The team from ECON MUNI investigated how the Czech authorities coped with the impacts of the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic affected the way the state administration worked at all levels during the pandemic. Some of the changes introduced still apply, while other changes such as remote work in some organisations are slowly disappearing and authorities are restoring to pre-pandemic practices.

The crisis affected state administration authorities unevenly, but it was their technological equipment, the level of digitisation of internal processes and the organisational culture from times before the pandemic that significantly determined how they coped with its consequences. Organisations not subject to the ministry such as agencies which already had corresponding systems and equipment and an open organisational culture before the pandemic were the quickest who managed to adapt to anti-pandemic measures. Small and mid-sized organisations of the ministries coped with the unprecedented situation easily as well.

According to the researchers, the pandemic had a negative impact mainly on large organisations subject to ministries and on the large ministries themselves. "From the interviews held with some of their staff, it seems that at the beginning of the pandemic these organisations struggled with insufficient equipment that simply did not allow remote work. The ability to quickly ensure that the authorities would function in such a critical period was also affected by poor digitalisation of some processes and fragmented and sometimes outdated information systems used in the state administration. What also played its role were the pre-pandemic work methods, which were based on personal contact and sometimes relatively strict requirements for the presence of employees at the workplace," explains the head of the research team, Associate Professor David Špaček.

The situation in municipal offices of municipalities with extended responsibilities (note: a special group of 205 municipalities that exercise the largest among of state administration delegated to them by law) was not as clear as in the types of organisations mentioned above. "The way how they coped with the pandemic depended on the size of their municipal authority (i.e., their main executive body), the way it was managed, the prevailing work methods and especially the degree of digitisation of internal and external processes," David Špaček sums up.

The positive impact of the anti-pandemic measures was obvious in the field of cooperation not only within but also between the authorities. "At the ministries whose staff we spoke with it was flexibility and speed of decision-making that were prioritised during the crisis. Some formal processes were temporarily put aside too," says David Špaček.

Last but not least, the pandemic has clearly shown the importance of technology and related competencies of the staff for the functioning of the state administration. It also confirmed the importance of sharing and exchanging experiences within and between organisations. "The pandemic brought new demands on the readiness of authorities to face similar crises and the need for rethinking existing ways of working, sharing and managing knowledge. The question is to what extent the lessons learnt from the pandemic will be used as strategic assets to improve the state administration system. All this depends not only on the top management of the authorities but there is also the political aspect,” concludes David Špaček.

The Slovenian-Czech project "Impacts of the coronavirus on organisational changes and digitisation in state administration" was funded by the Czech Science Foundation (Reg. No. 21-47171L).