procedures and personnel of the MLSW (and its 1 subordinated agency).
The process of the functional reviews is based on the May 2006 decision No 08/197 of the Prime
Minister of Kosovo to request support from the UK government (DFID) to undertake an assessment of
central institutions. In February 2007, the Government made the functional review and re-organization
of its administrative structure a key objective of its newly published Public Administration Reform
(PAR) Strategy and Action Plan. The FRIDOM Project has been launched in April 2008 and involves
all ministries (except for the newly created foreign affairs and defence ministries) as well as horizontal
business functions of the government such as human resource management, procurement, egovernment
and others.
Most Central and Eastern European countries have undertaken similar functional reviews processes
in the lead-up to European accession. As these experiences show, there is a high risk that the
recommendations from functional reviews done by external consultants are not implemented.
Therefore, Kosovo’s approach to functional reviews is that recommendations from reviews will be
translated into Strategic development plans (SDPs) of ministries by the relevant institutions
themselves and also into further updating of the Kosovo’s Public Administration Reform Strategy.
As a part of the review, the FRIDOM Team prepares an Analytical Report outlining options for
restructuring and capacity development of each portfolio. It also provides support and capacity
building to the line ministries, which are responsible for developing the SDPs.
The Analytical Report for the MLSW is structured into four major parts. Section I looks at the overall
mandate and mission of the ministry and its internal structure, seeking to answer to questions of
whether and how these should be modified. Section II looks at the organization, processes and
staffing through the lens of the whole institution. Section III presents findings and recommendations
for specific departments/agencies. Section IV concludes the report with a summary of organizational
and other changes as well as options for sequencing implementation of the recommendations.
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SECTION I: THE MANDATE AND THE STRUCTURE OF THE MINISTRY
I.1. The mandate of the ministry
The Kosovo Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare combines key functions in the area of the welfare
state and the labour market, specifically:
- all employment and labour market issues
- social protection and social transfers: from pensions to poverty relief
- child protection and family services
- assistance to the disabled (though the overall coordination role is played by the OPM)
- social services, particularly for the disabled, and long-term care
It has a relatively unusual function of providing care for war martyrs’ families and civilian victims,
which is unsurprising given the recent Kosovo history. On the other hand, it lacks a function that is
often combined with this portfolio in other countries – gender policy, which has been given particular
visibility in Kosovo and is dealt with at the level of the OPM (as is coordination of the policy vis-à-vis
the disabled).
Looking at the overall MLSW mandate, the real issue is as follows. Ideally, one combines social policy
with employment with economic development and education because of linkages to human capital
and overall economic policy. On the other hand, there is also a strong link to health, especially in the
area of disability, social services and long-term care. However, such a giant ministry combining all
these portfolios would be very big, difficult to manage and unsustainable. Therefore, governments
nearly always have to slice these portfolios into 3-4 ministries.
The combination found in Kosovo – where labour and social affairs are together and separated from
the rest – is quite frequent. Specifically, in the small EU countries:
- Estonia has the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs
- Latvia has the Ministry of Welfare and Ministry for Children and Family Affairs
- Lithuania has the Ministry of Social Security and Labour
- Slovenia has the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs
- Slovakia has the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family
At the same time, it needs to be said that some countries prefer to combine employment with
economy, which sometimes leads to a combination of social affairs with health. For example, Finland
has the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.
Alternatively, the social and family portfolio can be a standalone ministry – in Ireland there are 2
ministries (called departments by the Irish): Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and
Department of Social and Family Affairs.
The current Kosovo set-up is therefore by no means exceptional. Despite that, the FRIDOM whole-ofgovernment
review suggested need for change. The reason was that Kosovo currently has 5
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ministries dealing with economic issues – completely or partially (leaving out agriculture). This
fragmentation is particularly worrying given the Kosovo’s urgent need for dynamic, cohesive and
coordinated policy for economic and employment growth. The split between the Ministry of Economy
and Finance officially responsible for the overall economic development and the Ministry of Trade and
Industry, which is responsible for practical policies in this direction, seems particularly damaging.
While separate ministries provide political visibility, they also lead to conflicts about competences,
need for more coordination and difficulties in pursuing crosscutting agendas. In comparison, small EU
states have 2-3 ministries for the same range of issues. There is a reason to believe that it might be
beneficial to have joint management of employment and economic policy. In many countries, the
interaction between employment and the social system is of paramount importance to progress in
terms of employment. In Kosovo, the social security is relatively underdeveloped and is unlikely to
present the key challenge to employment growth in the short- to medium-term. Rather it is the
development of private sector overall which seems to be the key obstacle to employment. Therefore,
moving employment to economic development should be considered. The whole-of-government
review was only preliminary and intended to serve as a analytical framework for individual ministry
reviews. After the review of the MLSW (and the related ministries), we have partially modified the
original recommendation.
What remains true is that, in Kosovo context, economy-employment link seems more significant than
employment – social welfare link. The review confirmed that within the ministry, there are very few
horizontal linkages between the two areas. Therefore, shift of the employment should be considered,
if it leads to creation of economic development ministry (with the Ministry of Trade and Industry + the
Ministry of Energy and Mining). On the other hand, the original idea of merging health and social
welfare is not suitable in the Kosovo context. The reasons are as follows:
- different and limited levels of decentralization
- the fact that the Ministry of Health is an extremely complex and problematic ministry on its
own
Therefore, our recommendation is for continuation of the ministry, but with consideration of
hiving off the employment and labour department.
However, our specific recommendations on the two key areas – employment/labour and social
welfare – do not depend on whether the ministry continues to exist in the current form or is split into
two parts because they concern their separate reorganizations. Therefore, in the following parts of the
report, we do not deal with the issue.
I.2. The size and structure of the ministry
The Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare is already a key ministry in terms of public spending and
impact on the everyday lives of citizens. The current situation though is only a taste of things to come.
With rising incomes, welfare states tend to grow (especially with expenditure on pensions and other
social transfers), so there is a reasonable expectation that the size of the ministry outlays will grow
dramatically over the next 1-2 decades as Kosovo’s economy partially catches up with the rest of
Europe.
This also inevitably implies a growing size of the ministry and its agencies, so a long-term reduction in
the size of the ministry and its agencies is neither advisable, nor expected. However, this should no
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imply that the current structure is appropriate or that the staff numbers are too small, cannot be
reduced or redeployed.
We look just at the central level of the ministry (based in Pristina), excluding employees at the
regional and municipal level. The reason is that the FRIDOM ToRs are primarily about the functioning
of ministries as understood in the EU countries. As we are going to see, the regional / local functions
performed today by the MLSW (employment services, pension administration etc) are performed by
agencies, not by the ministry in any of the EU states that we look at.
At the central level, the ministry is not extremely small though it is 25-45% smaller than its
counterparts in countries of similar size (see Table 1). It should be noted that the size cannot be
judged independently of the size of the welfare state that is being administered and which is fairly
small in Kosovo.
More interesting is the internal structure of the ministry. The data are shown in Table 1. The key
conclusions to draw are the following:
- there is no policy capacity in the area of pensions and war martyrs, with both relevant
departments serving solely as administrators of benefits. In other countries, there are 8-20
people responsible for pension policy and legislation at the level of the central ministry. There
is no such capacity in Kosovo. That is why we mark this capacity 0 in the table
- the area of social welfare and family has capacity that is quantitatively comparable to
the small EU countries, but only if one counts in the Institute of Social Policy
- on the other hand, the Department of Employment and Labour capacity at the central
level is small compared to the other countries, and completely lacks capacity for
dealing with labour law, health and safety at work and social dialogue
- the cabinet of the minister is oversized compared to other countries, a situation
frequently found in Kosovo and all the more surprising given the fact that other parts of
Kosovo ministries are usually undersized. This is largely due to the large number of political
advisers
- similarly to other Kosovo ministries, the so-called specialized support units dealing with
public and internal communication, EU and international affairs, audit and control, are
the most undersized ones
- on the other hand, the general support functions dealing with permanent secretary’s office,
HR, etc are not out of line with other countries
- there is a large capacity related to war categories, which does not exist elsewhere, but that is
not surprising
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Table 1: MLSW capacity compared to selected small EU states
Broad Functions/Country Kosovo Estonia Slovenia Latvia Lithuania Slovakia
Ministers' Cabinet 14 8 6 7 9 17
Legal affairs 6 8 7 n.a 6 20
EU Fund management 0 n.a. n.a. 20 n.a. 121
Labour 18 36 67 23 31 41
War Categories policy 0 0 10 0 0 0
Pension policy 0 n.a. 8 17 17 20
Social Welfare and Family 44 60 57 71 33 46
Permanent Secretary and general
support 42 72 66 112 55 80
specialized support (PR, EU and foreign
relations, audit) 6 18 20 22 45 35
Total 148 202 241 272 204 380
Population (in 000) 2,000 1,300 2,000 2,200 3,600 5,400
Source: FRIDOM
We note % for war categories and pension policy to demonstrate lack of policy capacity since all the
staff in these two departments are involved in the administration of the benefit system rather than
policy-making.
These findings are reflected in the recommendations that are now presented in Sections II and III.
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SECTION II: CROSS-CUTTING FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
In this section, we present a set of findings and resulting recommendations that concern the
functioning of the ministry as a whole. Their purpose is to improve the performance of the MLSW as
an institution largely through changes in organization as well as processes and the HR management.
Organization of the ministry
The first group of findings concerns organization of the ministry, where we would like to present
three key conclusions.
First of all, based on the interviews, we find a strong fragmentation within the MLSW – what is
generally called a silo mentality, where departments dealing with each policy field have little contact
and coordination with the rest of the organization. This is not an unusual problem and ministries
everywhere seem to be struggling with it. However, the fragmentation of the MLSW is at an unusually
high level, where one might consider the ministry a confederation rather than a federation. There is
not only a lack of horizontal communication, but also separate capacities for each department that
include such horizontal functions as appeals, IT and archiving.
The problem is compounded by an excessive number of units at all levels – departments and
divisions and particularly sectors. There are divisions of 2-3 people (e.g. in the Institute of Social
Policy or the Department of Martyrs’ Families, War Invalids and Civil Victims) whose sole rationale
appears to justify existence of a department since there is a perception that a department cannot exist
without internal divisions. The cost of these unnecessary units is not only in higher costs in paying
higher salaries to civil servants who manage these small units. A more substantial cost is in costs of
coordination of the very high number of units, in limiting flexibility in the use of human resources and
in reinforcing the “silo” mentality of civil servants where they see only narrow horizons of their very
small units. Looking specifically at sectors, MLSW has the highest number of sectors in the central
part of the ministry from the all the ministries we examined so far in Kosovo. Comparing it with similar
ministries in the 6 small EU states, the review found that these countries either do not have the third
layer of management at all or use it only in an extremely limited number cases to divide large
divisions (no more than 7 of them were found) even though the ministries in other countries were
usually larger than the Kosovo Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare.
The third conclusion is that the internal fragmentation is strengthened and proper management
hindered by a bifurcation of management, where executive agencies are managed by the
minister directly using his cabinet, while departments are managed through the permanent
secretary. While the practice is common in Kosovo ministries, it is a major problem pointed out by the
FRIDOM whole-of-government report. It lacks managerial logic - chief executives are in the same
position vis-à-vis the ministry leadership as the departmental directors. To have one group report to
permanent secretaries and the other directly to ministers is not only unsystematic, it creates
managerial problems and wrong incentives. Even more importantly, to have an integrated approach to
a portfolio, it is vital than an agency active in a given area closely coordinates its work with the
relevant ministerial department.
This has been less of a problem until now in MLSW, because it has only one executive agency –
Labour Inspectorate – and there is no policy-making capacity in this area in the ministry in any case.
However, since the review recommends creation of 3 major agencies, the issue would become crucial
in case of implementation of these recommendations.
The first recommendation (II.1) in the area of organization is to decrease the number of units at all
levels and remove incentives to create superfluous units by:
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- explicitly stating that departments do not need to have divisions to exist as departments
- abolishing sectors except for divisions larger than a certain number (10 is recommended). It is
worth noting that the Ministry of Local Government Administration in Kosovo has already
implemented this step by abolishing all sectors in its recent reorganization.
The second recommendation (II.2) is to decrease the managerial distance between the political
and civil service side by:
- re-introducing ministry management board meeting
- rebalancing the staff numbers away from the minister’s cabinet.
Processes
A ministry of labour and social welfare and its agencies are, in any European country, the dominant
provider of cash benefits as well as labour market and social services to most citizens and
businesses. This means that such a ministry needs only strong policy capacity to be able to devise,
monitor and update policies, but also needs an impressive ability to oversee how the policies are
implemented by the lower echelons of the bureaucracy. Additionally, since the basic outlines of the
welfare state are rarely if ever changed in a country, the policy and oversight capacity need to be
concerned not just with grand strategies, but also with the service delivery and administrative
performance issues, such as, for example:
- if the government is introducing a new active labour market policy program, are individuals
responsible for its implementation on the ground ready and fully informed?
- how much does it cost the government and the citizen to process a pension application?
- what is the error rate in evaluating disability claims in various programs?
- how much does it cost and what is the effectiveness of job mediation or training activities?
- how does this performance differ across Kosovo regions? Why?
- what can be done about all of this?
Our assessment is that while the ministry has succeeded in establishing functional workflow in
administrative functions, it still has to contend with several major challenges in its modernization.
Among them, the key ones are the following:
- inefficient, paper-based processes (though there is an ongoing drive to electronize them that
should be supported – see more below)
- lack of focus on the cost effectiveness and quality of service delivery, where the ministry
collects data only on the number of various applications processed or services provided, but
virtually no information are used on unit costs and quality control. This includes the fact that
no unit in the ministry is responsible for the monitoring and evaluation strategy and
evaluation, with the monitoring function scattered around portfolios and being only an implicit
part of the management, and with evaluation essentially not being done
- insufficient attention to issues of implementation and internal communication, where even
major changes in laws and the subsequent modifications in work processes of the regional
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and municipal staff are frequently not given sufficient attention by the centre and the needed
information is not disseminated
Therefore, we present several recommendations that focus on issues of performance, quality
assurance, implementation and internal communication.
The first one (II.3) is to progress with strengthening of the e-government in MLSW. The ministry
is already preparing to introduce electronization of current paper-based processes in some areas –
e.g. pensions. This is to be commended, but it should be born in mind that electronization brings
substantial improvements in efficiency and customer satisfaction only if it is accompanied by clear
performance standards and reengineering of business process (for more details, see the FRIDOM
horizontal review on e-government).
It would be relatively simple and very useful to create unified reporting guidelines for the ministerial
pyramid – from regional level to central level of the department and then to the ministry leadership
(minister, permanent secretary) and strengthen their electronization. The uniform standards for
reporting should also be utilized to bring reporting not just on numbers, but also on their analysis,
practical implications, including policy and political ramifications. Simple format for the guidelines
prepared centrally and then modified for each area as necessary would be the best. The monitoring
and evaluation anchor mentioned below should take the lead for implementation.
The second recommendation (II.4) is to start introduction of a more explicit performance
management system via creation of explicit qualitative and quantitative standards for administrative
and service delivery performance. In other words, the ministry should have clear standards for what it
expects of individual units and even individuals at the regional / municipal level. Standards can, for
example, cover:
- number of cases / applications per worker
- the average / maximum speed of processing of an application
- the average / maximum rate (in %) of decisions made by a unit / worker that is overturned on
appeal
- satisfaction of clients with the service
- the average / maximum number of job placements or vacancies found
- costs per outcome in case of services
This is potentially a vast area and it is vital to get it right. In other words, creating standards that are
either not challenging or unrealistically high or that can be easily fooled (gamed) causes more
damage than not having any at all. By the same token, well-designed standards utilized by managers
at all levels are extremely important for performance management. Indeed, without measuring
performance and comparing it to a required level, there is no performance management.
Therefore, we recommend gradual introduction of the system – starting from simpler areas (such as
the expected number of applications to be handled by pension administration) and progressing
towards more complicated ones.
The third recommendation (II.5), closely tied to the previous one, is to introduce institutional anchor
for quality assurance function and monitoring and evaluation functions. Normally, we would
recommend creation of a special unit directly under the permanent secretary. However, experience
from other countries indicates that success of such units depends more than in other cases on the
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possession of relevant and highly sophisticated skills by the individuals involved (and their upgrade
through continuous training) and commitment of the management. Therefore, a favourable
institutional environment rather than “appropriate” location seem to be of particular value in this case.
The only unit in the ministry where such an environment could be found is the DSW, which is already
on its way along these lines.
The next recommendation (II.6) is to centralize IT services in the ministry into a single office or a
division of approximately 8-10 people at the central level. At the moment, each department has
separate IT capacity. Given the ministry extensive IT needs, the centralization would not lead to
decrease in IT staff. On the contrary, if foreign experience is any guide, the number of IT personnel
will need to increase (unless the whole IT infrastructure is outsourced, which does not seem likely in
Kosovo). The point of the proposed centralization is to allow more efficient and flexible deployment of
very scarce human resources. It should be noted that such a plan has already been discussed within
the ministry, but not implemented at the time of the review.
The fifth recommendation (II.7) is to create and enforce a checklist for implementation of reforms
that will then be used by officials responsible in preparing for implementation of major policy changes.
Such a checklist could contain:
- advanced verification that secondary legislation / administrative instructions are ready
- availability of the necessary human resources to implement new tasks on central level,
regional level and in municipality with relevant skills
- required technological environment: both IT (hardware and software) and people able to use
the technology
- clear division of competencies between the Ministry and other actors (municipality, regional
office)
- existence of system for periodical reporting on implementation
- establishment of information mechanisms (email, hotline) for people form regions,
municipality to discuss things they are not sure about on an ongoing basis
In case of any major change or reform, the ministry should also appoint officials to be formally
responsible for monitoring of reform implementation and coordinating all relevant processes as
described above.
It should be stressed that, in case of some changes, many of these steps are already being taken, but
there is no unified and complex approach.
Human resources
Education, experience and skills of civil servants are a crucial ingredient of the organization’s
performance. However, the required mix of these characteristics differs not only from organization to
organization, but also from department to department. The functions performed by the public
administration can typically be divided into the following categories:
- Policy functions
- Co-ordination, supervision and performance-monitoring functions
- Regulatory functions
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- Support functions
- Service-delivery functions
Currently the bulk of the MLSW work, as measured by number of employees dedicated to each tasks,
is not related to policy-making and coordination functions (designing policies and policy instruments
including legislation, their interpretation and monitoring), but to service delivery and regulatory
functions. As analyzed elsewhere in this report, this needs to change, particularly in the areas of
pensions and labour, but to some extent across the ministry.
The current set of skills appears broadly adequate to the current set of functions, but is already weak
on the policy-making side. If the policy side is strengthened, then a real skills gap will emerge. There
also appears to be a high level of politicization of ministry staff at all levels though more pronounced
at the more senior levels. For example, majority of department heads were changed since the last
election and were identified by other staff members as explicitly political appointees. It should be
noted though that the situation can differ dramatically from department to department, with the
Department of Social Welfare appearing to be least affected.
There is also an absence of strategic human resource management in terms of clear definition of HR
priorities and then planning and executing concrete steps to reach them. The HR Division devotes
nearly all of its capacity to meeting formal requirements of the law in terms of recruitment and there is
very little focus on strategic human resource management. The ability of line managers to define
competence profiles and requisite training needs is also relatively weak. On the positive side, the
ministry (together with other Kosovo institutions) seems to benefit from patriotic enthusiasm of its
employees though that seems to be waning as time passes.
Therefore, we recommend that the ministerial management take stronger steps against political
nominations at all levels (II.8) and strengthen actual HR management capacity. (II.9)
First of all, an improvement in the HR management requires an upgrade of the Personnel Division.
The upgrade would not be needed in terms of numbers or formal mandates, but the actual work done.
The division seems to have sufficient capacity including a special coordinator for HR development
and an annual HR development plan, but line managers indicate that responsiveness to their needs
or a strategic approach are both very limited. The expectations of the senior ministry management
towards the Personnel Division would need to change as well, moving towards more strategic
approach in assessing the ministry HR needs and filling the gaps through recruitment and existing
staff development. Therefore, the terms of reference of the division should be reviewed, with the
Permanent Secretary leading the process in consultation with all departmental directors. Thirdly, the
division would need an infusion of new skills that should be achieved by recruitment and training of
the new staff member with this explicit objective as well as training for the division head and existing
officers. To create a framework for the improvement, the division should, in consultation with the rest
of the ministry, prepare a strategic planning document on building the capacity of the ministry that
would be approved by the minister and serve as the basis for further decision-making with regard to
budgeting and organization of the HRM function including training. The ministry should then seek out
donor assistance as a priority on this issue.
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SECTION III: RECOMMENDATIONS CONCERNING SPECIFIC AREAS
III.1 Employment / Labour
One department (Labour and Employment Department) and one executive agency (Labour
Inspectorate), currently covers the area of employment and labour. The Department has two
divisions:
- Vocational Education and Training Division (VET Division)
- Employment Division
Each of these divisions has units at the central level as well as regional units – VET Regional Centres
and Regional Employment Centres, which are legally and functionally part of the ministry. In terms of
functions performed, the Kosovo situation is fairly standard with one exception. The Employment
Division focuses purely on employment issues and lacks any capacity for policy-making in the labour /
health and safety / industrial relations area so there is no policy capacity / oversight of issues that are
handled by the Labour Inspectorate at the level of implementation of laws and regulations.
On the other hand, the current Kosovo institutional set-up is extremely unusual in terms of how the
functions are organized. There are no agencies (with the exception of the Labour Inspectorate) and all
the implementation functions are handled directly by the Ministry. As we are going to show in the
following text, there are important reasons why this is not so elsewhere and should not be so.
The recommendations in the area of employment and labour can be divided into three areas:
- creation of ministerial policy-making capacity in labour / industrial relations
- reorganization of the training side (VET)
- reorganization of the employment services
Recommendation III.1: build capacity for labour/industrial relations in the current Employment
Department
Capacity for both policy-making and regulatory activities in the area of labour and industrial relations
(employer – employee relations, occupational health and safety, collective bargaining and social
dialogue etc.) is an important element of the labour / employment portfolio. At the ministerial level,
because it is quite different from the employment policy issues but has important impact on the overall
quantity and quality of employment, it is generally organized as a separate unit, but together with
other units dealing with employment policy. There is also always a labour inspectorate charged with
enforcing the regulatory provisions. (Since the Labour Inspectorate exists in Kosovo and has a
mandate, which is fairly standard, we will not deal in detail with the Inspectorate as such.)
In Finland, the Ministry of Employment and the Economy has the Labour and Trade Department,
which contains 2 units of this kind: Regulation of Working Environment Unit and Quality of Working
Life Unit. The units are at the level of divisions in Kosovo. In Slovenia, the Ministry of Labour has a
Directorate for Labour and Labour Rights with 2 relevant sectors - Sector for Individual Employment
Relationships and Social Partnership, Sector for Health and Safety at work. (The Slovenian sectors
are at the level of divisions of Kosovo). In Estonia, the Ministry of Social Affairs contains the Working
Life Development Department with two units - Employment Relations Unit and Work Environment
Unit. The units are at the level of sectors or divisions in Kosovo (depending on how one counts the
15

layers of management). In Latvia, the Ministry of Welfare has two relevant divisions - Division of
Labour Relations and Social Dialogue, Division of Labour Protection Policy. In Lithuania, the Ministry
of Social Security and Labour has, in the Labour Department, 3 divisions dealing with the labour
issues: Labour Relations and Remuneration Division, Labour Conditions Division and Technical
Safety Division. In Slovakia, the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family has Section of Labour
(equivalent of Department), with 2 relevant Divisions – Division of Labour Relations and Division of
Labour Protection.
The examples from all the small EU states, together with the existence of the Labour Inspectorate in
Kosovo, are additional evidence that existence of such a capacity in Kosovo is a must. If the issues
are important enough to have their own enforcement agency (the inspectorate), they clearly deserve a
policy capacity as well both to oversee the work of the inspectorate and to conduct the policy and
coordination functions that only a ministry can undertake.
There is a minor related issue of clear allocation of responsibility for the child labour issue, which at
the moment appears in the organigrams of both Labour / Employment Departments and the Institute
of Social Policy. If, as recommended, the new Division of Labour / Industrial Relations is created, it
would be a natural home for the issue of child labour.
Recommendation III.2: spin off the VET Division (including VET Centres) as a new agency in
the short-term and privatize it in the medium-term.
In none of small European Union countries is the conduct of training activities part of the Ministry. In
Lithuania the training is conducted by local offices of the agency subordinated to the ministry (like in
the first step that we propose to the Ministry in Kosovo) in rest of the countries, the services are
provided by different entities and the state is only purchasing these services. These providers are
usually accredited either by the general education accreditation or through special schemes and the
state then purchases training services, usually through employment services. For example, in
Slovenia, there are 357 different providers that can provide training, which is procured by the
Employment Service of Slovenia, Local Office. In Latvia, training is provided by private providers with
State Employment Agency purchasing the training. In Slovakia, the situation is identical, with the
Headquarters and Local Offices of Employment, Social Affairs and Family purchasing the services. In
Estonia and Finland, institutions that hold an education licence can provide services to be bought by
the Labour Market Board (Labour Market Administration in case of Finland).
The only exception is Lithuania, where the Lithuanian Labour Market Training Authority (6 services
and 14 centres), a budgetary organization subordinated to MSSL, provides the training directly though
it also purchases services also from other organizations.
The reason for this universal model is that delivering training is a service that requires a high degree
of organizational flexibility:
- with only a core full-time staff and groups of external trainers with varying degree of
attachment to the organization
- ability to be flexible in terms of payments for services / salaries related to the client’s
willingness to pay rather than internal salary structure
- ability to compete for trainers in the labour market
- a hard budget constraint and an incentive to deliver financial performance
16

These requirements are nearly impossible to deliver by a ministry and even a government agency is
not the best institutional vehicle for the long run. Therefore, we recommend to follow this trend also in
Kosovo and spin off the VET Division (including VET Centres) as a new agency. The agency could
then be privatized in the medium-term to ensure both a competitive environment and minimize public
sector expenditure. The agency would have around 90 employees (based on current numbers), which
should be sufficient to guarantee administrative economies of scale in its functioning.
Recommendation III.3: in the medium term, spin off the part of the current Employment
Department that provides employment services as a stand-alone agency, which could be
called the Employment Service.
Public employment services are an extremely important element of the institutional infrastructure of
the labour and social affairs portfolio. They also tend to be substantial in size since they tend to
directly provide registration services for the unemployed, job mediation services and organize active
labour market measures as well as payment of the unemployment benefits. Their activities combine
the regulatory functions (registration, benefits) with service delivery (job mediation, active labour
market policies), with the latter assuming more and more importance. This brings three crucial
reasons for their existence as agencies apart from the ministry:
- Clear result-oriented framework
- Organizational flexibility
- Size of the agenda, which crowds out the policy-making function if it is part of the ministry
It is therefore not surprising that, in all small European Union countries examined in the functional
review, the public employment services are organized as separate entities. In Slovenia, it is the
Organization of Employment Service of Slovenia, an independent legal entity with public institute
status. In Lithuania, it is the Lithuanian Labour Exchange (with a special institution, the Lithuanian
Labour Market Training Authority for training). In Latvia, it is the State Employment Agency, a State
administration institution under the supervision of the Ministry for Welfare. In Slovakia, it is the
Headquarters of the Labour, Social Affairs and Family, a budgetary organisation subordinate to the
Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family. In Estonia, it is the Labour Market Board, a body under
the Ministry of Social Affairs. Finally, in Finland the employment services functions is carried out by
the Employment and Economic Development Offices, a budgetary organisation subordinated to the
Ministry of Employment and the Economy.
All these reasons lead us to recommend the same step for Kosovo and to spin off the bulk of the
current Labour and Employment Department off as a separate agency – the Employment Service.
The reason why we recommend this only as a medium-term step is twofold:
- not to overload the ministry in general and the employment department specifically with too
much change at one time
- to allow piloting of the process of agency creation with the spin-off of the VET Division
The remaining part of the Employment Division could then be restructured into the Employment Policy
Division that would deal with setting of employment policies and oversee the work of the Employment
Service. This clear separation of policy-making role and the implementation role would also be
beneficial in terms of focusing on building different skill sets for both managers and civil servants in
each part. At the moment, the need to build analytical and policy-making capacity in the department,
noted even in the 2009 EPAP, is not being met precisely because smooth running of the regional and
municipal offices and of projects takes precedence.
17

III.2 Social / Family Portfolio
Four departments currently carry out the second major area that the ministry is responsible for –social
and family policy.
The Department of Social Welfare is responsible primarily for poverty issues and relevant benefits,
child protection and family, the disabled and all social services. The department has an oversight, but
not a managerial functions vis-à-vis centres for social welfare, which have been decentralized to
municipalities’ management at the beginning of 2009. As a result, the department has no regional /
municipal parts and consists entirely of the central headquarters. From all the ministry departments, it
is also one most focused on policy-making and coordination functions as opposed to implementation.
However, this fact should not obscure the fact that the DSW continues to manage service-delivery
operations by overseeing work of a variety of small institutions providing social and family services.
The Pension Administration Department is a complete opposite of the DSW from a functional point
of view. As its name correctly suggests, it is currently completely focused on administering the
Kosovo public pay-as-you-go pension system. Its capacity is so fully devoted to administering the
benefits that it has no policy-making capacity that would enable the department to design and oversee
a holistic pension policy for Kosovo. This omission is one of the most troubling findings of the review
due to social, economic and fiscal importance of the pension issue. Even though Kosovo is
comparatively lucky in terms of demographics (having one of the youngest populations in Europe) and
has already taken important steps towards pension sustainability both in setting up a private
compulsory pillar in the form of the Kosovo Pension Savings Trust, there is still a crucial need to have
a single unit in the government that:
- looks at the pension system as a whole rather than just at its constituent parts (in the
interviews in the department, the KPST rarely, if ever came up in the conversation even in the
highest echelons and there appears to be essentially no contact between the department and
the KPST)
- is able to assess the long-term social, economic and fiscal implications of any proposed
pension legislation and/or policy documents (the department is currently able only to assess
short-term fiscal implications of simple parametric changes – i.e. increase in pension).
Despite this, the ministry has been in the process of designing a pension reform
The Institute of Social Policy has an unclear function within the ministry. Officially, it should be
responsible for “the development and promotion of professional knowledge, skills and standards in
the area of Social and Family Services”, including research activities in this area (Law On Social And
Family Services), but there is no institutional logic in having a separate department in the ministry for
this function. The key advantage of having a Department of Social Welfare is to have unified policy
responsibility for the area. Analytical and policy-making work in setting standards for services is
clearly a part of the overall policy-making role in the area of social and family services. This is even
truer since the DSW has handed over the managerial responsibility for the CSWs to municipalities
and is now focusing on similar functions related to social and family services.
The Institute also appears to be highly administratively inefficient in terms of top-heavy management
structure (Director, Deputy Director, 2 divisions, 6 sectors and 2 additional units in a department of 15
people) and its productivity (based on self-reported outputs) appear to be low compared to the staff
numbers. Interviews with the senior management of the ministry revealed lack of clear mission and
mandate for the Institute among the top ministry officials. The effectiveness of the Institute is further
weakened by its weak links with the DSW and its essentially autonomous operation of services for the
municipalities. On the research side, the activities have restarted this year after a hiatus caused by
managerial instability, so their impact on the provision of social and family services is impossible to
18

verify. At the same time, most of the Research Division capacity appears in reality to be devoted to
the training side as well. On the positive side, the Institute is a repository of precious human capital –
the relevant issue is whether its current use is optimal from the point of view of Kosovo’s needs.
The last department to be analysed – the Department of Martyrs’ Families, War Invalids and Civil
Victims – was spun off from the Pension Administration Department to ensure prioritization and
improvement of service for the client groups related to the war. Its principal function is to make sure
that the groups receive benefits to which they are entitled under the law. In addition to the central
back-office capacity responsible for processing claims and payments, there is a small regional
capacity (essentially 1 person per region) co-located with the regional pension administrations to
ensure front-office services. It is in a similar situation as the Department of Pension Administration –
focused exclusively on delivering its administrative functions and without capacity for policy-making.
At the same time, the whole topic is one of extreme political sensitivity and delicacy.
Recommendation III.4: create a strong policy-making function in the social and family area by
creating Social and Family Policy Department based on current Department of Social Welfare
At the moment, the policy-analysis, policy-making and coordination functions for family and social
policy are either scattered (DSW, ISP) or non-existent (the pension and martyrs’ departments).
Therefore, this recommendation is focused both on centralizing the function AND creating capacity for
areas not adequately covered at the moment.
Why do we believe the best way to do this would be to create a Department for Social and Family
Policy out of the current DSW?
The current DSW appears to be institutionally and personally most consolidated department in the
ministry in terms of length of tenure of senior and middle management as well as their experience in
the area, clarity of policy vision and HR capacity to carry it out. This is a relative, not an absolute
ranking (i.e. compares the department with other departments, not to an absolute standard), but
indicates that the current department is a good pivotal unit of the ministry, on which improvements of
the future capacity can be built
The role of the department as a key policy-making unit has also been helped by the decentralization
of the Centres for Social Welfare to municipalities at the beginning of the year. This has freed the
department managers and staff from their role as administrative managers in a vertical pyramid,
which has both freed up their time and taken away the direct hierarchical tools of influence. The
department is still only finding its way in the new environment, but the shift is to be welcomed.
Implementation of these recommendations (along with recommendation III.5, III.6 and III.7) will
require change of law (Law on Social and Family Services).
The change will also involve taking regulatory functions (complaints) out of the DSW department to
create a separate one, thus strengthening policy focus of the new departments (see Recommendation
III.9)
Recommendation III.5: Merge ISP into the Social and Family Policy Department
Existence of a separate department (ISP) active in the same area as DSW is a recipe for unclear
division of responsibility, duplication and high transaction costs even under the current organizational
set-up. If the new Social and Family Policy Department is set up, there is even more of an imperative
to unify responsibility for policy-making.
19

At the same time, it should be said that the human resources possessed by the Institute are precious
in the Kosovo context and care should be taken that the merger happens in a way that allows
utilization of those ISP employees who are highly qualified and experienced in their area. The new
Department of Social and Family Policy will need them.
The current ISP staff should strengthen two DSW divisions. The DSW Division of Social and Family
Services should be merged with the ISP Division of Social Service Counsellors. The DSW Division of
Budget Analysis and Poverty Assessment should be transformed into the Division of Social Inclusion
and Pension Policy (see recommendation III.6) and this division could most benefit from the analytical
skills of individuals from the current ISP Research Division.
Recommendation III.6: build pension policy function in the Social and Family Policy
Department
In the findings, we have already shown there is a lack of policy-making in the pension area and why
this is a problem for Kosovo. In the long run, the pension issues will surely have their own department
(as is true in nearly all the small EU states), but in the short turn, that appears to be neither
necessary, nor the best way to go about building capacity.
Why is this so? Pension policy requires a mix of individuals with the following skills profile:
- general social policy knowledge
- specific knowledge of demographics, labour market and poverty / income issues
- financial market / investment regulatory knowledge
- econometric / modelling / quantitative skills
To build such a stand-alone unit in the MLSW at the moment appears to be both unrealistic and
unnecessary. Unrealistic because even the current departments face acute difficulties in recruiting
such individuals and unnecessary because the likely workload over the short-term for such a unit
does not require a full-fledged department.
Therefore, our proposed solution lies in locating the pension policy responsibility in the Division of
Social Inclusion and Pension Policy, which would be built on the basis of the current Division of
Budget Analysis and Poverty Assessment (and strengthened by the ISP Research Division).
The rationale for this particular recommendation is as follows:
- from all the current DSW units (and the whole MLSW), the Division of Budget Analysis and
Poverty Assessment already has the type of institutional mandate and human resource
composition, which is closest to the pension policy needs
- prevention of poverty among the elderly and the disabled is one of the overriding objectives of
any pension policy and is particularly relevant for Kosovo given the anti-poverty function of
the current public pay-as-you-go Kosovo system
The Division would also be responsible for the oversight of the newly created Pension Administration
Agency. It would liaise with, but would not have responsibility for the KSPT.
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Recommendation III.7: spin off the Department of Pension Administration into a new Pension
Administration Agency
As already mentioned, the current Department of Pension Administration is truly dealing only with
pension administration. This is a function that a ministry should not be undertaking and should
therefore be spun off from the ministry into a separate agency. This would be advantageous for the
ministry and the new pension administration. In the ministry, the administrative agenda would not
crowd out the policy-making as is the situation now and it could focus more on its core roles, where it
is irreplaceable. For the pension administration, a separate agency would mean more organizational
flexibility in meetings its tasks. For both, it would assist a shift to management by objectives, whereby
the ministry would set targets and standards for the agency to achieve. It is not an accident that
pension administration is a separate agency in all small EU 6 states and not directly part of the
ministry.
The agency would start with approximately 160-180 employees based on the current numbers, so it
would be large enough to have administrative economies of scale. Its relationship with the Kosovo
Pension Savings Trust should also be resolved. At the moment, their functions are quite disparate.
The Pension Administration Department (future Pension Administration Agency) focuses on
processing claims for public pension, most of which is based on the age as principal eligibility
qualification. On the other hand, the KPST is managing both collection of its contributions and their
investment. However, should the nature of the public pension system be subject to change, better
coordination and even possibly a merger of the two bodies could be considered.
Recommendation III.8: In the medium term, consider returning administration of martyrs’
affairs into the Pension Administration Agency and build the martyrs’ policy function into the
Department of Social and Family Policy
There appears to be little organizational justification for a separate system for organization of martyrs’
benefits. The number of beneficiaries is relatively low so a separate system for all the processes
brings significant administrative diseconomies of scale where more staff is needed than would be the
case under integrated management with the pension system. Any dissatisfaction with the
performance of the administration could be, in principle, addressed through improvements of the
overall pension administration.
On the other hand, as already mentioned, this is an issue of enormous political sensitivity and
delicacy and creation of a separate department was a visible measure of appreciation towards the
martyrs’ families and victims by the government. It also allowed the MLSW to focus on improvement
of the administration of these benefits without the necessity to reengineer the whole pension
administration system. Additionally, the whole system of care for the relevant client groups is still
politically contested.
Therefore, while we recommend reintegrating the two administrations, we also recommend
considering this step only in the medium-term horizon, when the legal and policy framework is
stabilized and the administrative processes largely routine.
21

Recommendation III.9: Create a special Appeals Department to manage all 2 nd instance
decision-making in the ministry
The MLSW is currently responsible for administrative decision-making at both levels – decision and its
appeal. (The only exception is the social welfare area, where the CSWs make the decisions, while the
DSW handles the appeals.) The appeals are handled by individual sectors scattered around the
relevant divisions and departments. This is unadvisable for two reasons:
- conflict of interests. When both levels of decision-making are handled by the same
department (as they are), there is a great scope for conflict of interest between interest in
impartial decision-making and the interest of the department not to uncover mistakes made
previously
- efficiency and flexibility. While each area of decision-making and appeals has its specific
aspects requiring in-depth knowledge, this does not mean that an experienced civil servant
cannot handle appeals in 2 adjoining areas. Having small separate sectors means that
human resources cannot be redeployed according to the need
For these reasons, but primarily the first one, we advise creation of a separate department
responsible for all appeals in the ministry’s area of competence. Based on the current numbers, it
would have approximately 10-12 people and, to achieve flexibility, we strongly do NOT recommend its
further division into divisions or sectors.
III.3 Other areas of the ministry work
In this part, we present three brief recommendations that concern specific areas of ministry work
Recommendation III.10: Clarify the distinction between the archiving and the registry and
centralize the archiving function for the ministry
At the moment, most of the substantive departments have their own archive (a sector), which is
extremely odd. The archiving function – preservation of documents and records, which are not being
used at the moment – is generally centralized in all institutions including ministries. Indeed, much of
the archiving function can then be shifted onto specialized archiving institutions (such as exist also in
Kosovo). This is also true in those small EU states, where similar ministries have an archive as a
separate unit. For example, in Latvia, there is the Central Archive of the ministry, while in Lithuania
there is Documents Management Division. In the other ministries in small EU states, the archive
function is so small that it does not even have its own unit.
The puzzle is explained somewhat when one looks at the actual functions performed by the archiving
sectors. They perform a combination of the archiving and the registry function. By the registry
function, we mean registration of “live” documents (particularly applications and claims) once they
enter the ministry and their handling while they are not being actively dealt with by the department,
but before their processing is completed.
For the registry function, it makes temporary sense to have it in each department. It is worth looking at
Estonia in this respect though, where the same ministry has a central Registration Division under the
Information and Communication Technology Department, because the registry and document flow
inside the ministry is handled electronically (any paperwork is scanned upon entering the ministry
flow). Therefore, the registry function should be centralized with the electronization of the paper flows
in the ministry, which can be expected in the medium-term.
22

What can and should be done in the short-term is to centralize the archive function. There is already
an archive in the Department of Central Administration Services, which should be strengthened and
where all true archiving (storage of documents once they have been dealt with) takes place.
Recommendation III.11: Bring budget and finance and procurement into DCAS to unify
support functions
The MLSW currently has separate departments for procurement and budget and finance. As a part of
cross-cutting horizontal recommendations, FRIDOM project recommends to all ministries that unless
there are particular reasons against it, they ministries should bring these departments as divisions into
department of central administration to ensure unified management of support services and to avoid
overloading of the top management (particularly the permanent secretary) that comes from direct
management of the support services when they are distributed among several (in this case 3)
departments. For more detailed arguments, it is worth examining the relevant horizontal reviews of
the FRIDOM Project and the final whole-of-government reviews.
It is true that this step might require legal changes so its implementation depends on the government
approval of the horizontal proposal for all the ministries, so the implementation of this
recommendation should take place either in all ministries or in none of them.
Recommendation III.12: build specialized support (EU/foreign relations etc…)
As the analysis in Section I.2 showed, the ministry is most understaffed compared to other countries
in the area the review calls specialized support – EU and foreign relations, public relations and
internal communication as well as internal audit. Therefore, the review contains a general
recommendation to gradually increase staff numbers in this area as the overall budget constraint
allows. It is however worth remembering that filling these positions with capable and qualified people
will be even more difficult than creating them in the first place. Plenty of people are likely to have
formal qualifications necessary, but to find true foreign relations / EU professionals or experts in PR
for civil service salaries is extremely difficult even in countries with better civil service salaries.
23

SECTION IV: SUMMARY OF CHANGES AND THEIR SEQUENCING
IV.1. Summary of short-term changes and their sequencing
In the short-term (by 12/2010), the report recommends implementing the following recommendations
- make a political decision on whether labour / employment portfolio will be merged into a new
economic development ministry or stay in the MLSW
- abolish all sectors in the ministry and approve the rule that departments do not need to have
divisions to exist as departments
- re-introduce ministry management board meeting
- rebalance the staff numbers away from the minister’s cabinet
- introduce significant IT improvements as planned (and promised in the EPAP)
- pilot a more explicit performance management system via creation of explicit qualitative and
quantitative standards for administrative and service delivery performance in one pilot area
- create a new Labour / Industrial Relations Division in the Labour and Employment
Department
- create a separate VET Agency on the basis of the current VET Division in the Labour and
Employment Department
- create Department of Social and Family Policy from the current DSW including introduction of
the pension policy function
- merge the Institute of Social Policy into the Department of Social and Family Policy
- create an institutional anchor for quality assurance function and monitoring and evaluation
functions by creating a new division in the Department of Social and Family Policy or adding
the function to an existing division
- create a separate Pension Administration Agency by spinning off DPA
- create a new Appeals Department
- take stronger steps against political nominations at all levels and prepare a new HR
development strategy along with revised ToRs for the Personnel Division
- centralize the archiving function for the ministry.
- Bring budget and finance and procurement departments into DCAS as divisions
24

The organigram of the ministry following these changes will look as follows
(it should be noted that only major departments, divisions and agencies where changes are expected
are shown):
IV.2. Summary of medium-term changes and their sequencing:
In the medium-term (by 12/2012), the report recommends implementing the following
recommendations
- mainstream the performance management system by extending explicit qualitative and
quantitative standards for administrative and service delivery performance to all areas of the
ministry
- implement the HR strategy
- create a separate Employment Service as an executive agency of the Ministry
- privatize the VET Agency
- merge Department of Martyrs’ Families, War Invalids and Civil Victims into the Pension
Administration Agency
- build policy capacity for the martyrs’ area in the Department of Social and Family Policy
- create a new Department of Social and Family Services
25

- increase staff numbers in the specialized support (EU/foreign relations etc…)
The organigram of the ministry following these changes will look as follows
(again, it should be noted that only major departments, divisions and agencies where changes
are expected are shown):
IV.3. Gender impact of the recommendations
The gender impact, at the staff level, of the recommendations is not an issue due to the fact that while
the report suggests extensive reorganization (including spinning off some agencies), these are not
expected to lead to major redundancies.
At the managerial level, we looked at 39 managing positions in the central Ministry and found there
were 10 female managers at the moment:
1. Head of Division of VET, Labour Dep.
2. Head of Research Division of the ISP
26

3. Deputy director of ISP
4. Head of Minister’s cabinet
5. Manager of Div. for International Convention, Dep. of Pension Administration
6. Head of the Archive Division, Dep. of Central Administration
7. Head of the PS’s Office
8. Head of Budget Divisions, Budget and Finance Department
9. Head of EU Integration Office
10. Head of Payment Division, Dep. of War Categories
The impact of the recommendations would be neutral for
- Head of Minister's cabinet
- Head of the PS’s Office
- Manager of Div. for International Convention, Dep. of Pension Administration
The impact of the recommendations would be potentially negative for:
- Head of Research Division of the ISP
- Deputy director of ISP
- Head of Payment Division, Dep. of War Categories
- Head of Budget Division, Budget and Finance Department
We use the term potentially negative when there is an organizational change proposed that would
abolish or merge the unit, where the individual is in charge.
The impact of the recommendations would be potentially positive for:
- Head of Division of VET, Labour Dep.
- Head of EU Integration Office
- Head of the Archive Division, Dep. of Central Administration
We use the term potentially positive when there is an organizational change proposed that would
elevate the standing of the unit, where the individual is in charge.
27

The results are in line with the overall impact of recommendations, which:
- on one hand, put emphasis on decrease of the number of managerial positions, including the
ones taken up by women
- on the other hand, suggest creation of several new agencies and capacity building for certain
units, including the ones headed by women
Therefore, overall, the gender impact of the recommendations can be seen as neutral.
IV. 4. Interaction with the European Partnership Action Plan
The European Partnership Action Plan (EPAP) is an important document for the MLSW since it
contains a high number of recommendations, of which several are of major importance. Indeed, the
current EPAP is, to some extent, the best available listing of the ministry’ short-term agenda. As such,
it reveals that:
- the scope of the plan’s (and hopefully the ministry’s) ambition. For 2009, the EPAP contains
commitments on development of social policy and employment strategies and key policy
implementation commitments through new laws in the areas of pensions, disabilities including
support to families looking after disabled children, child protection
- emphasis placed on employment as the key to improvement in the Kosovo’s socio-economic
situation
- awareness of the capacity limitations of the ministry evidenced by an overall recommendation
to improve human resource as well as targeted commitments in the area of employment to
increase analytical capacity
- the specific organizational recommendations are in line with this report (e.g. to create a
dedicated IT unit)
However, it should also be stressed that the very high number of commitments in the EPAP
concerning the ministry makes it extremely difficult to use it as a genuine management framework for
collaboration with the ministry. Rather than listing small-scale input actions or vague commitments,
the EPAP should be used to set up a results-based framework for the ministry that would focus on the
key commitments and make them more specific. The crucial commitments should also be linked more
specifically to ministry’s capacities. The MLSW capacity to draft an evidence-based, analytically
sophisticated and realistic employment strategy or pension reforms is in doubt, based on the review’s
conclusions.
The EPAP should also have an integrated approach to capacity strengthening. Its only specific
recommendation on staff increases is to beef up the Labour Inspectorate by 10 individuals. While the
review showed that the Labour Inspectorate could certainly use more staff inspectors, it is
questionable whether this is the first priority in the whole portfolio. Given the review findings, building
pension policy and labour relations policy capacities should definitely take precedence.ň
28

ANNEX 1: LIST OF INTERVIEWS
Name Position
Nenad Rašić Minister of Labour and Social Welfare
Gjergj Dedaj Deputy Minister
Eshref Shabani Permanent Secretary, MLSW
Nexhat Syla Director of the Dep. of Budget and Finance
Feti Ibishi Director of the Procurement Dep.
Iliaz Miftari Medical Committee
Fadil Racaj Legal Department
Department of Central Administration Services
Head of Central Administration
Adem Bajgor Division of Personnel
Ramize Leci officer of the Division Archive
Division of Logistics
Department of Martyrs Families, War Invalids and Civil Victims
Bajram Azemi Head of the Division of Schemes
Skender Gashi + 3
deputy chief inspectors
Basri Ibrahimi Director of the Dept.
Labour Inspectorate
Chief Inspector, Labour Inspectorate Head
Department of Pension Administration
Muharrem Haziri Head of Division of Payments
Izet Shala Head of Foreign Pensions Division (in organogram Div. for Intern.
Convention)
Adam Krasniqui Head of Division of Pension Schemes
Ruzhadi Koshi Manager of the Registration Sector
Ruzhadi Koshi manager, Archive
Institute of Social Policy
29

Gafurr Podvorica + 1
Deputy Director
Director of the Institute
Advi Podvorica Head of Division of Social Service Counsellors
Zn. Vaxhide Sopjani Head of Research Division
Department of Labour and Employment
Defrim Rifaj Director of the Department
Jehona Namani Head of the VET Division
Hafiz Leka Head of the Employment Division (every unit has 1 employee)
Shpetim Kalludra Labour Market Analysis Sector (in organogram Statistics unit) + IT unit (1
person)
Dept of Social Welfare
Muhamet Gjocaj Director of the Department
Milaim Abazi IT Division
Bajram Kelemendi Head of Social Services Division
Qamzi Gashi Head of Care Institutions Division (every sector has 1 employee)
Fehmi Ibrahim Head of Social Assistance Division
Gami Smonaj Manager of the Controlling and Supervision Sector (2 people)
Mentor Morina Head of Division of Budget Analysis and Poverty Assessment
Regional / local offices
Gjon Luli head of Centre for social work in Gjakova
Shaban Laha VET centre in Gjakova
Myzaqete Radogoshi head of the Pension administration in Gjakova
Kriste Dedaj Director of the Health and Social Welfare Directorate, Municipality in Gjakova
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