Potential and Apparent Issues of Self-evaluation in Public Administration: The Case of Common Assessment Framework Implementation

Abstract

Quality management is apparently a very frequent denominator of many initiatives of public administration reforms. Its instruments try to address specifics of public administration and attempts to ensure that public services are delivered in a more user-friendly way. Still, practices of quality management instruments in public administration lead to discussions about quality of public administration quality management itself and rhetoric referring to aims of continual quality improvement brings questions regarding the quality of methodologies and their practice. The paper summarizes and discusses issues which international literature emphasizes and author's own research revealed with regard to self-evaluation instruments that are usually used as first-step instruments of quality management in public administration. It focuses particularly on the Common Assessment Framework (CAF).