SISTEMA DE SERVICIOS PÚBLICOS DOMICILIARIOS

7.28 As is generally agreed, social partnership has played a crucial role in the dramatic turn around in our economy’s performance and our unprecedented success in the management of our economic and social affairs for well over a decade now. The process has gone through many changes in its role and functioning, and not least the widening in its membership in 1996 with the addition of the Voluntary and Community Platform.

7.29 Social partnership by its very nature has to be a dynamic process, subject to on- going review, ready to confront new challenges as well as open to and benefit from up- to- date thinking and developments at international level.

7.30 In this regard, and before concluding, the Forum wishes to highlight a number of developments at international level which could be of significance for the future direction of our own social partnership institutional arrangements, with particular reference to keeping under review our methods of governance, against the impact that the new knowledge and information technologies is having and will continue to have on all our daily lives. This challenge was well captured in the following extract from the opening remarks by Michel Demazure, President Cité des Sciences et de l’Industie, at the OECD Forum meeting in Paris in May last:

“Our usual form of governance in democratic societies is becoming obsolete, particularly where scientific and technical questions or emotive issues are concerned. The role of the “experts” is being challenged. Areas of instability are appearing in the triangular relationship between decision-makers, the media and public opinion. Undoubtedly, the major challenge facing our societies, which claim to be technically advanced, open and democratic is to sacrifice neither progress nor democracy. And that means constructing a new form of governance for today’s new society”.

Forum Report No. 21 – Third Periodic Report on the Work of the Forum

(i) Work at OECD Level

7.31 The OECD has been undertaking work on government-citizen relations40 _in

policy-making since the late 1990s and which, in turn, has been drawing on its earlier work in relation to responsive administration and better service delivery. The first stage of this work will be completed shortly when the main findings of two comparative studies and eight country case studies will be published as a Final Report. Among the issues to be addressed will be:

● What can be learned from cross-country work on how governments can give better opportunities to citizens to participate in decision-making and in the implementation of policies?

● How do such processes guard against “special interest capture” and ensure that decisions reflect the broad public interest?

● How can governments promote efficient and inclusive consultation without unduly slowing down or stalling policy-making processes?

● How can the issues of representativeness and accountability of interest groups in the decision-making process be better addressed?

● What lessons can be learned from the evaluation of common practices and innovative approaches in these areas?

7.32 The OECD has also recently begun to do some work with Parliamentary Assemblies on issues such as representative vis-à-vis participative democracy, with specific reference to the role of elected parliamentarians. This issue had already been flagged by the Forum in its Report No. 16 where the need to develop a model to link social partnership more effectively with the Oireachtas was strongly highlighted.

7.33 Finally, based on its on-going work in this area, the OECD has suggested ten guiding principles for more effectively engaging citizens in policy-making. These are reproduced for reference purposes in Annex IV to this Report. The Forum has a long-standing interest and attaches crucial importance to these issues.

(ii) Work at EU Level

7.34 Promoting new forms of governance, or participative democracy, is now also one of the strategic priorities of the European Commission. One of the underlying aims of the Commission’s White Paper on European Governance, which was published recently, following a wide-scale process of consultations, is to respond

40 Only a third of Europeans questioned stated that they trust the civil service, parliament or government in their own country (see Eurobarometer, 1999); the percentage of people satisfied with the way democracy works in their country was one of the highest in this country (70%, compared to an EU average of only 45%).

to citizen’s disenchantment and scepticism of the political system. The intention is to develop more democratic forms of partnership and to radically re-think and devise new forms of governance in Europe for the new millennium.

7.35 Three of the Commission’s proposals are of particular relevance in the present context, namely:

Structure the relationship with civil society: a code of conduct for consultation will identify responsibilities and improve accountability of all partners;

Make greater use of the skills and practical experience of regional and local actors: while this is an issue for national authorities, the Commission intends to have a more systematic dialogue with associations of regions and cities at an early stage in the policy process; and

Build public confidence in the way policy makers use expert advice: the Commission will develop guidelines to open up the system for the use of experts to greater public scrutiny and debate.

7.36 Also, European NGOs are seeking to have established a structured civil dialogue between citizens and governments at EU level to complement existing political and social dialogues. In this regard, they are campaigning for a new Treaty Article, or at minimum a Council Regulation to provide the legal basis for such a structured dialogue.

7.37 Lastly, and with the establishment of the Northern Ireland Consultative Forum, under the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement, it is understood that consideration is now being given to establishing the parallel cross-border Forum. The latter Forum is to be appointed by the two Administrations and will be representative of civic society, comprising the social partners and other members with expertise in social, cultural, economic and other issues.