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Public Service of the Future –

Combating Corruption, Streamlining Performance

Giorgi Gabrielashvili

September 22-24

Batumi, Georgia

Turning Weaknesses into Opportunities Case of the Civil Registry Agency

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S U M M A R Y

• Civil Registry Agency – Functions and Current Status

• Where we began from – years of 2005-2006

• Factors facilitating CRA’s development

• Reform directions

• CRA of today – Our Achievements

• Approaches that proved efficient and Lessons Learned

• Future Plans

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Legal status – Legal Entity of Public Law, under the Ministry of Justice with 84

regional offices

Main Functions – Development of Population Registry, Issuance of

Identification Documents, Document Legalization and Apostil, Citizenship

and Migration

Service Consumers – Citizens of Georgia, foreigners in Georgia, Central

Election Commission, Public Agencies using Population Registry for

carrying out their authorities , etc

Public Opinion – well-structured, innovative organization offering quality

services via high-tech

Civil Registry Agency – Functions and Current Status

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Where we began from – years of 2005-2006

CRA had all weaknesses an organization can possibly have except for...

Unqualified and unmotivated employees /Bad recruitment policy

Corruption and Negative public image

Scarce budget , 10 computers only serving the system with over 70

organizational units and hundreds of employees in total

Prolonged services and complicated procedures

No permanent e-connection between the central and regional offices

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Factors facilitating CRA’s development

Political will and readiness for fundamental changes

A team of young enthusiasts believing in the necessity of 180 degree

change

Foreign Partners - International Support

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Reform Directions

Human Resources – During the first three years, 85% of employees were

gradually changed and new system of recruitment was put in place

IT – Infrastructure Development

Renovation/Development of Physical Infrastructure

Fundamental change of legislative framework

Increase in financial as well as organizational autonomy

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Infrastructure Before and After Reforms

Old offices

New offices

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New/ Renovated Offices

25 10 10 4 2

New/Renovated

offices

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All CRA Offices Work Online in a Unified Electronic Database

Back-up Server

CRA

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Civil Registry Agency of Today

All offices work online and the digitalization process of paper documents is

underway

Quick delivery of services – Passports and ID cards in an hour

Service 24/7

Remote service delivery

Birth registration – online application from Maternity Homes

Quality Database – Since 2006 more than 1. 500 000 errors are corrected

within the CRA database.

Face recognition system

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Approaches that proved efficient

Learning others’ practices but developing own, adapted model

Pushing ideas forward even if it does not have an exact international

resemblance and looks unimaginable

Not limiting ourselves with existing legal frameworks and dogmas. All

norms are subject to change if they create obstacles - except for the

ones such as the laws guaranteeing protection of human rights

Forgetting that CRA has a monopoly on the services it provides and acting as

if we were in a highly competitive market

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Lessons learned / Several weaknesses

Less concentration on improving management at the central office

jeopardizing long-term sustainability

Increased role and dependency on several persons due to the speedy reform

process – poor organizational memory.

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Future Plans

Provision of all CRA services online and delivery of any document at a requested site

Integration of all consular offices into the CRA Information system – unification of databases or linking the databases

Introduction of CRA’s successful practice in other organization – Introduction of e-governance in local governments

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Thank you for Attention