Valsts kanceleja

The State Chancellery is a central public administration institution directly subordinated to the Prime Minister.

The State Chancellery is headed by its director, who is a top-rank official appointed to and dismissed from the post by the Cabinet order and upon recommendation of the Prime Minister. The Director and other civil servants of the State Chancellery are appointed to the post in line with the "State Civil Service Law".

The State Chancellery comprises Prime Minister’s Office, departments, divisions and individual units set up by the Director of the State Chancellery. The State Chancellery ensures and controls compliance of policy documents and draft legal acts of the Cabinet with the effective requirements; develops and implements policy action plans in various areas and presents opinions on policy documents and legal acts, as well as technically arranges activities of the Cabinet of Ministers.

Subordinate institution of the State Chancellery is the Latvian School of Public Administration (since 1 January 2003).

From 1 March 2023, the State Chancellery has taken over the functions of the Cross-Sectoral Coordination Centre (planning of sustainable development of Latvia, monitoring of the implementation of the government declaration, as well as governance of state-owned enterprises).

The State Chancellery is the centre of government of Latvia – it is a set of institutions or one institution with a task to ensure the work of the government and to provide the Prime Minister and the government with data and research-based information, based on data analysis, evaluation of different scenarios of action and attracting experts from different areas, thereby contributing to more accurate, fact-based decisions.

The State Chancellery has the following functions:

  • to provide preparation and process of Cabinet sittings, to ensure preparation of Cabinet’s documentation according to the procedure set forth in the relevant laws and regulations; to perform management of Cabinet’s documentation;
  • to participate in the policy planning processes pursuant to the Cabinet’s guidelines and tasks assigned by the Cabinet;
  • to co-ordinate the drafting and implementation of the Declaration of the Intended Activities of the Cabinet of Ministers and the Implementation Plan;
  • to coordinate planning and implementation of the national policy; in cooperation with ministries to present proposals on priorities for national development;
  • to ensure elaboration of the development policy of public administration (incl. the state civil service) and coordinate and supervise its implementation;
  • to develop and coordinate policies for governance of capital shares and capital companies of public persons;
  • to develop and coordinate the Sustainable Development Strategy of Latvia and the National Development Plan;
  • when assigned by the Prime Minister, to coordinate and to control enforcement of the decisions adopted by the Cabinet of Ministers and the Prime Minister;
  • to inform the public about work and activities of the Cabinet of Ministers.