Public service reforms - I

In 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant of the US appointed Dorman B. Eaton as the chair of the first Civil Service Commission, who later went to England in 1875 to study the civil service system of Britain. Upon conclusion of his studies, Eaton produced a report, which was published in the form of a book titled 'Civil Service in Great Britain: A history of Abuses and Reforms and their Bearing upon American Politics.'

In this book, Eaton enumerated some of the main principles a civil service system should possess: '[1] Public office creates a relation of trust and duty of a kind which requires all authority and influence pertaining to it to be exercised with the same absolute conformity to moral standards, to the spirit of the constitution and the laws, and to the common interest of the people... [2] In filling offices, it the right of the people to have the worthiest citizens in the public service for the general welfare... [3] The personal merits of the candidate - are in themselves the highest claim upon an office... [4] Party government and the salutary activity of parties are not superseded, but they are made purer and more efficient, by the merit of office which brings larger capacity and higher character to their support...'

Here, the most important aspect of civil or public service reforms is the capacity of a public service commission towards 'filling offices [with] worthiest citizens'. For too long the system of public service in Pakistan is unable to fulfil this duty, whereby public service has lacked adequate technical capacity and appropriate level of motivation. The incumbent government constituted a reform committee for improving the quality of civil service and capacity of public institutions. Around one-and-a-half years in office, however, the outcomes of that committee are yet to reveal themselves in any significant way.

There are two aspects of the functioning of a government: administrative and policy. Both need experts. Moreover, rather than treating civil service or bureaucracy in a more special way - mainly in terms of speed of promotions, benefits, and extent of access in terms of assuming and exercising power and policy - the whole public service should be treated with an equal sense of purpose and involvement by the government. As it currently stands the central superior service reflects a colonial mindset of creating a small group, equipping it with inordinate authority and unjustified benefits to serve the interests of the power corridors more than those of the public.

Hence, rather than having civil service as a separate entity and then other government employees - who have not come through competitive exams - called government servants and treated in less favourable ways as the civil servants, there should be one public service (with no civil service within it), where the government is run by experts - administrative and technocratic - recruited through work-based specialized exams/practical demonstration respectively, and those among them when reach a certain level on the back of performance and further examinations enter a 'fast-stream' in terms of promotions and benefits.

The government needs to be run by experts on both sides - administrative and policy. The administrative nature of work, involving maintaining law and order and conducting other administrative affairs of the nature of the daily functioning of the government, should recruit people based on the underlying needed skills set through competitive exams specifically designed to test candidates in related aspects. On the other hand, policy related work should be done by technocrats, and their competitive exams should be designed accordingly. In this regard, graduation to the proposed fast stream in each case, will be contingent upon meeting performance benchmarks, including gaining additional educational achievements like a doctoral degree or other degree showing needed specialization, and even passing another set of competitive exams in fields where this is warranted. At the same time, apart from meeting 'quota' requirements to safeguard the needs of special interest groups among which selection is done through exam/practical demonstration only within that group, the rest of entry into public service should be through open competitive exams.

Currently, the federal and provincial public service commissions have limited scope in terms of hiring, which need to be replaced with one proposed 'federal recruitment commission', and 'provincial recruitment commissions' with wider responsibilities to conduct recruitments for all public service; from the lowest to the highest levels, with provision for lateral entries, and in both the realm of administrative and technocratic public service. At the same time, there must be better coordination between the federal and provincial recruitment commissions.

Moreover, to maintain impartial oversight of the recruitment commissions, and to settle disputes/complaints inter- and intra-commissions there needs to be formulated a 'recruitment commission regulator' associated with each of recruitment commissions, along with setting up specialized 'public service labour courts' to deal with appeals regarding working of both the recruitment commissions, recruitment commission regulators, with subsequent appeals process available in the shape of superior courts.

(To be continued)

(The writer holds PhD in Economics from the University of Barcelona; he previously worked at International Monetary Fund)

He tweets@omerjaved7