Management of the Organisational Ethos and the Development of Human Resources within the Croatian Ministry of Justice – Prison Administration
The Croatian Prison Administration approached the Dutch Prison Administration to support them in strengthening their institutional capacity to modernize the prison system organisation. Their aim was to develop a modern working culture and introduce more transparent, efficient and less authoritarian management styles. This project was designed to support this aspiration of the Croatian Prison Administration.
Our Aim
The project supported three objectives: the development of a mission and vision for the Croatian prison administration; the implementation of an internal management model for the whole prison administration and the development and introduction of a human resource management plan. It was initially designed to focus only on three pilot institutions. But ambitions grew and the committment and expertise on both sides, Dutch and Croatian, allowed for extending the activities to the national scale very soon after the project started.
Milestones Achieved
After the three project years the whole Croatian Prison Administration was able to work -starting the 1st January 2012- according to a total new annual planning and management system. They have learned to use the so-called Dutch A3 (Planning and Control) and Output management model. After one year of implementing and coaching on the 2011 draft annual plans all penitentiary institutions and the head off were able to present thier first real A3 annual plan for the year 2012 at the end of the project. Human resource management is closely linked to Planning and Control and needed to be implemented parallel to the planning systen. Basic structures were introduced into the Croatian system, such as function profiles, management dialogues and Personal Development Dialogues linked to a Personal Development Plan. Having both systems in place enabled the Croatian Prison Administration to develop a clear vision for the whole system, which formed the basis for the formulation of a mission by all seperate penitentiary institutions and for planning the relevant activities for the achievement of the mission and vision. Overall the managerial comptences of the Croatian Prison Administration progressed as a result of this project. The cooperation between the head office and the institutions improved and became more efficient and a better control was established on the achievement of the goals of the annual plans.
Project Implementation
Funder: EVD – MPAP
Partners: Croatian Prison Administration, Netherlands Prison Service (DJI)
Project period: July 2008 – June 2011
