Tumabekov E.A. – Head of the Civil Service Department of the Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Civil Service Affairs in Zhambyl region.
The history of the development of human society clearly shows that the formation of a democratic, legal and social state is impossible without an effective state apparatus, the basis of which is personnel in the civil service.
At the same time, one of the priority tasks of state-building will always be the professional training of civil servants, focused on ensuring high efficiency, competence and faultlessness of the work of state bodies.
Currently, in most states in the post-Soviet space, including the Republic of Kazakhstan, administrative reform is entering a new stage of development. Thus, the main measures are aimed at improving the processes of public administration and improving the quality of public services, increasing the level of professionalism, the effectiveness of the state apparatus.
During the transformation of all aspects of public life in the post-Soviet period, there was a redistribution of state administrative functions, a new system and structure of public authorities were formed, a new form of administrative management was created, which later received its legislative formalization in the Constitutions of Kazakhstan adopted in 1993 and 1995, and in other legislative acts developed for the implementation of constitutional provisions.
Under these circumstances, it is possible to see some stages of the formation of the institution of public service in the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Thus, the first stage of the formation of the civil service began in the mid-80s of the last century, when, in connection with the restructuring taking place in the USSR, active members of civil society started talking about the reform of the civil service, which no longer corresponded to the transition of the country's economy to market relations, new goals and priorities of state-building of independent Kazakhstan. It was then that there was an active search for ways to reform public administration in general and public service in particular. It should also be taken into account the fact that during that period the way of thinking of ordinary citizens radically changed, foreign legislation and the works of foreign authors, which highlight the issues of the activities of the state apparatus and the civil service as a whole, became more in demand.
The result of the transformations of the political system of Kazakhstan, including the active search for ways to reform public administration and public service, was the adoption on January 28, 1993 of the first Constitution of sovereign Kazakhstan, which marked the beginning of the second stage of the formation of the republic's public service as an independent state.
Article 17 of the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 1993 enshrined the equal right of citizens "to access to public service. The requirements imposed on a candidate for the position of a civil servant are determined only by the nature of their official duties." The historical significance of this provision consisted in the legislative consolidation of this right. Such a right was not mentioned in the Basic Law of the USSR, nor did it have legal regulation in a separate law. In the whole Soviet Union, in principle, there was no single union law on public service.
During the adoption of the first Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, there was a continuous search for a model of functioning of the civil service adequate to the new conditions. Since theoretical developments and solutions on these issues were previously carried out by the Union center, the search was carried out in the absence of sufficient historical experience in building state institutions.
On August 30, 1995, a new Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan was adopted at a republican referendum. From this moment, the next main stage of the development of legislation on public service in Kazakhstan begins. Paragraph 4 of Article 33 of the new Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan proclaimed the equal right of citizens of the Republic to access public service, and also stipulated that "the requirements imposed on a candidate for the position of a civil servant are determined only by the nature of official duties and are established by law."
The next step, to implement these provisions of the Constitution, on December 26, 1995, the Decree of the President of Kazakhstan No. 2730 "On Public Service" was issued, having the force of law, which launched the process of institutionalization of public service in Kazakhstan. It defined its basic principles, among which it is necessary to highlight the accessibility, priority of the rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of citizens over the interests of the state.
This act introduced qualification classes of civil servants, regulated the issues of admission, passage, termination of civil service, certification of civil servants, established social protection measures for civil servants, introduced many other important provisions.
Nevertheless, despite a number of progressive provisions, the above-mentioned Decree was largely declarative in nature and did not really ensure equal access of citizens to public service.
Both ordinary citizens and officials noted that during the period of the Decree, the negative features of the patronage system were clearly manifested, in which the selection for public service is based on the principles of personal loyalty, friendship or family ties.
However, in general, it should be noted that, despite many negative features manifested during the application of this regulatory legal act, its importance cannot be underestimated, since, for the first time in the history of sovereign Kazakhstan, a system of public service was proposed, which at the transitional stage laid the foundations for the development of public service as an important institution of the state.
At the same time, a number of problems of both objective and subjective nature also increased, which complicated the process of reforming the civil service. Among them are the lack of conceptual approaches to the reform of the civil service; the lack of competent, professionally trained civil servants who are able to work in new conditions; lack of coordination in the reform of the civil service on the part of state bodies and international organizations implementing relevant projects.; lack of a unified system of job requirements for civil servants; low level of their social and legal protection; recruitment of personnel mainly at the personal discretion of managers; unfair system of promotion of civil servants; the presence of corruption, bribery, fraternity, familial, ancestral and union ties in the state apparatus, etc.
At the same time, I would like to note separately the absence of a system of targeted search, selection and attraction of competent, talented, gifted people to public service. The solution of these problems was seen by the leadership of our country in the creation of a single central body capable of purposefully providing the state apparatus with the necessary number of personnel and proper qualifications.
Based on international experience, most of the experience of the development of advanced countries, the main goal was to form a unified system of personnel policy and public service, regardless of the division of state power into legislative, executive and judicial branches. The practical realization of this and other goals was possible only with strict observance of the principles and rules of the organization and functioning of the civil service. In other words, the public service as a sphere of management will take place when it itself is managed.
Based on the above, in order to implement a unified policy in the field of public service, an authorized body was formed, directly subordinate and accountable to the head of state - the Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Civil Service Affairs, designed to implement a unified policy in the field of public service.
Accordingly, with the adoption of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On Public Service" dated July 22, 1999 and the subordinate regulations issued on its basis, a completely new stage in the development of the domestic public service was marked.
The analysis of international experience has shown that the basis of public service in democratic states is meritocracy - a system based on the personal merits of a civil servant, aimed at the effective use of human resources in public service. The principle of meritocracy includes the following elements, which formed the basis of the new Law: 1) mandatory competitive selection for admission and promotion in the civil service; 2) legal and social protection of civil servants; 3) equal remuneration for the performance of equivalent work; 4) encouragement of civil servants who have achieved effective results in their activities; correction of the activities of those whose results are not fully satisfactory, and dismissal of employees whose results are unsatisfactory; 5) continuous training of civil servants in order to improve the results of their activities.
In order to approve the results of the development and further improvement of the Institute of public service, the Concept of a new model of public service in the Republic of Kazakhstan was approved in 2011, which was the result of the long work of public authorities, researchers, specialists on the introduction of fundamentally new mechanisms in the development of the domestic institute of public service, taking into account the successful experience of the formation of models of public service in foreign countries.