EUPAN – The European Public Administration Network – is an informal network of Directors General responsible for Public Administrations in EU member States and European Commission.

EUPAN vision:
To support the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy, placing the citizen at the centre of public management, by working in different areas (human resources, innovation, quality, e-government) and with different actors in order to support efficiency and customer orientation in European public services.

EUPAN is therefore a platform for exchange of views, experiences and good practices to improve the performance, competitiveness and quality of European central public administrations.

The Network is organised in three levels:
- Ministers and the Commissioner responsible for Public Administration
- Directors-General
- Working groups

Scheme of the Network:

EUPAN_Handbook.doc 

Ministers responsible for Public Administrations together with the Commissioner in Charge of Personnel and Administration approve general guidelines for the Network and steer its work.

Directors General provide further guidance of the EUPAN. They set specific targets for the Network and redirect the work of the working groups if the targets of Mid-term Programme are not met. Directors General react to the working plan and reports of the working groups.

Working groups

• HRWG - Human Resources Management Group
  The Human Resource Management Group is the oldest working party of the network in existence since 1987. It discusses virtually all issues related to the personnel policies of the Public Service and some general administrative matters concerning Reform programmes. It implies a great persity in subjects that have been treated in the past two decennia.  During the Irish and Dutch presidencies:
  • a common EU reference document on integrity was produced, also to be communicated over the other members of the public service;  and
  • the Sustainability of pension systems was studied being a Lisbon priority. The aim is to spread good practice on ethics and to monitor and benchmark progress in pension reform.
    
• IPSG - Innovative Public Services Group,
  This working group discusses ways to improve the quality of public services. In this capacity it is responsible for developing new tools and activities which support this goal. Important IPSG products and activities are:
  • the Quality Conferences for Public Administrations in the EU
  • the Common Assessment Framework (CAF)
  • facilitating self-assessments on the basis of CAF
  • benchmarking by means of exchanging good practices
    
• e-Gov eGovernment Working Group
  This working consist of experts from the Member States and the Commission.
  The overall objective of the e-Government Working Group is to facilitate and undertake the exchange of views, experiences and good practices among the Member States in the field of e-Government, in particular with regard to public administration aspects of e-Government. The e-Government working group liaises with the European Commission, with regard to various e-Government initiatives at EU level. The e-Government working group is covering issues related to three prioritised themes: inter & intra governmental collaboration and interoperability; organisational changes skills and the role of leadership required by e-government; and monitoring and evaluation of e-Government performance and benefits.  Recent reports include: Central-Local relationship in EU in the field of electronic government, Key Principals of an Interoperability Architecture, and Does e-Government pay off? The working group meets twice a semester

They each have their own scope of work, however they all work towards the main aims of EUPAN.
HR WG and IPSG WG have Sub-Groups that work on specific working areas

•  NCP (National Contact Points) – to promote mobility and CAF – to promote the implementation of Community Assessment Framework.
  
• The DISPA (group of Directors of Schools and Institutes of Public Administrations)
  
• DBRR - working group of Directors and Experts for Better Regulations
  The objective of the Directors of Better Regulation (DBR) Group is twofold. One core task is to facilitate the exchange of good practices and experiences between member states, inter alia through benchmarking projects with volunteer member states. Lately these projects have mainly focused on regulatory impact assessments, but work was also done on indicators of regulatory quality, on national implementation of EU regulation, and on measuring administrative burdens. The other core task is to provide a forum for strategic discussions on the EU better regulation agenda. In this the DBR wants to be complementary to and not duplicate the work that is being done in the several formal Council formations (Competitiveness Council, Ecofin, and General Affairs Council) and their working groups. For both tasks it is particularly important that the DBR maintains its informal networking character. The Group generally meets twice per year, and is not necessarily hosted and presided by the acting EU Presidency.

The extended TROIKA (DG and Secretariat) in which the presiding country as well as the two previous and two upcoming countries take part, ensures continuity in planning and implementation of the Mid-Term Programme and assist the Presidency in organising the meetings. The TROIKA monitors the results of the working groups on a more frequent basis.

EUPAN meetings are organised and chaired by the respective EU Presidency.

The Network also closely cooperates with European Trade Unions’ National and European Administration Delegation (TUNED) and European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA).