A quarter less: Initiative by the Greens: staff cuts in federal ministries

More officials in the engine room, fewer staff on the command bridge – this is one of several proposals with which a group of Green politicians from the federal states want to minimize bureaucracy. In their paper for a “state that simply functions” it says: “The federal ministerial administration must be reduced in size and the implementation responsibility of the subordinate federal authorities must be strengthened.”

Specifically, they propose a reduction and redistribution of the federal ministries’ workforce by a quarter by 2034. Citizens should also be able to easily communicate with public administration via a central app.

“Reducing the number of regulating and controlling authorities in favor of those providing services is a first step,” says the paper, which was written by Saxon Justice Minister Katja Meier, Hesse’s former minister Tarek Al-Wazir, Paul Höller, Malte Spitz, Martin Hagen, and Laura Dornheim said it was written “in a private capacity”.

Bernd Raffelhüschen, Freiburg professor of finance, sees a close connection between “the explosive development of the standards landscape” and the increase in the number of civil servants in the federal ministries, including the Chancellery. According to his calculations, the number of positions there rose from around 15,000 in 2013 to more than 22,000 this year.

In order to make administrative digitalization more successful, according to the Green Party politicians’ paper, an “Agency for the Federal Digital State” should be founded. This should develop or further develop basic components – such as the BundID, a uniform payment system or a “Germany app” for citizens to contact the administration. The authors of the paper want central services to be provided on a platform in the future so that citizens do not have to laboriously identify who is responsible for their concerns.

In addition, federal legislation must be gradually reduced and made less complicated. States and municipalities should have greater responsibility for their own laws and federal funding programs that they administer. The federal government should provide a digital service for nationally regulated benefits such as parental allowance or housing benefit, which states and municipalities could then use to provide services locally.

To better protect the administration from enemies of the constitution, a federal disciplinary attorney should be established – following the example of Bavaria. Questions relating to data protection would have to be bundled together in order to achieve the most uniform interpretation and application possible.