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As it is known, OECD is a great connoisseur of the Greek state and is among its most respected researchers. A number of foreign technocrats as well as the whole staff of 198 Greek scientists from 15 committees part of just as many ministries have worked to complete the final report.

They have all found that too many structures of the centralized state serve over 23,000 authorities described in details which have created a suffocating framework for the functioning of the public sector and a legislative surplus, which blocks everything. Bureaucracy is a consequence of all this. 15 billion euro could be saved per year just by the simplification of the procedures by 20%. The latest OECD report reveals the dire consequences from not clarifying the authorities.

The lack of effective administrative reforms has led to the point when structural and functional problems of the Greek administrative state affect the functioning of government and have negative consequences for the economic and social development of the country as a whole. First on the list of problems stand: overregulation, the fragmentation of powers and of the structures for their implementation, as well as the atypical public reaction to government regulations.

PRIORITIES
Entry of private companies in the public sector

It is believed that private initiative will play the role of the operating lever that will start in the near future the machine of the public sector. The first experiment will be made with the assigning of the support structures in the ministries to private companies.

So instead of the "gearwheels" being driven by thousands of officials who ultimately make the system cumbersome, their place will be taken by a central "server", controlled by a private company, from which all documents will start and will return there again (a single protocol and same documents with solutions for all).

The fact that in order to process a document within a single ministry, it may take some 20 days is indicative of the situation in the public sector! Also there are staff members whose only job is to monitor whether their colleagues have registered their cards when coming and leaving the workplace, and nothing else!

Despite the numerous urging by the European Union in recent years for Greece to cut the bureaucracy, the country has made no progress in this regard. And the current impasse in the state is a consequence.

Now, however the economic crisis provides a chance for reorganization of state structures, with emphasis on the strategic planning, linking the results of the performance of ministries with their budgets, efficient use of staff depending on their qualities and skills.

According to government plans, the program for reorganizing the public sector should be ready by the end of the year and its implementation will happen within 2012:

1. Vote on the bill for "effective legislation" that will unlock the procedures for investment in the country and the liberalization of the professions.

2. A program for the elimination-simplification of procedures and cut of the bureaucracy by 25%.

3. Reallocation of support structures in the state services and the entry of private firms in them.

4. Immediate application of the electronic record.