President of Latvia Egils Levits has prepared and on 24 November submitted to the parliament (Saeima) a draft law amending the Cabinet Structure Law. According to President Levits, one of Latvia’s governance problems is government’s inability to ensure full and efficient oversight of horizontal policies.
As letter to the Saeima indicates, ‘President of Latvia has decided to initiate changes in the Cabinet Structure Law to allow Cabinet of Ministers to appoint one or several state ministers nominated by the prime minister to oversee certain priority areas over a specific time period or the whole mandate of the Cabinet. Appointment of such state ministers will ensure appropriate coordination of horizontal cooperation between various bodies of executive branch and successful delivery of Cabinet priorities’.
‘Top-down governance implies focus on narrow needs of specific sectors. It often lacks precise overall perspective, which leads to management gaps. Horizontal policies and cross-sectoral platforms can help solve that,’ indicates President of Latvia.
According to President Levits, modernising of public administration and better horizontal policy coordination could be delegated by the Cabinet of Ministers to state ministers who would be appointed to deal with specific tasks after the adoption of changes in the Cabinet Structure Law. Egils Levits believes that the position of state ministers would contribute to greater flexibility in structuring the Cabinet and defining accountability for key policy areas.
‘Family and children’s policies, digital policies are just some of the areas that have suffered from lack of coordination across line ministries and politically accountable government officials who would oversee the development and implementation of relevant policies. These areas deserve a lot more attention, and the addition of state ministers to the existing structure of the Cabinet would be of great benefit,’ says the letter accompanying the draft law.
President Levits has called for thorough Saeima consideration and support to legal initiative, which could come to force after the election of the 14th Saeima and give Cabinet of Ministers a chance to form a new composition after the general elections ‘to continue focusing on top-down policies that have traditionally been defined as important, while also enhancing focus on horizontal policies, which until now have been insufficiently governed and suffered from lack of political will, thus condemning a number of socially important issues to ignorance’.