Personnel Management Reform in the Philippines: The Strategy of Professionalization

The strategy of professionalization which is a multi-pronged system aimed at efficient, effective, and responsive delivery of government services is the current thrust of the Civil Service Commission (CSC). As such, a package of personnel reform measures is instituted by the Commission which includes the pursuit of merit, competence and performance; development and institutionalization of positive attitudes, ethical conduct and behavior; motivation through an integrated system of rewards and punishments; continuing human resource development; and the encouragement of public sector unionism. Relevant issues on the professionalization thrust have been raised: (1) since the strategy of professionalization rests more on administrative controls, will the effort bring about increased bureaucratization and routinization instead (or the issue of professionalization vs. bureaucratization)? (2) are the policies coming from diverse sources like the CSC, Department of Budget and Management, Office of the President, and Congress — to mention a few — fully coordinated so as to produce convergent rather than divergent results? (3) is the government really sincere on the issue of public sector unionism since it denies the unions their basic rights to strike and bargain collectively for better pay and working conditions? There is a need to assess further the current efforts toward professionalization to find out if the Commission is really moving toward its avowed goals of deregulation, decentralization and managerial and professional discretion rather than becoming more routinized or bureaucratic.     

The management and administration of parastatal organizations for the promotion of indigenous enterprise: A West African Experience

Among the various functional types of public corporation and statutory authority, those concerned with the regulation and provision of economic opportunities and social amenities constitute one of the most interesting developments in West Africa's parastatal sector today. Taking as a case study the recent initiatives of the Ghana Government ta promote indigenous enterprise (which have had an important demonstration effect on neighbouring Nigeria), the article analyses the performance of parastatal organizations that have been instrumental in fulfilling public policy objectives in this area. It examines first the management objectives established by the guiding legislation, secondly the corresponding choice of organizational structure, and finally the ways in which parastatal managers therein endeavour to implement the tasks of redistributing opportunities between foreign and indigenous private enterprise. Particular emphasis is placed on the innovative roles played by public officials and their organizations in mediating between government and the two segments of the private sector (foreign and indigenous). This includes especially the organization for disinvestment and the management of access to opportunities thereby created: identification of affected business and evaluation of their assets, provision of information for applicants, determination of rules of eligibility for the channelling of demand, supervision of purchase, transfer of management and labour relations during the period of negotiation and transfer. Finally, the article considers the effectiveness of resources use by recipients of enterprises, including patterns of distribution amongst the latter, in order to determine the impact of parastatal organization procedures on policy outcomes.     

美国文官制度的变革与思考

美国文官制度经历了从政党分肥制到现代功绩制的深刻变革，至1978年，卡特政府创建了高级文官制度，在政务官之下、普通文官之上设置高级文官阶层。高级文官作为连接政务官和普通文官的桥梁和纽带，突破了政治与行政的界限，将政治家和官僚的角色融为一体，扮演着既是领导者，又是管理者的角色，在联邦政府中起着承上启下的作用，全面提升了政府的政治和技术回应性。但高级文官中政治任命的非常任高级文官更换频繁，与竞争晋升的常任高级文官和普通文官之间，又产生了新的矛盾和冲突，造成政府优秀人才的流失。从历史的角度，认真总结美国文官制度变革的经验与教训，对于我国公务员制度建设，特别是高级公务员制度建设，具有重要意义。     

Privatization,regulation and development: Some questions of training strategy

In the current debate over the role of the public sector and its effective and efficient management, too little attention has been paid to the training implications of the various policy options. These include privatization as well as public enterprise performance improvement and rehabilitation. Third world training institutions are only just beginning to respond to the new tasks of re-equipping public sector managers to enable them to play a more ‘enabling’ or ‘facilitating’ role vis-à-vis the private and parastatal sectors. Accordingly, this article suggests a number of major elements that need go into any national training effort to strengthen the government-enterprise interface, including some of the curricular content, needs for case and teaching materials, developing training methods, the role of research, possibilities of a regional approach and the role of the international donor community.     

CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS IN CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Little more than a decade ago the basic structure of the Canadian public service was radically reformed. In accordance with recommendations of the Glassco Royal Commission on Government Organisation the central agencies were restructured and their relations with departments reconstructed to shift as much as possible the location of responsibility for financial and personnel management to the departments. The Treasury Board, a statutory committee of Ministers, separated from the Department of Finance which handles economic and revenue policy, became the Government's management agency responsible for budgeting as well as financial and personnel administration. It was also cast in the role of "employer" for purposes of collective bargaining, which was introduced into the Service at the same time and thereby aligned labour relations in the Service with the system which had prevailed in the private sector since the Second World War. Responsibility for recruitment and promotion of staff according to "merit" was vested in the Public Service Commission, an independent agency reporting directly to Parliament, which also has some advisory functions in respect of training. These legislatively-based changes were accompanied, especially after Mr. Trudeau became Prime Minister in 1968, by construction of an elaborate Cabinet committee system and more policy coordination at the administrative level by an expanded Privy Council Office. Structural change was reinforced by changes in methods of operation. Over the next few years new techniques in budgeting, which was placed on a program basis, policy evaluation and performance measurement were introduced. Under the guiding hand of the Planning Branch in the Treasury Board Secretariat, increasing emphasis was given to planning and research in central agencies and departments.     

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM IN THE USA: PROMISE VERSUS REALITY*

Abstract: The 1978 Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) mobilized changes to the basis and structure of the federal service which are the most far-reaching since those installed by the Pendleton Act in 1883. Several of the 1978 provisions were directed toward encouraging a more incentive-oriented approach to personnel matters. Other measures involved the dismantling of the Civil Service Commission, the installation of new mechanisms to handle labour-management relations, the codification of merit principles, and the delegation to individual agency managements of wider personnel responsibilities. This paper raises the question of whether, four years after the passage of CSRA, there are indications that the legislation is living up to its earlier promise. Attention focuses upon the character of the 1978 measures and how well the federal service is coping, or is being allowed to cope, with the private sector-style, rewards-sanctions approach to personnel matters which was embraced by the Carter proposals. To a very significant degree the 1978 Act's provisions in that respect concentrated upon the more senior managerial and supervisory levels. It is less surprising, therefore, that many of the difficulties now associated with CSRA's implementation also are concentrated among those same groups (Senior Executive Service and merit pay). The salary and other incentives available to career executives for outstanding job performance have been eroded by Congress; the sanctions for poor performance remain, however, while worries persist about the possibilities of manipulating the new performance appraisal procedures in order to harass or remove career government officials. Meanwhile, the bulk of the federal service is, in practice, largely unaffected by the new performance appraisal arrangements. Many of the concerns about CSRA have been reinforced by the actions of the Reagan Administration and the 97th Congress. The bonus system for career executives remains under siege, the pay cap remains intact, while there are more general doubts about the Reagan Administration's commitment to civil service reform. The locus of responsibility for overseeing CSRA's implementation remains unclear, while there is evidence in some agencies that Reagan political appointees have attempted deliberately to exclude career executives from the policy process. Thus, despite the probably well-intentioned initiatives enshrined by CSRA, the US federal service still finds itself beset by problems of identity and support. It still feels vulnerable, too, to the types of political abuse from which the 1978 measures were supposed to afford protection.     

Civil Service Development in China and America: A Comparative Perspective

How has reform changed Chinese and American civil service systems in light of China's landmark reform in 1993 by contrast to the aftermath of the U.S. Civil Service Act of 1883? While there are significant differences, remarkable administrative and political similarities also emerge. Particularly salient is the role of educational systems in the civil service development of both countries. Surprisingly, this comparative analysis finds a common struggle to balance professional expertise with political accountability and control. King Kwun Tsao of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and John Abbott Worthley of Seton Hall University argue that further comparative research is essential to hone an improved understanding of China specifically as well as civil service systems generally.     

The U.S. Federal Executive in an Era of Change

This article examines changes in the background characteristics, attitudes, and behavior patterns of high-level U.S. federal executives. It also considers the impact of the New Public Management (NPM) movement. The data indicate that despite intense struggles about the role of the public sector, top civil servants remain a well-educated, experienced, and highly motivated group, the members of which compare favorably to top executives in the private sector. The data also suggest that the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) of 1978 has been effective in producing a more politically responsive corps of career civil servants, and that administrators (both career and noncareer) are increasingly attuned to the more technical and legal aspects of their roles and less oriented to protecting particular interests or clientele groups. NPM-style changes are still in progress and remain controversial, but it appears that political leaders continue to have an excellent (and increasingly diverse) group of career people to work with and a system that—at least in part due to the CSRA reforms—is more responsive to them than before. The top part of the U.S. bureaucracy may have been bent and reshaped in many ways over the last thirty years, but, despite widely publicized fears, it has not broken.     

Machinery of government and standards in public service: teaching new dogs old tricks

Abstract

For much of the last thirty years the main leitmotif animating Civil Service reform in the UK has been that efficiency and effectiveness in public services can be achieved by adapting management methods and practices derived from commercial enterprise. In the process of making the dreams and schemes of that plural singularity we have come to call ‘managerialism’ operational though, something valuable appears to have been lost, and that something is the Civil Service as a unified ‘constitutional bureaucracy’. In this article I explore some of the unfortunate governmental and administrative consequences of these managerially minded reforms. In particular, I seek to highlight the continuing relevance of what have been routinely characterized as outmoded and anachronistic machineries of government, and to stress the importance of the increasingly forgotten core business of public administration: the running of a state and of a constitution.     

Civil Service Law in the People's Republic of China: A Return to Cadre Personnel Management

Despite the outward appearance of depoliticization, the civil service in China today is actually being repoliticized. This paper compares the 1993 Provisional Regulations on State Civil Servants with the Civil Service Law approved by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in April 2005 . The 2005 reform formalized what had been a historical pattern—the Communist Party holds tight control over leadership change and management at various levels. The Civil Service Law has turned the Communist Party of China into a political institution that has become the source of both civil service empowerment and control. Although civil service reform in China differs markedly from approaches adopted elsewhere, China is clearly expanding its political control to ensure greater leverage over the bureaucracy. In this regard, China is in line with the global trend. That said, civil service reform in China has focused on structural elements and formal reorganizations, whereas most industrialized democracies have engaged in a dialectic between individualist and corporate responses to managerial questions. An understanding of the Chinese ability to adopt reforms—while strengthening its traditional hold—provides key perspectives not only on the world's largest nation and a rapidly emerging force in global political and economic relationships but also on the Chinese experience with important public sector reforms that have occurred in many other countries over recent decades.     

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS LOOKS AT THE CIVIL SERVICE*

Abstract: The 1977 report on the Civil Service by the Expenditure Committee of the U.K. House of Commons contains much to interest Australian readers. It recommends abolition of the Administration Trainee Scheme and an extension of the “Open Structure” to Assistant Secretary level; the establishment of a higher management course; the re-activation of the Pay Research Unit; and the appointment of part-time “outsiders” to the Civil Service Commission. Although luke-warm to the Fulton doctrine of “hiving-off”, the Committee favours the creation of more “accountable units” in departments. The centrepiece of the Report is the recommended return of key Civil Service Department functions—manpower control; management services; and internal responsibility for monitoring efficiency—to Treasury. The role of Parliament in improving efficiency is not neglected; it is proposed that the Exchequer and Audit Department conduct audits of management efficiency and effectiveness and that the use of select committees to review Executive activity be extended. The Committee was divided on the issue of whether officials serve ministers as well as they should, but the Report does contain proposals which are seen as “strengthening the minister's arm”. Overall the Report reflects the Committee's limited resources; analysis is often inconclusive, or at best, partial (particularly in areas such as the central organization of government and relations between the centre and departments), and the document seems to lack a clear strategy and sense of direction. However, the Committee's work does compare favourably with that of many other inquiries into the Civil Service.     

Public sector reform in Sub‐Saharan Africa: what can be learnt from the civil service performance improvement programme in Ghana?

This paper focuses on public sector management reform ‘best‐practice’ case experience from Sub‐Sahara African (SSA). Given that ‘best‐practice’ is a relative concept and often debatable, the paper uses the Ghana Civil Service Performance Improvement Programme (GCSPIP) experience as rather a ‘good‐practice’ case with the view to sharing the outcome and lessons to encourage collaborative‐learning. It seeks to share the outcome and lessons learnt by the Ghana civil service reform with future public service reformers and to contribute to the literature. The paper concludes with an adaptable three‐dimensional framework. The framework argues that successful future public service reform (PSR) should consider three broad issues: first, are the ‘critical success factors’, including wholehearted political leadership commitment; wholehearted bureaucratic leadership commitment; thoughtful synergistic planning/preparation; patience for implementation and evaluation; capacity to convince; neutralise and accommodate reform‐phobias and critics; sustainable financial and technical resource availability and conscious nurturing of general public support. Second, is the need for reformers to appreciate the concerns of the public and the civil society scepticism of public ‘institutions’ and its ‘operatives’ and finally placing any reform programme in a country‐specific context, including understanding its history, culture, politics, economy, sociology, ideology and values. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Personnel Management: Politics, Administration, and a Passion for Anonymity

Personnel management is vitally important to the maintenance and preservation of the administrative state and its democratic institutions. This reaction critically examines the personnel recommendations made by Floyd W. Reeves and Paul T. David in their study Personnel Administration in the Federal Service. It questions the degree to which there is a coherent set of political and constitutional expectations marking the progress of personnel policy that might enable us to forecast the future, both theoretically and practically. The authors highlight how and why the field should pay greater attention to the political ends that our personnel theories serve.     

Enduring Continuity and Endless Change in the British Civil Service

The British Civil Service has often been criticised. The most recent censure was from Ed Straw. In 'The dead generalist', an article for the think tank Demos, he attacked the Civil Service for its unchanging nature and its corresponding failure to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. Jon Davis's article demonstrates that change is a constant for officialdom, that Mr Straw has some of his facts wrong, and that very similar criticism was made nearly half a century ago, though all the while agreeing that all is not well (and possibly can never be perfect) in Whitehall.     

New Public Management and ‘Photocopy’ Bargaining in the Australian Public Service

The industrial relations policy of the Federal Coalition Government is to encourage industrial bargaining to occur at the enterprise or individual level, free from ‘outside’ influences. While it encourages devolved bargaining at the agency and individual level within the Public Service (Australian Public Service) this policy creates tensions with its role as a centralized policy maker, economic manager and employer of the APS workforce. It also conflicts with the APS' adoption of New Public Management. In practice, the government retains considerable centralised control over agency bargaining outcomes, which is a de facto method of pattern bargaining. By analysing the substantive outcomes from nine APS agency level certified agreements (hours of work, pay and leave entitlements), the article discusses whether this one size fits all' model is evidence of an appreciation that public sector industrial relations is separate and distinct from private sector industrial relations, or another example of duplicity in the federal coalition government's ideology driven approach to industrial relations.     

Building a More United Kingdom: a Conservative Case for Constitutional Reform1

The United Kingdom faces twin constitutional crises. The existence of the Union itself is now under stronger challenge than ever before, and many of the conventions and understandings which have underpinned the constitutional stability of the United Kingdom and the relationships between executive, Parliament and judiciary have been eroded or overthrown. There is no single, easy way to put things right. What is needed are reforms to the working of Parliament, the Civil Service and devolution, to restore greater balance and stability to our constitution. These should include measures to strengthen the ability of Parliament to hold the executive to account and a new Civil Service Act to provide for the independence, governance and accountability of the Civil Service. To overcome the strains that now threaten the unity of the UK we need a cultural shift in UK politics in favour of partnership and mutual respect, underpinned by changes to the way we do business in both government and Parliament and by greater devolution of power within England.     

Civil Service Reform

Books reviewed:
Stephen E. Condrey and Robert Maranto (eds.), Radical Reform of the CivilService
James P. Pfiffner and Douglas A. Brook (eds.), The Future of Merit: Twenty Years after the Civil Service Reform Act
A.T. Rafiqur Rahman, Reforming the Civil Service for Government Performance: A Partnership Perspective     

Civil service reform in Uganda: Lessons learned

This article presents the Civil Service Reform Programme (CSRP) in Uganda. It outlines the context in which the CSRP is being implemented and establishes the link between the CSRP and other reform programmes, particularly constitutional decentralization, liberalization/privatization and army demobilization. It also analyses the progress made so far, given certain obstacles, and attempts to assess and make some suggestions for the road ahead. The issues of civil service reform go beyond addressing the need for pay reform and improving organizational structure. While these are important pieces of the puzzle, they cannot stand alone. Issues of greater participation, transparency and accountability in decision making—all of which strangthen democratization—are also at stake. The aim of these reforms is to enable the state to function more rationally and effectively, as the duties it performs—as well as the country's needs—become more complex and varied. The overarching theme is to develop the state's own capacity in order to create sustainable reforms in the quest for long-term development. The close of the cold war has brought many changes. In recent years, for example, the international donor community has paid increasing attention to reform issues. It has called on recipient governments to participate in the design and implementation of these programmes. In recipient countries, the movement toward decentralization, privatization and commercialization of many government functions has increased the range of opportunities available to citizens. It has also brought demands for greater responsiveness on the part of the government and parastatal agencies. Moreover, in an era of dwindling aid budgets, donors are now seeking better value for their money, and they are less willing to excuse widespread graft and corruption on geopolitical grounds.     

International public management network symposium on administrative philosophies and management practice

Do administrative philosophies, however defined, lead or trail change in public sector organizations? How may we define administrative philosophy and is useful to distinguish between philosophy, doctrine and justification? To what extent does academic research and theory influence administrative practice? Do academics learn most of what they theorize about from practitioners? These and other questions are addressed in this first IPMN electronic symposium.