The impact of decentralization on the further training of public servants in Hungary

Abstract

In the public administration under government, from 2019,
the obligations of further training and promotion examinations for public servants became a discretionary option based on decision of executives. The subject of the study is to assess the impact of decentralised system
deregulating further trainings and shifting general obligations to optional decisions. Based on the statistics for the period of 2019–2021, we examine the extent to which the volume of training and examinations fulfilled in previous years has changed due to the consideration of the heads of units in determining the annual training and examination requirements for civil servants. The analysis shows that despite the decentralisation, public bodies request even more trainings than the previous (compulsory) level of trainings. The reason for this is that the quality improvement of central-provided training since 2012 has reached a level where employers require further training without any legal obligation (motivation-based further training). In conclusion, on the one hand, obligation-based further training has become a motivation-based further training system, and the learning of civil servants is increasingly based on workplace incentives and self-motivation. All of this also improves the effectiveness of individual development, as more motivated learning is
more effective than obligation-based learning. Through this best practice of the largest Hungarian adult education system, the study can also provide a basis for more general conclusions about the ex-post impact assessment and analysis methodology of the decentralisation of centralised decision-making systems.