European Institute of Public Administration

The EIPA is a leading centre of European learning and development for the public sector. EIPA works along three lines: Learning & Development, Consultancy and Research.

The EIPA houses the Common Assessment Framework resource centre (CAF). The CAF is a result of cooperation among EU Ministers responsible for public administration. It is jointly developed under the aegis of the Innovative Public Services Group, a working group of national experts set up by the Directors-General  in order to promote exchanges and cooperation on innovative ways of modernizing government and public service delivery in EU Member States.

The CAF is an easy-to-use, free tool to assist public-sector organizations across Europe in using quality management techniques to improve performance. The CAF provides a self-assessment framework that is conceptually similar to the major Total Quality Models (TQM) -- in particular, the Excellence Model of the European Foundation for Quality Management -- but that is specially designed for public sector organizations.

The CAF has four main purposes:

1. To introduce public administrations to the principles of TQM and gradually guide them, through the use and understanding of self-assessment, from the current "Plan-Do" sequence of activities to a full-fledged "Plan-Do-Check-Act (PCDA)" cycle;
2. To facilitate self-assessment of a public organization in order to arrive at a diagnosis and improvement actions;
3. To act as a bridge across the various models used in quality management;
4. To facilitate bench-learning between public-sector organizations.