Contenu du sommaire : Les cadres supérieurs de la fonction publique

Constantly Evolving Senior Managers. The future of the administrative modernization policy depends mainly on the social and professional status granted to the senior administration managers. A systematic research conducted through a representative sample of senior executives reveals a certain number of problems at heart : discontent towards remunerations and careers, the feeling of a more intense politicization training and organization little adapted to team work. The administrative elite is however divided into many groups having sensitively different professional expectations. It appears that offer, demand and capacities of modernization are very unequal according to ministries but also according to whether the managers work in the central services or in the outside services. It seems that the dynamic of modernization now necessitates a new definition of the criteria of professional success but also a deep thought on the functions of the State.

Management of Managers and Modernization Policy Administration meets two major challenges today. The first is that work teams are made up and disband rarely in a voluntary manner : you "manage" with managers you have not chosen. In the second place, adaptation to indispensable developments should be done in the essential respect of the continuity of the public service. "Culture of change" would not have the same meaning as in the private sector. Training alone cannot ail by itself answer these challenges and a real culture of change should be introduced. Some simple measures of management like the development of team-work and functional mobility could greatly contribute to this.

Prospectives of Public Managers The uneasiness frequently expressed by public service managers is evidently shown by a real deterioration of their material situation but equally expresses a crisis of adaptation whose reasons are not only economie. It is these reasons that are important to note, by putting them in a medium and long term perspective. The first tasks carried out in this direction by the Directorate for general administration and civil service have brought to light numerous problems that explain a widespread wish of great reforms on recruitment, training, career and remuneration of State managers. It equally clears itself of the evolutions and tendances which allow specifying the public sector domain in the years to come.

Debate A certain number of factors like the european construction, decentralization or worsening social deficits have questioned an administrative model that is becoming out-dated, causing among other things a general disruption of the top civil servant's role. The latter's place is nevertheless essential and it is therefore indispensable to suggest solutions that integrate the socio-economic evolution of the last forty years : increasing of remuneration preventing "the transfer to the private sector", development of managerial competences rather than strictly administrative, breaking the monopoly of the "grandes écoles", encouraging mobility, as much at national level as at international. But are these economic measures favouring top civil servants not concealing a deeper uneasiness within an administration that certain people would not hesitate to call "ossified" ?

The European Commission : Top Managers and "Management Culture" If status puts the Commission officials in a position susceptible of being interpreted according to national belonging, practice shows that the different styles can combine and define a european practice. The policy project, the diversity of jobs, and the multicultural nature of the environment stimulate the individuals but they sometimes feel destabilised by the variableness of management styles and cultural references. The alternative use of the concepts of "management" and of "hierarchy" frames daily work, "management" which bumps into the "conflict of national cultures" would have as objective the reinforcing of professional culture. The question is to know whether "management" serves to reduce cultural differences or to develop their respective contributions.

The Mexican Senior Civil Servants The mexican top service has the reputation of corresponding to an incompetent and politicized bureaucracy. In fact, the examination of civil servants' careers between 1946 and 1988 reveals that the public service has changed into a professional activity that trains and specializes the civil servant as much in political tasks as in administrative ones. The long period of administrative career, professional qualification and the mobility of senior civil servants confirm that there is hence forth a System of administrative control that provides training and sufficient knowledge for exercising, with a certain degree of efficiency, a post of a high level.

Public Administration Reform in Central and Eastern European Countries The development of management in the public sector of central and Eastern European countries should be considered differently from that of western democracies. Given the communist heritage, the present State of lack of public administration reform, and harzadous nature of the training offered by local or external sources in each Central and Eastern European Country (CEEC), one wonders what would be the appropriate tool for the reform of the civil service. The création of a senior civil service could facilitate the process of transformation of attitudes and mentalities in the public sector. Training in CEEC, as well for senior civil servants as for subordinates, nécessitâtes first making the basic techniques of public management converge with judicial knowledge. In the same way the institution of an interministerial authority in charge of common rules for personnel management would represent an important overhang.

The Failure of Managerialism in a Managerial Society : Public Sector Administration in the United States American government appears made for public sector managerialism. The structure has been decentralized for a number of years, and there is a strong strand of managerial thinking in the society. The paradox is that American government has lagged far behind other democratie govemments in the adoption of managerial reforms. The language has been adopted but the practice often has not. That apparent paradox can be explained in part by the American political culture that places a very low value on the public sector and assumes nonfeasance and malfeasance. This can also be explained by the felt need of both Congress and the President to exercise close control over public administration. The problem is that ail of these factors tend to reinforce the incapacity of the American System to govern effectively and have become virtually self-fulfilling prophecies. The Clinton administration is attempting to break the bonds of political control over bureaucracy, but is running counter to a long historical tradition.

Public Management Changes in Great Britain and the Goal of "Deprivileging" the Civil Service After a brief general survey of the main "New Public Management" changes which were introduced into the UK public services in the 1980s and early 1990s, this article focuses on the top civil service. It explores how far top civil servants were affected by the Thatcher governments's aim to "deprivilege the civil service". It shows that senior civil servants seem to have been less "deprivileged" than lower-level civil servants in terms of pay, conditions of employment and exposure to "harder" management regimes. But it also argues that the senior civil service seems to have bifurcated. The departments are still headed by civil servants with the classic closed-carreer "Whitehall" profile and with traditional styles of pay and tenure. But the "agencies" which have been created within the civil service since 1988 are headed by a group which is socially very different and which has different structures of pay and tenure. Whether this bifurcation will remain, or whether senior "policy" civil servants will be exposed to lateral-entry and fixed-term contracts like the agency heads, remains to be seen.

The Transformation of the "Profile of competences" of Public Service Senior Managers in Quebec. The relationship between the modernization of public administration and the training of senior managers was the subject of a study conducted by the Commission in charge of evaluating the future replacement of managers of the public service in Quebec. If it is well admitted that the modernization of the public service is a multidimensional task and that it should focus on the administrative structures, on the management processes, on the norms and regulations, its success is connected to two preliminary conditions : the determination of a profile of judicious competences and the existence of a System of continuous training for ail executives. In this sphere, the national school for public administration and the Government of Quebec have signed a protocol aiming at putting in place various programmes and activities of training, designed "under measure" for specific target groups.