Selected Issues of Service-Providing Administration

Abstract

1. Service-providing administration constitutes a distinct form of activity of public administration, consisting in the satisfaction of the needs of individuals and the community. It is one of the two most important functions of public administration, alongside the regulatory-and-order-maintaining function. The study discusses – according to the author – the most significant problems relating to the operation of service-providing administration. Proceeding from the assumption that service-providing administration fails to meet social expectations, the author undertakes an analysis of the causes of this state of affairs. First and foremost, over many years the administration has been systematically burdened with ever new tasks. On the other hand, the executive instruments –particularly financial ones – have not kept pace with the expansion of public tasks. Today there is a clear discrepancy between the scope of tasks assigned to service–providing administration and the capacity to perform them. In the author’s view, there are currently no practical prospects either for increasing expenditure (the limits of fiscalism) or for reducing tasks. The appropriate course of action is to change the methods of performing public tasks, primarily through the involvement of non–public entities and the economisation of the activities of public entities.