The Role of Civil Servants

A constructive relation between media and Executive Government Bodies can be described as a relation of mutual interest and mutual respect. Both parties have interest in publishing material that citizens need to participate in society. On the other hand, the role of media is also to monitor Government, which in many cases creates a fear among civil servants to approach journalists.

As stated by the “Handbook in Public Communication for the Civil Servants”, published by “Ukraine Public Dialogue”, the core values and principles that for public servants working with communications should rather be:

• Openness – the mechanism for adopting executive policies should include public access to the early preparatory stages
• Transparency – unimpeded access to information that is generated and archived by executive bodies, the organization of systematic reporting on the activities of the body, and explanations of the meaning of the body’s policies
• Responsiveness – the provision of timely, full and accurate information to the public about events and activities involving the executive body
• Competence – appropriate professional standards, in-depth knowledge of the specific issues and capacity to make thoughtful decisions that are best for resolving the specific problem
• Professionalism – employees in communication departments should possess the ability, knowledge and qualities needed to carry out specific professional duties and possess communication skills
• Creativity – employees should have a creative approach to their job duties, that is, to be able to find innovative ways and decisions in dealing with the tasks before them
• Lack of bias – a tolerant attitude to individuals of different political persuasions, social groups and to demonstrate proper, tolerant behaviour that avoids conflict
• Maintaining the culture of two-way communication – striving to develop a dialogue with different groups in society
• Consistency – planning with a long-term vision and sticking to norms and agreed principles and methods.
• Keeping to ethical norms and current legislation
• Precision – providing information in a targeted fashion to different social groups in a form that is easy to understand and provides the best possible result in the response of the recipient.

The aim of Ukraine Public Dialogue is to support the Ukraine government and the civil servants to reach the goals above. This is done by:

• Introducing technologies of strategic planning of communications with public into practice of executive authorities in Ukraine.
• Developing civil servants’ public communications capacity and institutional background for ensuring openness and transparency of the executive powers’ activities.
• Improving the communication culture between the state and the public.