The public service ethos and the role of the British civil service

The last Conservative administration invested much time and effort in reforming the structure and organisation of the Civil Service. Yet it left untouched the core principles which underpinned Whitehall, often referred to as the public service ethos. In this article, we argue that this ethos has been defended by both conservative and liberal opinion as something fundamentally good. Yet, in reality, the public service ethos is a power/knowledge system which legitimises the rule of a particular elite by presenting public service as a worthy occupation and, thereby, authorising a system of power which is relatively closed and secretive. This accounts for why it has been in the interests of both the last Conservative administration and the present Labour government to ensure the ethos remains intact.     

我国公务员制度改革的十大反思

公务员制度是我国政府的基本人事制度。随着社会的发展进步 ,我国现行的公务员制度逐渐显现出了其不足与缺陷。西方国家在新公共管理运动的影响下 ,纷纷对本国的人事制度进行了相应的改革 ,其主旨就是“用企业家精神来改造政府 ,用市场方式来管理公务人员”。具体措施如权力下放 ,解除规制 ,弹性管理 ,绩效评估等。作为一个有着自己特殊国情的发展中国家 ,我们在借鉴西方国家的经验时 ,必须从正反两方面来进行反思。     

公务员制度建设的思考

全球化时代的到来,不仅是我国公务员制度建设的机遇,更是挑战。我国公务员制度存在不完善的地方,要清醒认识到我国公务员制度可能存在缺陷,进一步明确我国公务员制度建设的基本原则,推进公务员制度创新,实现公务员制度的战略发展。     

Civil service and democracy: Questions in reforming the civil service in eastern and central Europe

The debate over public service reform is taking place at a time of flux when old models are being challenged everywhere. This article discusses issues of institutional transfer, as between western and east and central Europe, relative to civil service reform and democratisation. It presents several models to describe the place of the civil service in the democratic state and the implications of each for civil service organisation. It argues for a better balance between a legal approach, which tends to dominate advice coming from some continental European countries, and one which emphasises ‘good’ rather than just ‘correct’ relations between administration and citizens. This distinction is fundamental in so far as, under the UK Citizens Charter for example, the citizen is seen as a ‘customer’ rather than a mere ‘user’ of services he has no influence over. The article concludes that, given the differences in culture, political climate and economic situation of ‘recipient’ countries in east and central Europe, each must search for its own reforms, looking for questions rather than answers.     

Improving the organization and management of civil service training in Zambia

This paper describes the first phase (1981-1984) of a programme being carried out by the Government of Zambia to improve the organization and management of in-service training for civil servants. General guidelines for an effective training function are outlined. These are compared to the problems of civil service training in Zambia in 1981, where responsibility was fragmented, co-ordination was poor, work concentrated on routine administration, and the background of training staff was often inappropriate. A set of recommendations was agreed for resolving these problems, including the creation of a central training directorate and a cadre of full-time training staff. The package of proposals was designed to increase accountability, improve co-ordination, improve the quality of training staff, and introduce systematic training procedures. The progress with implementing these changes is evaluated; the greatest progress was in setting up the cadre of training staff, although significant progress was also made in other areas. The paper concludes that the conditions for an effective training function have been created and that a longer-term programme to develop the new training cadre is now required. The Zambian example provides a possible model for any country thinking of introducing similar changes.     

Salient features of the 1988 civil service reforms in Nigeria

The main provisions of the 1988 civil service reform in Nigeria are discussed, including structural reorganization, professionalization and the enforcement of public accountability. As of the time of the reform, the following defects were associated with the civil service: undue importance accorded the generalists at the expense of the professionals; profligacy among public officers; nonchalant attitude among civil servants to their duties; and corruption. Measures taken to rectify these defects by the reform include: the adoption of a uniform structure for the civil service nationwide; the harmonization of power with responsibility; the streamlining of the span of control of officers to not more than eight units; the expansion of the powers of internal audit units complemented by an audit alarm system; the mandating of chief executives to submit progress reports on their ministry to the president; and the rationalization of promotion criteria for public officers. These provisions are little more than the rehashing of past legislations, which failed to achieve positive results, not because they were faulty in precept but because they were sacrificed to sloppy implementation. Therefore, the 1988 reform may suffer from the same fate because it was simply grafted onto the corrupt system that caused the failure of past reforms before it.     

An empirical approach to the optimal size of the civil service

This article attempts a purely empirical approach to the issue of optimal civil service size by looking for a systematic relationship between observed size and underlying explanators. The residuals from such a fitted relationship then serve as a first approximation to whether the government in question is overstaffed or not. The data are from Indian subnational states, which as members of a single federation, follow the same definitional conventions with respect to the civil service. The contribution of the article is methodological, and addresses an issue of central importance, since staff downsizing conditionalities attached to externally funded structural adjustment programmes are not analytically underpinned. The article also explores issues surrounding the composition of the civil service. There is no evidence that overstaffing, as determined from the residuals of the estimated specification, is the joint outcome along with staff composition, as proxied by mean salary, of job creation pressures at the lower salary scales. This suggests that correction of overstaffing might be possible without political opposition, while at the same time leaving unexplained the variation in staff composition across states. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A small civil service in transition: the case of Estonia

Although scholars have shown consistent interest in small states in past decades, the Republic of Estonia has not been included in any study of small states owing to its brief history of independent statehood. This article provides an overview of the development of the Estonian civil service, to enable readers to understand the background and scope of reforms in the 1990s. The objective of the study is to test previous findings on small states using empirical research into the Estonian civil service. Interviews with civil servants reveal a few new characteristics attributable to the size of a state such as personalization of units and organizational objectives, and additional sources of organizational instability. However, it is argued that several problems of public administration in developing countries and small states overlap, which creates difficulties in distinguishing between developmental factors and the size of the state as determinants. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Political transition,economic liberalization and civil service reform in Malawi

This article reviews the efforts aimed at reforming the civil service of Malawi at the same time as the country has been undergoing political transition and economic liberalization since 1991. Some of the measures in the civil service reform programme interfaced with either the political transition process (for example, the Public Service Act) or with economic policy reform (for example, privatization). In a few other cases, it was a mixture, a political economy perspective (for example, curbing corruption). The article draws attention to the achievements and problems of implementation, including the coordination of donor support, and highlights the lessons learned and the prospects for the remaining years of the decade and beyond. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Public Admin. Dev. Vol. 17 : 209–222 (1997). No. of Figures: 2. No. of Tables: 2. No. of Refs: 9.     

对改进我国公务员分类制度的若干建议

公务员分类制度是公务员制度本质的外在表现形式。目前我国公务员分类制度存在着公务员范围界定过窄、领导职务和非领导职务设置不科学、职务分类不合理等问题 ,改进和完善现有分类制度 ,不仅要把公务员分为政务类公务员和业务类公务员 ,还应该做更进一步的细分。政务类公务员分为职业党务工作者、政府组成人员、政治任命人员和特别职公务员 ,业务类公务员分为行政管理类、专业技术类和后勤保障类。这些建议有助于推动我国公务员制度的不断完善 ,提高公共部门人力资源管理和开发的效能     

Downsizing the civil service in developing countries: the golden handshake option revisited

In recent years, more and more calls are being heard in a growing number of developing countries to downsize their civil services. It is argued that downsizing is needed because of the increasing shortfalls in government recurrent and development budgets. This situation results in underutilized, underfunded staff and often in the siphoning-off of donor funds in the development budget for recurrent expenditure. The main problems addressed in this article are why should and how can the civil service in developing countries be downsized. The questions of how much to trim the bureaucracy and how to redeploy redundant public servants in the private sector are also addressed. The article examines alternative strategies for significantly downsizing the civil service. It is contended that problems in this area are indeed common to many developing countries. Various golden handshake options for civil service leavers receive particular attention. It is suggested that economic jumpstart is a better term than golden handshake to characterize the incentives package offered to induce staff to accept voluntary redundancy. Civil service reform is not presented here as a panacea for all developing countries' ills. The article makes a number of mostly untried but nevertheless attractive suggestions that bring some fresh thinking to bear on a difficult issue. Paths and avenues worth exploring when starting to design civil service trimming operations are presented, including some of their limitations. The point is finally made that this type of downsizing is overdue in many places. The article should be considered as a contribution to demystifying the process of downsizing the civil service in developing countries. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Factors that impede and facilitate management careers of women in the Malaysian civil service

Female and male managers of the Malaysian civil service were surveyed in an attempt to elucidate the factors that have facilitated and hindered their careers. The emphasis in this article is on career differences between women and men. Many of the conditions which inhibit the careers of female managers elsewhere in the world were also reported by those sampled. Family requirements and resulting role conflict were evident. Many women have not married. There was some evidence of sexual harassment. There is a suggestion that women may suffer from low self-esteem and attribute their career progress primarily to luck. On the positive side, and despite a government policy that has resulted in more public resources for higher education being awarded to men than to women, women managers have achieved career success. This is largely because of the socioeconomic status of their parents and the apparent willingness of parents to educate female offspring who were not necessarily the first-born.     

‘Cleaning up’ while cleaning up? Pollution abatement,interest groups and contingent trade policies

This paper analyzes the political economy of environmental-policy formation in a trading economy with established rules for administered protection. We argue that the social costs associated with the adoption of an inefficient environmental regime are likely to be compounded by induced restrictions on trade when the effected industries are import competing. The preferences of interest groups for alternative environmental regimes tend to be linked to the legal-institutional setting in which trade policy is conducted. Under existing rules and practices in the area of administered protection, there is reason to believe that interest group preferences for an inefficient approach to pollution control will be strengthened because the adoption of such a regime is more likely to lead to a concomitant increase in trade barriers.     

公务员职业道德创新服务理念研究

当前,公务员职业道德是社会主义道德体系中一个重要组成部分,是公务员在行使公共权力、从事公务活动过程中,通过内化的信念和善恶标准,理性调节个人与个人,个人与社会之间各种关系的行为规范。新中国成立以来,我国公务员职业道德经历了一个起步、停滞、恢复和全面发展四个阶段。伴随着《公务员法》的颁布和实施,我国的公务员制度发展到一个新阶段。因此,通过研究公务员职业道德问题,找出公务员职业道德失范原因,对于我国建立、健全公务员制度,积极探索和改革公务员职业道德问题有着重要意义。同时,它也是落实科学发展观、构建社会主义核心价值观的必要手段,是加强廉政建设和全社会风气好转的关键,是建设服务型政府构建和谐社会的基本要求。     

Women in the Zambian civil service: A case of equal opportunities?

There is a paucity of empirical microlevel studies of women in the formal sector in developing countries. This article attempts to redress this deficit and focuses on the position of women in the Zambian civil service using information from a sample of personnel records. Although women are disproportionately represented in the civil service compared with other areas of the formal economy, the current positions of males and females are significantly different. However, the results of the survey are not easily encompassed in prevailing theoretical frameworks and, rather surprisingly, it appears that it is age rather than gender that is the crucial explanatory variable. Finally, a number of possible explanations are advanced to account for our findings.     

Towards a professional civil service in post‐transition Romania

To what degree and under what conditions can a young democracy build a competent, politically neutral public bureaucracy? A crucial component of the transition from communist party rule to democracy is the creation of a professional civil service. Success along this dimension of state‐building generates administrative capacity: non‐elected public officials ensure the implementation of reforms initiated by political leaders. In the communist party‐led regimes of Eastern Europe, forging this new administrative class from its highly politicised predecessor took place as new democracies sought to overcome historical legacies and integrate with the European Union. A case study of administrative reform in Romania during the post‐1989 period suggests the importance of external influences in forming a civil service more closely adhering to the Weberian ideal of an expert, rules‐based bureaucracy. Through analysis of survey data from a nationally representative sample of the Romanian civil servants, the public bureaucracy has professionalised insofar as educational and training credentials rather than political affiliation are significant predictors of salary levels. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Innovation,voice, and hierarchy in the public sector: Evidence from Ghana's civil service

Research on innovation in government often focuses on ideas introduced by senior leaders or managers, but ideas from public servants themselves are an important and underexplored channel for improving performance in government bureaucracies. We provide new evidence on the potential for bottom‐up work process innovation, using data from 744 individual and team innovation plans and 51 qualitative interviews in Ghana's civil service. In contrast to common negative stereotypes of developing country bureaucrats, most officials do have meaningful ideas for improving performance. However, the overwhelming constraint to voicing these ideas is hostility by supervisors to new ideas from their subordinates. We argue that this anecdotally common yet understudied behavior is consistent with theories of psychological attachment to hierarchy rather than alternative theories rooted in material, structural, or cultural resistance to employee voice and innovation. We discuss implications for bottom‐up work process innovation in government and interventions to promote it.     

儒家"诚信"思想与政府公务员职业道德建设

“诚信”是儒家伦理道德中的基本规范之一。儒家诚信思想所包含的关于个人立身处世与道德修养 ,人与人的交往的基本准则 ;治理国家的基本原则等思想在当代道德建设中具有重要的参考价值。继承和发扬儒家“诚信”思想中的精髓 ,对于加强以“诚信”为中心的政府公务员职业道德建设 ,具有重要的意义