The secret audit has paralyzed the heritage office for over six months

Prague - The National Heritage Institute (NPÚ) has been in uncertainty about its future for many months. In addition to ideas from previous ministers about changes in its scope and changes that a new heritage law could bring, NPÚ has been nearly paralyzed for half a year by secret audit results. The institute's director Pavel Jerie has already offered his position to the Minister of Culture, but Minister Václav Jehlička (KDU-ČSL) has not yet commented on his resignation.
Jerie sent a resignation letter effective November 30 to the minister recently - on June 18, they met a week later. "The reason is the impossibility of putting the institute together and making organizational changes; it is constantly being delayed. It was said that it would be after the audit was completed," Jerie told ČTK. According to him, he offered his position with sufficient advance notice.
Last year, Jerie proposed a change in the NPÚ statute that would allow for the reorganization of the institute - it is sometimes criticized as a "behemoth" with many employees that has reserves in its work organization. However, the new statute was signed by the founder, the ministry, only at the end of September 2007, but by then, a comprehensive external process audit had been commissioned, and the preparation for reorganization was put on hold.
NPÚ was not to prepare for reorganization until the audit was completed. It took place over the winter, with the ministry paying 1.5 million crowns for it, and its results have been available since February. However, they are confidential; Jerie has known them since the end of April but is not allowed to disclose them. However, members of the parliamentary control committee have already received them.
According to information from ČTK, the audit did not reveal what has been speculated - that NPÚ is overstaffed and operates inefficiently. In the case of the central expert workplace in Prague, according to the auditors, even more dozens of people should be employed at this branch for it to carry out its expert activities properly.
The ministry's spokesman Jan Cieslar told ČTK that the audit "found shortcomings in some activities of this organization that the ministry is already addressing within its founding relationships with NPÚ." According to him, the ministry plans steps to stabilize the institute and does not rule out "personnel changes in the organization's management."
The audit summarizes information about NPÚ's management from its annual reports, with the most recent one used being from 2006 - so it does not provide current economic data for 2007. It suggests three possible arrangements for the institute - including the option of managing all castles and chateaus under NPÚ's administration from Prague. Just this year, such an arrangement was completed based on a political decision, allowing NPÚ's branches, which encompass both property management and expert activities, to mirror the regional arrangement following the state administration reform in 2003.
The idea of separating NPÚ's expert activities from the management of state castles and chateaus is still probably on the table. According to some heritage specialists, accommodation is already being prepared for the future deputy of the institute outside of Prague, who would manage the organization overseeing heritage. "Every division of an organization is more expensive," Jerie states: accounting and many other organizational activities always have to be duplicated.
In the field of state heritage care, the most discussed issue today is the preparation of a new law. This is being developed in the heritage department of the ministry, and NPÚ is among its numerous critics. The head of the commission preparing the law is the first deputy minister František Mikeš (ODS), a long-time mayor of Český Krumlov. Critics argue that the law is mainly his work. Many aspects of the law are criticized - primarily that it transfers many of the state's current powers to regions and could generally aim to reduce the number of heritage sites. However, the ministry denies this.
The creators of the law may also have a problem with the law’s shape and its currently negative reception among experts - in recent days, two lawyers have left the heritage department of the ministry - one moved to another ministerial department, and the other to the regional office in Central Bohemia. The bill's substantive proposal should be submitted to the government in October.