L'institut technique des administrations publiques, entrepreneur militant de la productivité administrative (1947-1968)

Abstract

This article analyses the creation and role of the Institut technique des administrations publiques (ITAP), set up in 1947 by Jean Milhau, expert in organisation and founder of CEGOS (Commission générale d’organisation scientifique du travail) before the war. Among the bodies promoting reform during the Fourth Republic, played an important role centred on productivist methods and theories that could be applied to the administration. ITAP was a private association with the aim of studying the techniques of public administration, making them more productive, and proposing its collaboration with official entities in charge of furthering the improvement of working methods. The article examines the conditions under which ITAP was created and its unusual mode of functioning : in the context of the semaines de l’Administré (users’weeks), an original idea at the time, it asked for suggestions from users of public services, but was also one of the first to organise training courses for top-level civil servants until the 1970s.