ABSTRACT
In Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, the emergence of a concern about public service quality is a rather new trend. Public managers shopped around in Western Europe and the United States for quality improvement tools, and often only Western quality models were 'imported' into CEE. Difficulties in the transfer of Western quality tools into the public sector of CEE countries were compounded by the fact that CEE countries had no prior experience with quality management unlike most Western European countries. The best-known quality models in CEE countries are the ISO 9000 series, the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model and the Common Assessment Framework (CAF). The EFQM Excellence Model of the EFQM is attracting considerable interest across various sectors of the public services in CEE countries. The Hungarian government declared the CAF as a primary tool for modernisation of public administration after the first EU Quality Conference of Public Administration in Lisbon.
