The number of employees will not change after the reorganization of NPÚ

Ceske Budejovice - The number of employees will not change after the reorganization of the National Heritage Institute in South Bohemia, West Bohemia, and Vysočina. Castle administrators will not face a new selection procedure. Revenue from admission and grants should be distributed more efficiently. This was stated today by the newly appointed director of the regional heritage office in České Budějovice, Petr Pavelec.
     State castles and chateaus will be managed from January 1, 2013, by four newly established regional offices located in Prague, České Budějovice, Sychrov, and Kroměříž. In addition to the current 13 castles, chateaus, and monasteries, five buildings in Vysočina will also be managed from South Bohemia, including two UNESCO heritage sites, and 11 objects in the Plzeň region.
     For local government, from the perspective of heritage care after the reorganization of the NPU, according to the director of the regional expert workplace of the NPU, Vlastislav Ouroda, fundamentally nothing changes.
     The castle administrators newly managed from České Budějovice will not face a new selection procedure. "The castle administrator is an appointed position, just like the director. Therefore, if the management of a facility is not beneficial to the whole in the long term, that may happen. In South Bohemia, we have not resorted to such a step during my tenure," said Pavelec, who obtained the position through a selection process. For example, declining attendance is not the only evaluation of the quality of the management of the facilities; in some cases, the reasons may be objective. He disagrees with regular evaluations, as large and complex facilities are known by castle administrators for many years.
     The number of NPU employees should remain the same, according to Pavelec. Some positions have been eliminated, such as the positions of deputy directors for the management of heritage sites; all castle administrators are now directly subordinate to the director. However, the vacancies have a new content. Whether the reorganization will yield results is unclear to the director. "The goal is here, but the result may become evident only after four years of good work," he added.
     From South Bohemia, funds for heritage care will now be distributed to three regions, according to Pavelec, based on the principle of solidarity. "We will try to ensure that prosperous Český Krumlov and Hluboká do not stagnate, while also finding a mechanism that will help those that do not generate enough income," he said. The South Bohemia NPU had a turnover of 200 million CZK last year, of which the state contribution was 20 million, which was not even enough for employee salaries. The rest was generated by the heritage sites themselves. "We have been accustomed to generating a large part of our income here and consuming it here, while in Vysočina and West Bohemia, significantly more has been drawn from targeted grants from the Ministry of Culture," said the director. He will therefore strive to find a balance for the benefit of the whole.
     The NPU is the largest contributory organization of the Ministry of Culture. It was established in 2003 when regional heritage care institutes merged. It operates with an annual budget of 1.3 billion crowns, about half a billion is earned by the institute. The volume of construction and restoration contracts related to cultural heritage is also significant, with estimates suggesting that up to a billion crowns circulate in this area annually.