The Competency Profiles of Civil Servants in Today’s Russia

Abstract

This article explores the key characteristics in the professional activities of Russia’s professional bureaucracy. There are a number of social and professional reasons behind the need to verify the work of civil servants. Among the key Social reasons include the importance of understanding the structure and essence of civil servant activity in society, which can act as a factor of social interaction and build confidence within this social group. Professional reasons revolve around the need to re-legitimatize the bureaucratic professions in the social state, which is achieved by launching a raft of new principles, norms and understanding of professionalism. The study is based on a representative survey of civil servants (n = 401) and municipal officials (n = 333) in St. Petersburg. The unique methodology, which helps to formulate competency models for civil servants, was developed and tried out. This methodology includes an action analysis of competences that was derived from the educational standards of Masters of Public Administration. These standards were transformed into descriptors of civil servant activities and helped create a survey of Saint-Petersburg civil servants analyses with the use of SPSS analysis. As a result, we identified which knowledge and skills are vital to currently employed civil servants and highlighted those deemed to be unimportant in their daily activities. We found there were significant correlations between skills and job positions, age and sex. We also constructed competency profiles for different levels of government, which included ranking 54 kinds of professional activities. The analysis reached the following conclusions. Firstly, the nature of a civil servant’s professional activity is not only determined by their competence; one’s the position in the vertical of power is also vital. Secondly, the request for specific professional competence of the civil servants on the federal, regional and municipal levels should precede detailed analysis of competency profiles of the officials of various levels of government, as well as those meanings and preferences that invest themselves state and municipal officials in their routine professional practice. The building of competency among civil servants reflects contradictions between achieving the routinization of professional activity and the need to improve the professionalism of officials considering the global trends.