There is a planned change at the helm of the heritage institute

Pavel Jerie in the rotunda of St. George on Říp

Prague - Culture Minister Václav Jehlička (KDU-ČSL) is likely planning a change at the head of the National Heritage Institute (NPÚ). Talks about the dismissal of Director Pavel Jerie have been going on within the institute for several months - since the audit was conducted there. However, the results have not yet been published by either institution. The ministry has not officially confirmed the planned dismissal of Jerie. However, a source from the Ministry of Culture told ČTK that the change in the position of NPÚ director is almost certain. It is unlikely to happen in the near future, but rather in weeks or months.
    "The Ministry of Culture is preparing steps that will lead to the organizational stabilization of NPÚ and to the removal of numerous disproportions in the management of castles and chateaus, as well as the differing approaches to professional issues in the individual regions," said ministry spokesman Jan Cieslar to ČTK, adding that these steps may also include "personnel changes in the management area of the organization."
    NPÚ has long faced criticism for being too closed off, even at a time when a new law on state heritage care is being prepared, which could bring significant changes. Some selection procedures for the directors of local branches take months, while others are criticized for their method of selecting a chief.
    The organization of NPÚ is also criticized by some people within heritage care - they believe that a top state institution with many years of tradition and experience should be more confident and advocate more on behalf of the monuments themselves, which often cannot withstand strong economic pressures in a market environment.
    However, according to critics, NPÚ is also not very active in trying to obtain money from structural funds. Last September, the Ministry of Culture presented projects that it considers a priority, most of which are national cultural monuments and UNESCO-listed properties, and NPÚ, as their administrator, would be a recipient of funds from these sources. Since then, though, there has been almost no news about the individual projects.
    The personnel change at the position of general director was reportedly recommended by the mentioned audit, which cost more than one million crowns. KPMG delivered the audit results to the ministry in February, but the office has not yet disclosed what the auditors found. Jerie also has the audit results, but allegedly cannot publish them.
    Spokesman Cieslar previously told ČTK that the NPÚ audit found deficiencies in some activities of the organization that the ministry is already addressing. The ministry also stated that the audit would be published only after changes in the state heritage care area are made, which the audit called for.
    NPÚ is one of 32 contributory organizations of the Ministry of Culture. It employs nearly two thousand people (converted), receiving the most money from the state of all contributory organizations, amounting to 996 million crowns last year—over a tenth of the Ministry of Culture's budget. But it also returns the most - of last year's profit of all contributory organizations of 47 million, NPÚ accounted for 63 percent. NPÚ's revenue from service sales last year was 44 million crowns. Employee salary expenditures last year were 357 million crowns, but salaries at NPÚ are very low - on average, last year, it was 15,334 crowns.
    Due to the low salaries, given that 37 percent of employees have a university degree and another 37 percent have a high school diploma, NPÚ sometimes counters claims about consuming large state contributions. It points out that the value of the assets managed by NPÚ, excluding land, is 168 billion crowns.
    NPÚ was established in 2003 when originally separate regional institutes were merged. "It was a negative reaction from the state to the regions' request to complete the reform of public administration in the area of heritage care by transferring regional institutes to the regions. Unfortunately, the organization still carries the stamp of the time of its founding, and its establishment in 2003 ended up being midway," Cieslar told ČTK. Even after more than five years of existence, NPÚ is, according to him, not firmly organizationally anchored to responsibly and qualitatively carry out the activities that the law confers upon it - to be a professional institution and partner for the exercise of state administration.