Public Administration Reform in Morocco

With help from the European Union, World Bank and African Development Bank, the government of Morocco has embarked on an ambitious programme of public sector reform to improve efficiency in the face of increasing international competition. Some eight years into the programme, experience shows that such reform is time consuming and requires cross-ministerial support and robust regulation to be successful.
Aims
The government of Morocco seeks to improve the quality of public services, while at the same time reducing costs to the national purse. The reforms are part of an overall policy of modernisation of this North African country’s institutional, administrative and judicial environment.
His Majesty Mohamed VI unveiled the reforms in a series of speeches, subsequently made into legislation and then formulated into government policy and procedure by the Prime Minister through 2004-2006.
Priorities
Three priorities for change were identified:

Budget Management: budgets paid insufficient attention to the medium-term; budget authorisation procedures were based on administrative structures, not programmes; control was all ex ante; information systems were poorly developed; budget making and control were very centralised.
Human Resource Management (HRM): the statutory basis for HRM was outdated, inflexible and obscure; there was a growing gap between the skills required and the competences of available staff; the remuneration system was not useful either for management or for motivation; grade structures were disorganised; management quality was variable; the information system was not integrated.
Reducing Staffing: the government employed an excessive number of civil servants.

The Reform Programme
The reform programme was given technical support and financed by loans of $220 million from the World Bank and $206 million from the African Development Bank, plus a grant of €99 from the EU.
1, Budget Management
The objectives of the budget reforms were: to make polices more open and more easily translated into a medium-term budget; to decentralise budget making and execution, based on accountability for results and to improve ministry performance through the introduction of internal audit, evaluation and performance control.
Measures were put in place to meet each of these objectives, including the development of a new information system. A three-year rolling Medium Term Expenditure Plan was introduced, consistent with the macro-economic framework and with sector budgets. A Finance and Planning Commission was set up to oversee the implementation of the MTEF in pilot ministries.
Decentralisation was enacted by a 2004 decree that set out a new framework of rules governing the relationship between the Centre of Ministries and their territorial divisions. In addition a Prime Minister’s Circular was issued inviting ministries to devise their own schemes for decentralisation, which resulted in the decentralisation of 12 Ministries by 2006.
In addition a system of ‘contractualisation’ of budget allocations was introduced progressively, through which performance measures were attached to budgets. This was backed up with a new system of internal audit and performance management. Two new information systems were also developed, one for the budget and one for HR, both of which were launched in 2006.
2, Human Resource Management
The objectives of HR reform were: to create a better match between job requirements and the skills of the workforce; improvement and greater transparency in promotion, appraisal and pay and creation of a coherent and continuous training policy.
Measures were put in place to meet these objectives:

A committee was established to draw up a scheme of employee competencies.
A scheme of ‘Work Methods’ was established for each ministry.
Recruitment procedures were changed to enable redeployment of staff and enable recruitment to decentralised units based on targeted skills requirements.
A scheme of appraisal was adopted.
A programme of harmonisation of job status was started.
A study of the remuneration system was launched.
A new training scheme was put in place.
3, Reducing Staffing
As far as reducing the numbers of civil servants went, 38,600 people offered to take early retirement when the scheme was announced.
Indicators of Success

More visible policies and medium-term financial plans: Four sector MTEFs were prepared for 2007-2009, rising to nine for 2008-2010.
Decentralisation: 12 ministries implemented devolved budgets from 2005, rising to 30 by 2008. Flexible non-salary budgets and schemes for decentralised management were introduced in all Ministries by 2008
Internal audit and performance management: In 2006, 14 performance audit reports were written, rising to 20 in 2007 and 2008.
Improvements to management: The appraisal methodology was adopted in 2006 and all ministries had introduced new training regimes by 2008.
Reduction in the number of public employees: The public sector salary bill reduced from 12.3% of GDP in 2006 to 11% in 2008. Greater transparency has been achieved through the publication of quarterly reports on the numbers of staff recruited and promoted and on the use of vacant posts. Redeployments were successfully achieved. The number of new posts being created has been limited to 7000 per annum.
A catalyst for related reform: there have been a variety of sub-programmes on communications, procurement, Public Private Partnerships, customs and organisational leadership. All of which are progressing to date.
Lessons Learned
The main lessons from the Moroccan experience are that a comprehensive reform needs to be embedded in all ministries to have an impact, that design of new laws, regulations and guidelines takes time and that reform should be accompanied by a robust monitoring system to make sure that it stays on track.
This wide-ranging reform has taken a long time to implement, from the initial White Paper in 2000 to full implementation of many parts of the programme in 2008. This timescale is similar to that required in other countries that adopted a similar scale of reform in the 1980s and 1990s, such as Australia and the United Kingdom. Many of the reforms have required new legislation and the drafting of new regulations, all of which have to go through the legislative process, which is necessarily time-consuming.
Implementation of the decentralisation programme was particularly slow, as it required new ways of working in all ministries, as do the budget and HR reforms. In conclusion, real reform has to be implemented through the public service, not just in the central, sponsoring ministries and effective reforms take a long time.