The elusive reforms of the civil services
Monday, 18 May 2009
Amirul Islam
THE compelling need to attempt deep and driving reforms in the country's civil services has been felt for a long time though little was done to this end. There was a proposal from the donors to create a 'senior service pool' with its members drawn from the existing cadres of the civil services and also from the private sector. This would break the present cadre system in the civil services and help in the appointment of specialist manpower from outside the civil services to lend expertise and dynamism to the civil administration. The special pool would be supported by higher incentive salaries and perks in comparison to what are received by civil servants in the ordinary cadre services. The donors are also in favour of other varied measures to improve the qualitative performance of the civil services as a whole because they rightly see the relationship of the same with attaining better governance for the implementation of various anti-poverty and developmental programmes with their aid resources.
Some think tanks in the country do also support the recruitment of talents and expertise with incentive remuneration and perks from outside the present civil services for injecting dynamism and greater ability in the administration which is currently dominated by generalists with their limitations. But only such a major step will not cure the civil administration of its various ills including notably the issues of corruption and inefficiency.
Civil servants in the country behave typically as if they are a privileged group like the hereditary aristocracy. Most of them view their jobs as so safe that they can carry on till their retirement time without suffering any penalty for their underperformance or corruption. Therefore, the prevailing conditions call for nothing short of a system of firm accountability so that a civil servant of any rank feels that he or she must perform up to a desired level and failure to do so will invite the paying of penalties. At the same time, good performance on their part must be promptly noted and rewarded with promotions and other rewards to keep their motivation high. Such a well established mechanism to keep the civil servants on their toes and get the desired output from them - quantitatively or qualitatively - is likely to be more effective than any amount of moral exhortations for them to approach their work with honesty and sincerity.
The above framework also needs to apply to the contemplated senior service pool. Experience proves, specially in the Bangladesh context, that only the creation of material incentives alone are not enough to get the best out of individuals. The police, for instance, are being better supplied with many facilities compared to the past. But this has not led to their giving up corrupt practices because of the lack of a prompt and firm accountability structure. Individuals in most cases do not or cannot take the initiative to improve themselves. However, if an effective system is in place to guard against their wrong doings and slothful mentality, then the same more or less delivers results in all situations.
Apart from a proper accountability structure , the civil services are in need of extensive reforms of a varied nature in every government department. There is no need to set up another administrative reforms commission to go to work again to find what ails the civil services. The recommendations of the several administrative reforms commissions of the past can be studied and implementation of their meritorious proposals would suffice to achieve improvement in the functioning of the civil services within a time frame.
THE compelling need to attempt deep and driving reforms in the country's civil services has been felt for a long time though little was done to this end. There was a proposal from the donors to create a 'senior service pool' with its members drawn from the existing cadres of the civil services and also from the private sector. This would break the present cadre system in the civil services and help in the appointment of specialist manpower from outside the civil services to lend expertise and dynamism to the civil administration. The special pool would be supported by higher incentive salaries and perks in comparison to what are received by civil servants in the ordinary cadre services. The donors are also in favour of other varied measures to improve the qualitative performance of the civil services as a whole because they rightly see the relationship of the same with attaining better governance for the implementation of various anti-poverty and developmental programmes with their aid resources.
Some think tanks in the country do also support the recruitment of talents and expertise with incentive remuneration and perks from outside the present civil services for injecting dynamism and greater ability in the administration which is currently dominated by generalists with their limitations. But only such a major step will not cure the civil administration of its various ills including notably the issues of corruption and inefficiency.
Civil servants in the country behave typically as if they are a privileged group like the hereditary aristocracy. Most of them view their jobs as so safe that they can carry on till their retirement time without suffering any penalty for their underperformance or corruption. Therefore, the prevailing conditions call for nothing short of a system of firm accountability so that a civil servant of any rank feels that he or she must perform up to a desired level and failure to do so will invite the paying of penalties. At the same time, good performance on their part must be promptly noted and rewarded with promotions and other rewards to keep their motivation high. Such a well established mechanism to keep the civil servants on their toes and get the desired output from them - quantitatively or qualitatively - is likely to be more effective than any amount of moral exhortations for them to approach their work with honesty and sincerity.
The above framework also needs to apply to the contemplated senior service pool. Experience proves, specially in the Bangladesh context, that only the creation of material incentives alone are not enough to get the best out of individuals. The police, for instance, are being better supplied with many facilities compared to the past. But this has not led to their giving up corrupt practices because of the lack of a prompt and firm accountability structure. Individuals in most cases do not or cannot take the initiative to improve themselves. However, if an effective system is in place to guard against their wrong doings and slothful mentality, then the same more or less delivers results in all situations.
Apart from a proper accountability structure , the civil services are in need of extensive reforms of a varied nature in every government department. There is no need to set up another administrative reforms commission to go to work again to find what ails the civil services. The recommendations of the several administrative reforms commissions of the past can be studied and implementation of their meritorious proposals would suffice to achieve improvement in the functioning of the civil services within a time frame.