On 3 November, the Government announced its decision to reduce the boundary number of employees of rayon state administrations.

Prior to this, last Thursday, Dmytro Dubilet, Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers, explained why this optimisation is being carried out and said: “It is a painful but necessary solution. I believe that the Government should have implemented these cuts more smoothly over the last two years (with the progress of decentralisation). Unfortunately, this was not done.” In fact, it was done, but let’s come to this point later on.

Therefore, until the resolution is published and the panic mood of the RSA employees is spread throughout the country, let's try to understand why optimisation is not new to whom it will affect and when it will start.

It should be reminded that the resolution of the previous Government No 746 dated 19 June 2019 already envisages reduction of the maximum number of RSA employees since 1 January 2020 from 55,9 thousand to at least 40,4 thousand full-time staffing positions, i.e. by 14,5 thousand employees.

According to this resolution, only the number of employees of the RSA structural units on social protection of the population remained unchanged.

With the formation of amalgamated hromadas that take on a considerable amount of rayon’s powers, there is a partial or complete duplication of functions between AHs and RSAs. This is especially critical where one or more AHs cover the entire rayon.

Therefore, it can be predicted that optimisation will apply to all RSAs, but it will more closely affect state administrations in rayons the territory of which is fully covered byamalgamated hromadas. Only 22 RSAs of the 465 (controlled by Ukraine) so far.

Previous proposals to optimise RSAs did not provide for a significant reduction in the function of state administrations in rayons not covered by AHs.

RSA structural units since 2012	RSA structural units 2019 (proposals)
agro-industrial development	archival
archival	energy and environmental protection
economic development and trade	urban planning and architecture, housing, communal services, infrastructure
housing and communal services	culture, youth, sports
infrastructure	education
culture	social protection of the population
urban planning and architecture	finance
education, youth and sports	on administrative service delivery
healthcare	efense, civil defense and cooperation with law enforcement bodies
social protection of the populati	service on child affairs
finance

If the proposals remain unchanged, then, as we can see, state administrations in rayons not fully covered by AHs still have enough functions, and even new ones emerge, such as: service on child affairs, defense, civil protection and cooperation with law enforcement bodies.

Therefore, the RSAs will have to increase their efficiency and exercise these powers in optimised composition at least until the completion of administrative-territorial reform.

It is clear that optimisation will begin no earlier than January 2020. Dmytro Dubilet promised that employees of these RSAs will be notified about their dismissal two months before – that is, already now.

During an hour of questions to the Government at the Verkhovna Rada last Friday, Alyona Babak, Minister of Development of Communities and Territories of Ukraine, stated: “Dismissed as a result of optimisation RSA employees can be recruited by competitive selection to hromadas’ executive bodies and further to prefectures”.

“Together with the Employment Service, we are working to find a new job for every civil servant, even before the dismissal. Everyone will be accompanied by a career adviser who will draw up an individual employment plan,” Dmytro Dubilet wrote.

***

Thus, as we can see, nothing fundamentally new has happened. Since 2014, when the Government adopted the concept of local self-government reform, RSA employees has known that the functions of administrations need to change dramatically. Where amalgamated hromadas covered the whole rayon during this time, changes are already taking place. The savvy specialists from rayon state administrations moved to the executive committees of amalgamated hromadas, because there the work is similar, the salary is not less, and the prospects are clearer.

The material was prepared within the framework of the Project of the Ukrainian Association of Rayon and Oblast Councils “Modeling of Administrative and Territorial Structure at Subregional Level”, implemented with the support of Council of Europe Programme “Decentralisation and Local Government Reform in Ukraine”.

The views expressed in the material are those of its authors and cannot under any circumstances be taken to reflect the official position of the Council of Europe.

The full version is available in Ukrainian – please click HERE