Civil Service

The Republic of Lithuania Law on Civil Service is the main legal act regulating civil service, which states the basic principles of civil service, status of civil servant, responsibility, salary, social and other guaranties, as well as legal grounds for civil service management.

Civil Service means a sum total of legal relations arising after the acquisition of the status of a public servant, the change or loss thereof, as well as those resulting from the public administrative activities of a public servant in a state or municipal institution or agency when implementing the policy of a particular sphere of state governance or ensuring the co-ordination of the implementation thereof, co-ordinating the activities of institutions of a particular sphere of state governance, managing and allocating financial resources and controlling their use, carrying out audits, adopting and implementing legal acts, decisions of state and municipal institutions or agencies in the sphere of public administration, preparing or co-ordinating draft legal acts, agreements or programmes and giving opinions on them, managing personnel, or having public administrative powers with respect to persons, who are not subordinate.

Government of the Republic of Lithuanian and the Minister of the Interior are responsible for the general management of civil service.

While establishing the state policy in the sphere of civil service, organising, coordinating, and controlling its implementation, the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania:

• Prepares draft laws and other legal acts in the field of civil service;
• Analyses the experience of the European Union member states and other countries and provides the proposals on the use of good practice in the field of civil service;
• Drafts the proposals on the integral system for the civil service personnel management and career planning;
• Coordinates the implementation of the Republic of Lithuania Law on Civil Service and implementing legal acts;
• Tackles issues related to the application of the Republic of Lithuania Law on Civil Service and implementing legal acts.

In 2009 the Civil Service Policy Division was established in the Public Governance Policy Department of the Ministry of the Interior to perform the aforementioned functions.

Various planning and strategic documents state the basic tendencies and reforms of the civil service development, the most important of which are as follows:

• The Programme of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania, approved by the resolution of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania of 9 December 2008 No XI-52;
• Activity priorities of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania for 2011, approved by the decree of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania of 14 October 2010 No 1448; one of the key activities of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania for 2011 is the modernisation of the state management system, the establishment of civil service responsible and accountable for the results and the preparations for the Lithuanian Presidency in 2013; 
• Concept of Civil Service Development, approved by the decree of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania of 2 June 2010 No 715; while implementing this Concept, the draft law amending the Republic of Lithuania Law on Civil Service has been prepared, in order to ensure more effective, flexible, transparent, and results-oriented civil service.

Civil Service Department under the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania implements the state policy in the sphere of civil service and exercises the functions of civil service management.

 For more information about civil service and implementation of civil service policy see here.