REPORT ON THE REVIEW OF THE LAW ON PLANNING SYSTEM

To what extent is the Law on the Planning System of the Republic of Serbia understandable to public administration employees? Are there inconsistencies or legal gaps in the legal framework or issues that are not adequately regulated? What are the key improvements that are noticeable in practice? These are just a few of the questions answered by a detailed analysis of the implementation of the Law on the Planning System and the Regulation on the Methodology of Public Policy Management, the Analysis of the Effects of Public Policies and Regulations and the Content of Individual Public Policy Documents, which, at the request of the Public Policy Secretariat, was carried out by the EU4PAR project experts.

The Law on the Planning System (LPS) was adopted in 2018 as a comprehensive legal framework for the integrated strategic management of the Government's public policies. The passing of the Law and the accompanying by-laws enabled and significantly facilitated the implementation of the necessary reform of the planning system and the introduction of the entire policymaking cycle, including the steps of coordination, development, adoption, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of public policies, as well as reporting on the achieved results.

The Public Policy Secretariat (PPS) has initiated the preparation of an analysis of the implementation of the LPS and the accompanying by-laws to assess their application in practice and suggest possible improvements to further enhance sound public policymaking in the forthcoming period.

In 2020 and 2021, the EU4PAR project experts conducted an independent analysis and prepared a Report on the review of the Law on the Planning System of the Republic of Serbia.

Evidence-based policymaking and planning reform is progressing and producing the first results. The experts concluded that the legal framework and its application are not perfect, but there are no impediments that would seriously endanger the attainment of the reform objectives. In the coming period, possible ways and solutions to achieve the reform goals faster and more efficiently should be discussed, so the Report on the review of the Law on the Planning System contains targeted recommendations for improvement, which can serve as a basis for considering possible legal changes.

The aforementioned recommendations were considered through online discussions and workshops organised in late 2021 and during the spring of 2022 with representatives of the PPS. These discussions defined proposals, modalities, and time frames for implementing the recommendations.

At the beginning of July 2022, the Report on the review of the Law on the Planning System was presented to the broader professional public.

All details of the analysis of the legal framework and its application, which includes an international comparison of frameworks and practices, analysis of the content of planning documents and impact assessment, information on monitoring of public policy implementation and evaluation, as well as the recommendations of the expert team for the improvement of the planning system, are available in the Report on the review of the Law on the Planning System in the Downloads section.