Discussion Paper

Public Service Reforms:

Trends, Challenges and
Opportunities
5 March 2013
THE DEVELOPMENT CONTEXT

Introduction
Need for reforms
Public service in both the developed and developing world plays a vital role in providing
public goods, such as defence, public order, property
Public service delivery has rights, macro-economic management, basic education,
acquired new dimensions as public health, disaster relief, protection of environment,
and coordinating private sector activity. A capable public
governments need to
service is essential for creating a favourable investment
respond not only to climate and facilitating people’s participation in economic
changes in the global life. As countries get more globalized governments face
environment but also to the increasingly complex and cross-cutting issues, such as
demands of an active economic volatility, climate change and migration. Wide
use of the internet has made citizens more aware and
impatient and that puts public servants under greater public scrutiny. Against this
backdrop, public service delivery has acquired new dimensions as governments need to
respond not only to changes in the global environment but also to the demands of an active
citizenry. Formulating integrated policies and their effective implementation would require
an adaptable and efficient public service that can anticipate emerging challenges and
ensure that potential strategies are informed by better understanding of future contexts. It
must also learn to empower people and be able to work with them, as traditional vertical
accountability systems can act as a major impediment to working across boundaries 1.
There is a widespread perception that public servants in many Governments have not
delivered what was expected from them. On the other hand, returns from improving
effectiveness of the government are immense. An efficient public service is necessary
(though not sufficient) for benefits to reach the socially and economically weaker sections
of the society who have fewer alternatives to services provided by government. Mere
allocation of funds for programmes that do not work effectively would be a waste of public
money unless extra efforts are spent on improving government efficiency, and also to
ensure that the poor are able to participate and put pressure on public administration to
deliver so that they receive the intended benefits.
The importance of good governance and having honest and competent public sector
institutions for a country’s economic and social development is now widely accepted.
Daniel Kaufmann, who worked as the World Bank’s Director for global governance, states
that countries that improve their governance effectiveness raise their standard of living, as
measured by per capita incomes, by about three times in the long run 2. Poorly functioning
public sector institutions and weak governance are major constraints to equitable
1 O'Flynn, Janine L., Blackman, Deborah Ann and Halligan, John, Working Across Boundaries: Barriers, Enablers,
Tensions and Puzzles (September 14, 2011). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1927666 or
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1927666

2 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
ISSUE ANALYSIS
development in many developing countries. In addition, governments must work with the
people to ‘build anticipative capacity, inventive government and foster an innovative
society in order to create emergent solutions to the complex challenges’ 3 that the society
may face in future. In other words, the Classical model that saw government as primarily a
provider of professional services is no longer sufficient today. Public interest now is a
collective enterprise that involves government, citizens and civil society as value creators
and co-producers of public goods.
Governments and governance the world over are undergoing a ‘paradigm shift’ in their
traditional roles and structures of inflexible control and procedure orientation, towards
result orientation, flexibility, facilitation and a citizen-centric approach 4. Success however
would, to a large extent, depend upon a cultural change in the Civil Services. Excessive
caution, reliance on precedents and following the beaten path have to give way to
innovation and inventiveness and to trying out new methods. Merit, capability and quality
should matter more than mere seniority.
Any external effort towards reforms should take account of the economic, social, cultural,
constitutional and political context of the state in which they are implemented. Reforms
that have evolved in some developed countries and have improved accountability of their
civil service cannot be replicated elsewhere unless local social and political conditions are
kept in mind.
Some of the common issues and challenges associated with public service reforms are
discussed below.

2 World Bank 2000: Top of Form Reforming Public Institutions and Strengthening Governance: A World Bank
Strategy. However growth may take place without following the route of traditional governance reforms, as in
Central Asian Republics where the growth pattern is based on export of natural resources (oil, gas) and labour-
intensive raw materials (cotton), commodities that allow high degrees of monopoly at the expense of broad-based
pro-poor economic development. See Jörn Grävingholt, 2011: The Political Economy of Governance Reforms in
Central Asia, German Development Institute

3 See module 5 of A New Synthesis of Public Administration: Serving in the 21st Century by Jocelyne Bourgon.
Kingston: School of Policy Studies and McGill-Queen's University Press , 2011 at http://www.nsworld.org/

4 Anita Karwal, Effective Public Service Delivery and e-Governance: Who Drives Whom?, at http://www.nsworld.org/

3 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
Merit-based For the transition from an oppressive to responsive
recruitment bureaucracy, the public service needs to merit-based,
politically neutral, well-structured, “right-sized”, well-paid,
accountable, professional, free of corruption, well-trained,
performance-oriented, and relatively open. Attention to be
made to the short term postings as many recruitment practices
allow not fully transparent recruitment. Full enforcement of
civil service laws and regulations on civil service recruitment is
also a challenge.
The new public A public service concept introduced in the late 1970s and early
management 1980s which adopted market norms in public service delivery,
applied business principles to their operations, and paying
new attention to customer choice and satisfaction. While this
option creates semi-autonomous organizations which could
handle individual tasks easily within the organization, it led to
proliferation and fragmentation of the government apparatus
and reduced the capacity to handle multi-sectoral issues.
Whole-of-government The new coordination practice introduced to address
approach challenges identified in the new public management. It
proposes a public service which works across organizational
boundaries to enable more effective policy development,
implementation and service delivery. In many cases cross-
sectoral agencies were created for coordination. The approach
can also bring about a stronger control of the central
government agency, stronger audit systems and financial
management and can re-establish a common ethics and
cohesive culture which was lost by the new public
management.
Improving Accountability helps indicate the results achieved by the
accountability government using public fund. Major options are through
performance evaluation system (e.g., more transparent record
management and data collection), results-based programme
delivery, citizen charger, and through Right to Public Services
laws.
Public financial Sound public financial management supports the efficient and
management accountable use of public resources, helps macroeconomic and
fiscal stability, and guides allocation of resources to address
national priorities. Countries like Ghana, Mali and Nigeria
improved its financial management, which resulted in e.g.,
double tax revenue and more timely submission of financial
reports.
Stakeholder Participation of citizens in programme delivery brings in more
ownership and accountability, awareness of the citizens, and reduces

4 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
 participation repression and exploitation. Citizens involved will increase the
knowledge, and be empowered, and the participating
organizations will become more vibrant. A work analyzed
approx. 500 studies on participatory development programme
shows that the citizen participation is sustainable beyond
project lifetime only when the citizen organizations are linked
with markets, or skills training is provided.
Decentralization Decentralization of resources and authority to local
governments is a formal way to induce participation.
However, decentralization has to be inclusive (i.e., addressing
issues of less-powerful, e.g., immigrants, minorities, ethnic
groups) and to be accountable. For effective public service
performance, a good balance of centralization and
decentralization has to be sought and to be maintained, with
an option to strengthen local governments so they can take on
more responsibilities.
Political economy of Political context has to be taken into consideration when
reforms designing any strategy on civil service reform. The issues
include power relations involving kinship, ethnicity and
personal factions, as well as party politics and the quality of
political leadership.

Merit-based recruitment
The concept of public service in the industrialized countries developed in the late
nineteenth century, often with the provision of municipal services of gas and water. Later,
other services such as electricity and healthcare got added. However, up to the 19th
century, there was extensive nepotism, favoritism, and political patronage attached with
the staffing and recruitment of public servants, which was often referred to as a "spoils
system". Though some of these characteristics are still prevalent in the first world
countries, things started changing with passage of time in some countries. Transition from
an oppressive to responsive bureaucracy even in these countries has not been smooth or
quick, and has taken almost a century to mature. As state functions and the number of
public servants started increasing rapidly in the post War scenario in Western Europe, the
need to make them more efficient and outcome focused was felt leading to reforms in many
developed countries, such as UK, New Zealand, and Australia. These countries, though not
many others, have aimed to make their bureaucracy have the following characteristics:
 it is merit-based and politically neutral;
 it is well-structured, “right-sized”, and well-paid;
 it is accountable, professional, and generally free of corruption;
 it is relatively autonomous, responsive, and representative; and
 it is well-trained, performance-oriented, and relatively open.

5 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
Although career civil servants in these developed countries are now generally recruited on
merit, ‘spoils’ system continued for short term postings, such as appointments of chairmen
of various public sector boards and advisory committees in UK. The non-transparent
system was changed in UK only in 1994 to reduce perceived cronyism and to lessen public
cynicism. A position of Commissioner for public appointments was created that follows a
Code of Practice governing ministerial appointments to public boards based on merit and
transparency5. For such hybrid appointments in Canada, the Cabinet Secretary’s Office
proposes a list of candidates to the Prime Minister, who selects a candidate from this list
acting on behalf of Cabinet. These recommendations take into account the views (not
necessarily his consent) of the relevant Minister 6. This to a large extent reduces subjective
political judgments.
However, not all countries do merit-based recruitment. Patronage—the discretionary
allocation of public sector jobs to reward followers and to cement political and personal
relationships—continues to be a dominant way government is staffed in most Latin
American countries7. Its use in the governance of Latin America has a long tradition and is
widely spread across authoritarian as well as democratic regimes. Although pressures are
mounting to replace patronage-based public administrations with career civil service
systems, the region’s older systems are proving resistant to the reformers’ criticism.
Civil service laws and regulations have not been regularly enforced in these countries. In
Ecuador for example, 12,000 employees joined the government in 1983; only 300 of them
had taken the required examination; only 10 percent of overall public sector workers had
tenure. In Mexico, up to 30,000 positions change hands when new administrations are
elected. In Panama, only 18 percent of public positions are not available for patronage and
some 25,000 employees were dismissed after elections in 2004. In the Dominican Republic,
some 3,000 employees incorporated into the career system lost their jobs in 2004 as a
result of a change of government. In Colombia, a 2004 law sought to put an end to five
years of legal ambiguity in which provisional appointments reached 38 percent of the
career personnel. In Venezuela, some 7,600 people lost their public sector jobs as a result
of signing a referendum to recall the president in 2004.
The new public management
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, public sectors around the world began to undergo a
significant transformation. Driven by trends towards market based efficiencies, new
technologies and management models, as well as a public call for more responsive and
accountable public services, governments began to move away from state-directed
intervention, adopting market norms for public service delivery, applying business
principles to their operations, and paying new attention to customer choice and

5 Meredith Edwards, John Halligan, Bryan Horrigan, Geoffrey Nicoll 2012: Public Sector Governance in Australia,
ANU E Press Canberra; also Select Committee on Public Administration: Fourth Report at
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmpubadm/165/16505.htm

6 Shepherd Geoffrey 2003: Civil Service Reform in Developing Countries: Why Is It Going Badly? 11th International
Anti-Corruption Conference, 25-28 May, Seoul

7 This section draws heavily from Grindle Merilee S., 2010 ‘Constructing, Deconstructing, and Reconstructing
Career Civil Service Systems in Latin America’, Harvard University, March

6 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
 satisfaction8. Many public sectors embarked on sweeping market-driven reforms:
privatization, deregulation, liberalization, corporatization, outsourcing, subsidy
withdrawal, and budget cuts were introduced in both developed and developing countries.
In general, the movement saw the disaggregation of ministries, departments, and agencies
into executive agencies that had to sign a performance contract with the Ministry but were
given financial and managerial autonomy implementing programmes based on final results
or outcomes, rather than inputs and processes 9. Some countries, such as Singapore, where
privatization has not been a priority as public sector was considered quite efficient opted
for ‘corporatization’ of selected public utilities to introduce business management practices
while still retaining public ownership.

Reforms in Brazil10
As opposed to other Latin American countries, reforms in Brazil initiated in 1995 have
been quite successful. These aimed at fiscal adjustment, making public administration more
efficient and focused on citizens’ needs and creating autonomous agencies controlled
through management performance contracts. Reforms faced political obstacles, resistance
from lower and middle civil servants, unions, leftist political and interest groups; a political
elite in fear of losing privileges; and opposition from the judiciary.
Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira, Minister of State Reform, was the main intellectual and
political architect of the reform. His intellectual leadership was crucial to push these
reforms into the spotlight, convince the government, shape public opinion, influence the
party members, and get the constitutional amendments approved. He was not only adept at
the technical issues but possessed political skills to sell the reforms. His proximity to the
President; and the fact that government had brought an end to a decade of unprecedented
high inflation and per capita income stagnation helped in making him succeed.
Key elements of Bresser‘s reforms included11:
 gaining credibility by implementing reforms which did not depend on legislative approval
but would show immediate improvement such as information technology to manage the
payroll and tackling procurement;
 de-emphasizing procedure in favour of accountability for outcomes, and greater autonomy
to managers for pursuing goals freely as opposed to close supervision and auditing at each
step;
 reforming the entrance system for careers in public service by holding regular public
examinations open to university graduates;

8 Haque, M. S. (2004): Governance and bureaucracy in Singapore: Contemporary reforms and implications.
International Political Science Review, 25(2), 227-240.

9 Haque, M. S. (2003): New public management in Malaysia and Singapore. Journal of Comparative Asian
Development.

10 Simone Bunse and Verena Fritz 2012: Making Public Sector Reforms Work; Policy Research Working Paper 6174
The World Bank August

11 http://www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties/policynotes/view.xml?id=150

7 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
 breaking away from Brazil‘s previous centralization, and strengthening the core and
simultaneous agencification; and
 entrusting the non-profit sector (social organizations) as primarily responsible for a
significant portion of service provision under renewable government contracts, such as in
healthcare and higher education.
These reforms led to a decline in the public sector wage bill (from 50% of federal
expenditure in 1995 to 35% in 2001), the average wage increase of public officials (21% in
2001), and the rising percentage of federal officials with a university degree (from 39% in
1995 to 63% in 2001). In addition, substantive policy change was achieved in
organizational arrangements and personnel legislation. The bureaucratic merit index
which evaluates the degree to which effective guarantees of professionalism in the civil
service are in place and civil servants are effectively protected from arbitrariness,
politicization, and rent-seeking, ranks Brazil amongst the region‘s top performers.
Whole-of-government approach
The new public management (NPM) sought to create semi-autonomous organizations
which could handle individual tasks easily within the organization. But it also led to
proliferation and fragmentation of the government apparatus and reduced the capacity to
handle multi-sectoral issues, such as unemployment, social unrest and climate change that
transcend organizational boundaries and vertical chains of administration. This has led
many countries to introduce new reforms as it has increasingly been recognized that the
specialization of the public sector apparatus furthered by NPM was not fit to tackle the big
issues in society that the government sector was expected to handle. The functional line
ministries and autonomous agencies no longer corresponded with some of the more
complex problems in society, as there was a mismatch between the problem and the
organizational structure12.
The new coordination practices are known by various names, such as whole-of-
government, integrated governance, outcome steering, joined-up governance, holistic
governance, new public governance, networked government, partnerships, connected
government, crosscutting policy, horizontal management or collaborative public
management. A common feature is the notion that working across organizational
boundaries will enable more effective policy development, implementation and service
delivery. These new ideas in a way countered ‘departmentalization’ and a ‘silo mentality’.
Since 2001 Norway has embarked on a major reform, inspired by post-NPM, of its central
welfare administration. It merged the central pensions and employment agencies and
created a local one-stop-shop welfare office in all municipalities. A reorganization in 2008
established regional pension units and administrative back offices in the counties that were
allocated tasks and resources by local units. The reform was to improve service delivery of
pensions through coordination of the three welfare sub-sectors – pensions, employment
and social services so as to make the new welfare administration more user-friendly, to
bring more people on welfare into the workforce and to become more efficient.

12 Tom Christensen 2012: Welfare reform and ‘wicked issues’ – from coupling to de-coupling?, University of Oslo,
Rokkan Centre For Social Studies, Working paper, April

8 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
Much before the idea of NPM got popular the Swedish public administration always had a
number of autonomous implementation government agencies operating at arm’s length
from their ‘home’ ministries. This separation of policy-making and administration has been
practised in Sweden for centuries. However, in 2005 a new Agency was created to
supersede the previous 21 geographically dispersed offices, which is responsible for much
of the social security system. This amalgamation of regional agencies into a mono agency
has helped to bring about a sharp reduction in the number of central government agencies.
In 1990 there were 1,394 agencies; by 2007, the number had fallen to 478 13.
Canada too launched horizontal management initiatives to tackle policy issues such as
innovation, poverty, and climate change. Australia and New Zealand have improved
performance on outcomes and service delivery by rebalancing centre and line ministries,
and through rationalizing public bodies to achieve integration of the agendas of various
agencies. In UK rather aggressive top-down style whole-of-government initiatives were
implemented by the Blair government, which strengthened the role of central government
and established structures such as strategic units, reviews, and public service agreements.
Both UK and New Zealand have a clear hierarchical component in their style of ‘joining-up’.
Central control mechanisms have been enhanced while retaining autonomy for the officials
charged with delivering services, which shows hybrid features. ‘The hierarchical
strengthening of the centre has also led to a stronger prime minister’s office, in both a
political and an administrative sense, as seen in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. It also
implies stronger audit systems, tightening up financial management and strengthening
governance and accountability regimes, as in Canada. Measures like this are primarily
concerned with strengthening central political capacity, potentially making subordinate
agencies and companies less autonomous’14.
In Australia the Prime Minister’s office has been strengthened and the specialized agencies
have been brought under greater central control. The horizontal dimension, seen as even
more important than the vertical, typically concerns policy areas that cut across traditional
boundaries. In Australia and New Zealand 15, for example, new organizational units, such as
new cabinet committees, inter-ministerial or inter-agency collaborative units, inter-
governmental councils, the lead agency approach, and task forces for cross-sectoral
programmes have been established with the main purpose of getting government units to
work better together16.
The post-NPM reforms focus also on values, such as teambuilding, trust, value-based
management, and improving the training and self-development of public servants 17. The
argument is that there is a need to re-establish a ‘common ethic’ and a ‘cohesive culture’ in
13 Johan Quist and Anna Pauloff 2009: Centralisation and specialisation in Swedish public administration; Paper
presented at the EGPA Conference, Saint Julian’s, Malta, 2–5 September 2009

14 Tom Christensen 2012: Welfare reform and ‘wicked issues’ – from coupling to de-coupling?, University of Oslo,
Rokkan Centre For Social Studies, Working paper April; and Tom Christensen and Per Lægreid 2006: NPM and
Beyond: The Second Generation of Reforms, Paper presented at the NASPAA (National Association of Schools of
Public Affairs and Administration) annual conference October 19-21.

15 Tom Christensen and Per Lægreid 2006: NPM and Beyond: The Second Generation of Reforms, Paper presented
at the NASPAA (National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration) annual conference October 19-
21

16 Halligan, J. and J. Adams (2004). “Security, capacity and post-market reforms: Public management change in
2003.” Australia Journal of Public Administration, 63(1): 85-93

9 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
the public sector because of the reported corrosion of loyalty and increasing mistrust
brought about by NPM, which was rooted in diverse economic theories. Services are now
being provided via the internet or by telephone, with the latter entailing the establishment
of large regional call centres.
Improving accountability
Traditional governance structures in many ex-British colonies are characterized by rule-
based approaches. The focus of the civil services in India, for instance, is on process
regulation: compliance with centrally prescribed standards and rules; in other words, how
things should be done and how inputs should be aligned 18. With such focus on processes,
systems in government are oriented towards input usage: how much resources, staff and
facilities are deployed in a scheme, programme or project and whether such deployment is
in accordance with rules and regulations. The main performance measure thus is the
amount of money spent and the success of the schemes, programmes and projects is
generally evaluated in terms of the inputs consumed. Once the allocated money is spent it
is taken for granted that the intended outcomes have been achieved.
While such an approach satisfies the considerations of economy of inputs and compliance
with process regulation, it fails to indicate the results achieved by the activities of
government in general and deployment of public funds in particular. In fact, the focus on
inputs for accountability and control has led to a situation in which civil servants are rarely
held accountable for the outcomes.
Therefore compliance with rules is not sufficient for achieving outcomes. Obviously, the
objective must be to shift the focus away from traditional concerns such as expenditure and
activity levels towards a framework that would manage for results by developing robust
indicators to assess performance in terms of results. This has been tried in many countries
by developing performance evaluations systems, simplifying budgetary procedures,
improving stakeholder participation, and through decentralization of authority. We discuss
below these innovations.
Performance evaluation system
Accountability for results requires an effective performance evaluation system, because if
one cannot measure results, then one should forget about achieving results in the
government. In addition to setting goals and objectives, one should establish institutions to
determine whether one is achieving them or moving away from them. Not doing so is
analogous to giving medicine to a diabetic patient without having the ability to monitor
blood sugar levels.
At present, field officials in many countries spend a great deal of time in collecting and
submitting information, but this is not used for taking corrective and remedial action or for
analysis, but only for forwarding it to a higher level. As data is often not verified or
collected through independent sources, field officials are prone to reporting inflated data,
which renders monitoring ineffective. The field officials are thus able to escape from any
17 Ling, T. (2002). “Delivering joined up government in the UK: dimensions, issues and problems.” Public
Administration, 80 (4): 615-642

18 Administrative Reforms Commission, 2008: ‘Performance Management System.’ X Report of the Second
Administrative Reforms Commission. New Delhi, Government of India.

10 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
sense of accountability. The situation can easily be corrected if governments show greater
transparency in record management by putting all relevant information on a website,
coupled with frequent field inspections by an independent team of experts, and
nybeneficiary stakeholders.
Government of India by passing the Right to Information Act in 2005 has to a large extent
improved transparency and accountability of public servants. In addition, free press,
judicial activism and civil society action have also emerged in India as a big corrective
factor on the arbitrary use of executive power. After witnessing the enormous impact that
the Act made in India, Bangladesh too passed the Right to Information (RTI) Act on March
29, 200919. Its success requires due publicity and creation of strong demand to achieve its
potential. The strong network of Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that already
exists in Bangladesh has helped people to obtain their entitlements of health care, food,
education, and other services.
Programme delivery through results based management
Results based management is a programme/project life-cycle approach to management
that integrates strategy, people, resources, processes and measurements to improve
decision-making, transparency, and accountability. The approach focuses on achieving
outcomes, implementing performance measurement, learning, and adapting, as well as
reporting performance20.
Several governments around the world have recently established ‘delivery units’ at the
centre of government to drive performance improvements. This development may be in
addition to whole-of government reforms to improve performance, such as citizen charters,
service agreements, or performance reporting. Examples of such units include the UK‘s
Prime Minister‘s Delivery Unit, the Cabinet Secretariat for Performance Management in
India, Indonesia‘s Presidential Unit, Malaysia‘s Performance Management Delivery Unit
(PEMANDU), and South Africa‘s ‘Delivery Unit,’ which falls under the planning commission
in the Premier‘s Office. Such delivery units have a distinctive role of chasing progress on
behalf of the head of government, monitor the performance of key government policies,
provide a forum for coordination, and give a clear signal that government is holding
ministers and senior staff to account for delivering the government's key priorities 21.
In Indonesia, the Delivery Unit is located in the Vice President's Office and focuses on
delivery of the 11 major priorities of government. In Malaysia, the Delivery Unit is located
in the Prime Minister's Office, reflecting the implementation and service delivery
leadership role of the PM, focusing on the key results areas. The equivalent unit in Chile is
being developed in the President's Office. It is important that the unit is given the full
support of the highest level of the executive, with most located close to, and enjoying the
direct patronage of, the President or Vice President.

19 The Power of Using the Right to Information Act in Bangladesh: Experiences from the Ground, World Bank, at
http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/Data/wbi/wbicms/files/drupal-acquia/wbi/Final%20version%20-%20The%20Benefits
%20of%20Using%20the%20RTI%20Act%20in%20Bangladesh.pdf

20 http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/rbm
21 GET Note: Center of Government Delivery Units, “Recently Asked Questions” Series November 2010 at
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTGOVANTICORR/Resources/3035863-1285601351606/NovemberGetNote.pdf

11 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
Citizen Charters
Citizen Charters (CCs) are public agreements between citizens and service delivery
providers that clearly lay down expectations and standards in the realm of service delivery.
Introduced by the United Kingdom in the early 1990s, CCs are now being tried in a number
of countries—including the United States, Kenya, India, Jamaica, and Mexico—to improve
the quality of service delivery and enhance public sector management. At the outset, it is
important to note that the success of CC interventions is contingent on promoting
substantial process-oriented, organizational, and cultural changes within service delivery
organizations. Accordingly, while drafting a CC is a step in the right direction, the
effectiveness of CC interventions ultimately depends on engaging stakeholders and
establishing a clear commitment to making the CC part of an organization’s “DNA” 22. The
extent to which CCs are effective is based on a number of interrelated factors: they must
reflect citizens’ priorities, have the support of senior management and staff, and include a
well-functioning grievance redress mechanism.
Box 1: Mayor’s declaration in Philippines*
Since 2001, we have been issuing what we call a Citizens Charter. We passed a
local law requiring City Hall to have the Citizens Charter updated every three
years. That charter tells you exactly what the city government is going to do for
residents of the city. For instance, issuance of business permits, issuance of
building permits, who is responsible, what are the fees, and the like. All that
information is published in a book. The book is distributed to residents of the city
so they know exactly what they can expect of their City Hall. This minimizes
corruption significantly. When you know the procedures, when you know who is
responsible for the procedures, it makes the system transparent and accountable.
—Jesse Robredo, Mayor of Naga, Philippines
* http://bit.ly/YOZ11E

Right to Public Services Laws23

One positive development in India has been the enactment of the Right-to-Public-Services
Acts by several state governments with five declared intents: (a) assurance of the service,
(b) service within a stipulated time frame, (c) holding designated officers accountable, (d) a
system of grievance redressal by two stage appeal, and (e) a system of penalty and fine for
delay/denial in service. The services may include documents (certificates, licences and
permits), cash (pension, stipends) and kind (electricity, water connections). It is
encouraging to note the enthusiasm of the State bureaucracy in pushing for its
implementation, as they are taking proactive steps to digitize parts or the whole of the
service delivery system connected with these services, with clear internal control and
transparency built in it.
One good example is Bihar, the poorest state in north India, where the designated monitor
can track each application by name on his/her computer screen. The enthusiasm of the
State governments, at a time when the political class and bureaucracy are suffering from
22 World Bank, Citizen Charters: Enhancing Service Delivery through Accountability
23 Based on Sircar, Ashok Kumar. 2012: ‘The Right-to-Public-Services Laws,’ Economic and Political Weekly, 47(18).
5 May

12 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
low public credibility, is probably an indicator of a conscious political attempt to regain the
faith of the middle class in the political and bureaucratic system. These rights-based
legislations are clearly an attempt to regenerate faith in public administration in the Hindi
heartland well known for its fractured polity and unstable political allegiance.
One way to bring in accountability is to start the system of holding public hearings in
matters pertaining to the works handled by each office. Prominent social workers and
NGOs should be associated with this exercise for more productive results. The teams would
undertake surveys of quality of service delivery in key areas; scrutinize policies
programmes and delivery mechanisms. Civil servant’s views on work constraints and
reporting fraud and corruption should be elicited. The reviews conducted should also form
the basis of time bound changes and improvements which should be monitored.
Needless to say that such comprehensive reforms need for their sustenance strong political
and administrative will from the top. In its absence, reforms remain only on paper.
Accountability has to be induced; it cannot be decreed by fiat. Accountability is a result of a
complex set of incentives, transparency in processes and decision making, and checks and
balances at various levels of government. Thus, the seniors in the government departments
have to put their weight behind new accountability systems and review it from time to
time.
Public financial management: Tracking resources for better results
Sound public financial management is an essential part of good governance. It supports the
efficient and accountable use of public resources, helps foster macroeconomic and fiscal
stability, and guides allocation of resources to address national priorities. Since resources
can leak wherever systems are weak, public financial management covers all phases of the
budget cycle including budget preparation, internal control and audit, procurement,
monitoring and reporting arrangements, and external audits. While fiscal deficits are
common, some countries have difficulty in spending the available resources effectively, and
departments are obliged to return resources to the Finance Ministry at the end the fiscal
year. Identifying the symptoms and their causes is thus an essential prerequisite to
designing reforms24.
The World Bank has identified six objectives in public financial management: Policy-based
budgeting; Predictability and control in budget execution, accounting, recording and
reporting expenditure; External scrutiny and audit; Comprehensiveness and transparency;
Budget credibility; and sound donor practices.
Often departments are not able to spend their budget allocations within time. This may be
due to many reasons, such as inability to find contractors to build the planned facilities;
shortage of trained staff (e.g. teachers, nurses) to deliver the services, or capacity
constraints in the administration to design, manage and deliver the programmes 25. Often
the budget cycle is too short for full utilization of funds for capital works. Expenditure
budget should be valid for two to five years, so that capital expenditure can be completed
without surrender of funds. In Singapore, expenditure budget is valid for five years, and
24 European Commission 2009: Public Sector Reform, An Introduction, January, at
http://www.uquebec.ca/observgo/fichiers/10454_GRA-1.pdf

25 European Union 2009 Public Sector Reform, An Introduction, March

13 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
Departments are free to exceed or delay their annual allocation without any reference to
Parliament (see Box below).

Box 2: Establishing accountability between budgets

and performance in Singapore*
Each Ministry in Singapore sets a spending ceiling for the next 5
years, which is derived through a zero-based approach, whereby the
Ministry’s line item expenditure patterns and needs are used to
determine a baseline budget. Until the next 5-yearly review, the
baseline budget will grow in proportion with the smoothened GDP
growth rate, which means that each Ministry’s annual spending
ceiling is automatically adjusted to economic conditions. Within this
ceiling, Ministry of Finance (MOF) empowers the line Ministries to
make spending decisions based on their respective strategic
outcomes and priorities. Ministries can borrow, with interest, in one
year against allocations in subsequent years or to rollover funds
from one year to subsequent years. They are also able to tap on
budget savings they had set aside during the past three years.
Hence, the 5-year spending ceiling provides certainty, predictability
and fiscal discipline for funding in the medium term, while allowing
for some degree of flexibility in adjusting annual nominal budgets
through the allowance for carry forwards, advances and rollovers.
While block budgets provide Ministries with a great deal of
autonomy, this decentralised approach to budget management is
balanced by accountability measures such as budget feedback
mechanisms to ensure that resources are allocated efficiently and
used effectively. Key performance indicators are developed and
monitored by Ministries to support whole-of-government outcomes
developed jointly by MOF and line Ministries. Performance
information is used mainly by the relevant Ministries in assessing
strategy, though the MOF does use the information when evaluating
each Ministry’s block budget and medium term funding needs.
Block budgeting produces strong incentives for Ministries to reduce
waste and improve their processes, and imbues public agencies with
more confidence to make investments for the future. It transforms
the nature of dialogue between the MOF and the ministries — from
short-term oriented haggling over detailed budget allocations to
longer-range discussions about medium-term strategic priorities
and outcomes.
* Saxena, N.C. 2011. Singapore Public Service and National Development, Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, Singapore 2011

14 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
 Ghana26 improved its budget classification system and identification of pro-poor spending
to enable the better management and tracking of spending. It brought in regular
reconciliation of accounting and banking data to assure the integrity of budget expenditure
reporting and reduced expenditure payment arrears. In budget reporting, it improved the
classification of in-year expenditure reports to match the budget and enable closer
management of spending to improve accounting accuracy. Progress was shown by the
2006 budget being the first to be enacted before the start of the financial year, an
achievement repeated in subsequent years. The budgets also gave more information about
internally-generated funds and donor grants. Key factors that helped produce progress
include strong country commitment to improving public financial management
performance, an external assessment that highlighted weaknesses, and a government-led
reform strategy. International Development Association (IDA) helped by providing
technical assistance, analysis, and donor co-ordination to support the government strategy
and lending.
Mali has also made good progress in strengthening budget preparation and execution. A
medium term expenditure framework has been introduced and extended to several
ministries. Budget execution has been improved by decentralizing important functions
from the Ministry of Finance to spending ministries, increasing their responsibility and
management for a smooth budget process. Government leadership around public financial
management reforms is well-supported by donors, including IDA.
In Nigeria, IDA has helped the federal government since 2003 to make progress on
macroeconomic and governance reforms, including the introduction of an independent oil
price fiscal rule. To promote governance reforms at the sub-national level, where about 50
percent of public expenditures take place, the World Bank has supported three states in
improving their public financial management and public administration and law reforms.
The project helped double tax revenues of two states, while at the same time cutting in half
the time to submit relevant financial reports.
Improving stakeholder ownership and participation
Participation of the local people in programme delivery not only improves the confidence
of the women and other marginalised groups in themselves, but also
 makes bureaucracy more accountable and hence improves the efficiency and
effectiveness of government programmes;
 improves their awareness and hence makes them better recipients of intended
benefits of government programmes;
 ensures that multinational corporations and big business (often they also control
media and are able to project their interests as national interests) do not dominate policy
and implementation; and
 reduces repression and exploitation.
In the recent years, participation and empowerment has been one of the goals in many
development programmes. However it has often remained more or less rhetoric, as an
26 These examples have been taken from Public Financial Management: Tracking Resources for Better Results, at
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/IDA/Resources/IDA-PFM.pdf

15 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
ideology without a methodology. Much of the development effort continues to be supply
driven, top-down, does not involve people, non-transparent, and hence full of leakages and
not sustainable27.
A limited view is that participation means getting people to agree to and go along with a
project which has already been designed for them, or to get support of a few leaders. This
has been the approach in many development schemes that did not work. People did not
identify themselves with the assets created such as the hand pump or trees planted, nor did
they undertake the responsibility of maintenance of assets. "I manage, you participate",
was the dominant underlying principle behind such projects. These tended to try to make
people aware of their responsibility without giving them any authority to spend funds or to
manage assets. People's participation was then expressed not in a manner that would
establish their rights over assets, land or its produce. The important question is,
‘participation for whose benefit, and on what terms?’
Participation should include the notions of contributing, influencing, sharing, or
redistributing power and of control, resources, benefits, knowledge, and skills to be gained
through beneficiary involvement in decision making. Participation is a voluntary process
by which people, including the disadvantaged (in income, gender, caste, or education),
influence or control the decisions that affect them. The essence of participation is
exercising voice and choice, and developing the human, organizational and management
capacity to solve problems as they arise in order to sustain the improvements.
Outcomes and indicators of participation28
Participation in decision making is an important capacity building process. As people
participate in making new decisions and solving problems, learning takes place. This
learning is internalized, because it is accomplished experientially. It therefore leads to
changes in attitude, behaviour, confidence, and leadership. Newly acquired knowledge is
therefore the first outcome of participation.
Empowerment is a result of participation in decision making. An empowered person is one
who can take initiative, exert leadership, display confidence, solve new problems, mobilise
resources, and undertake new actions. Empowerment, it is hypothesized, is an important
outcome of high levels of participation involving control over decision making for a range
of activities. Hence empowerment is a leading outcome of successful capacity building at
the individual and institutional levels.
The third outcome is organization building. Decentralized programmes require strong local
organizations. When local organizations get the opportunity to manage resources and
support development, they can become stronger. Participation in decision making is
hypothesized to strengthen the capacity of local organization to carry out activities. Local
organizations can be a few people working on joint management committees, or a village
council, or organizations of several villages.

27 Saxena N.C. 2012, Administrative Reforms for Better Governance, National Social Watch, New Delhi
28 Saxena N.C., Nadine Speich, and Paul Steele (2005), Review of the Poverty - Environment Links Relevant to the
IUCN programme, April, IUCN, Geneva

16 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
These three outcomes of participation – learning, empowerment, and a vibrant
organization – need to be measured through observable indicators, which will vary from
project to project. Each project must develop clearly observable indicators on people’s
participation, so as to judge whether they are on track or not. Such indicators should then
be given to monitors and evaluators, who have to do mid-course evaluation and impact
assessment.
A report29 analyzing almost 500 studies on participatory development programmes shows
that in the short run distributing cash or other material payoffs induce people to
participate, but such benefits are not sustainable in the long term. After the source of funds
from the project dries up, committees are disbanded or abandoned, and the livelihood base
of the poor remains only marginally improved, if at all. ‘Only when projects explicitly link
community-based organizations with markets, or provide skills training, do they tend to
improve group cohesiveness and collective action beyond the life of the project’. The report
also suggests that outcomes are better when formal decentralized institutions are created
with resource allocation in favour of the disadvantaged.
Decentralization30
A more formal way for inducing local participation is decentralization of resources and
authority to local governments. Since the early 1990s, many developing countries have
taken bold policy decisions to promote decentralized governance. Some examples are:
transferring decision making powers to province-level and district-level governments
(regencies and municipalities) in Indonesia, creating elected councils at the sub-district and
village level in India and entrusting them with implementation of development
programmes, replacing the bureaucrat as district head by an elected nazim (administrator)
in Pakistan, and allocating spending responsibilities in Vietnam to lower level governments
at the province, district and the commune (a group of villages) level through their
respective elected People’s Councils.
Major arguments put forward in favour of decentralization are: increased grass-root
democracy, protection of freedom and human rights, increased efficiency through
delegation of responsibility, higher quality of services, and enhancement of social and
economic development aimed at overall poverty reduction.
However, local governments may lack the capacity to translate national visions and
strategies into concrete measures. The legal and regulatory system may not provide for full
and meaningful participation of citizens in resource allocation and expenditure decisions.
In such a situation local service delivery may deteriorate where financial and
administrative capacity is weak. Increased local authority without adequate capacity may
allow the elite to dominate local politics. It may lead to increased corruption, especially
when financial oversight of local officials is weak. Hence capacity development instruments
must accompany along with decentralization, or follow soon after creation of local
institutions.

29 Mansuri, Ghazala, and Vijayendra Rao. 2013. Localizing Development: Does Participation Work? Washington, DC:
World Bank

30This section is based on author’s paper for UNDP available at

http://www.thepowerofhow.org/uploads/resource/CD_Strategies_to_support_Decentralization_in_Asia_27.pdf

17 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
Such policy instruments may be: clear assignment of decision making powers with
appropriate administrative staff and functions, fiscal decentralization, promoting
participation and decision making by the people through locally elected councils with
special attention to the marginalized sections of society including women, and most
importantly, building accountability relations.
In Cambodia decentralization reforms took place in January 2001 which provided citizens
to elect commune councillors. However, there is a general lack of clarification and
delineation of mandatory and optional tasks in service delivery. No significant public
service has been delegated to commune (called sangkat) councils. De-concentration to
these councils has been confined to relatively routine activities such as civil and voter
registration and the collection of basic statistical information related to development
planning. Despite the commune/sangkat’s capacity to do much more, there is a hesitation
or unwillingness of most national ministries to delegate substantial powers to any sub-
national agency31.
On the other hand, transfer of power to provinces and district governments in Indonesia
has been accompanied with transfer of about two million central civil servants to the
regions and districts, which has built the capacity at the local level and improved service
delivery, besides strengthening grassroots democracy.
One of the ways to assess the extent of financial decentralization is to study the ratio of
sub-national share in total revenues and expenditure. China and Mongolia have a sub-
national share of public expenditures over 30 percent, while Malaysia and Indonesia are
under 20 percent, and Philippines and Thailand under 10 percent 32. However, higher
expenditure at the local level should be matched with higher tax collection at that level. For
instance, the share of local bodies in total revenues is less than five per cent in India,
rendering them totally dependent on central and state governments for devolution of
funds.
It is tempting to argue that the more dependent local bodies are on their own citizens for
financial resources, the more likely they are to use scarce material resources to promote
their perceived development needs. They should therefore not only decide the rate of taxes
(subject to a minimum prescribed from above) on land, irrigation, drinking water, power,
new construction, and houses, but also be given the authority to levy taxes on politically
unpopular subjects such as agricultural income on large holdings. However this view point
has been contested in some empirical studies33.

31 CHHIV Yiseang and Philippe LAFOSSE 2007, Deconcentration, Decentralization and Poverty Alleviation: The Case
of Cambodia, paper presented at the International Conference on "Public Administration and Governance at the
Forefront of Change: Dimensions, Dynamics, Dysfunctions and Solutions" December 5-7, Manila, Philippines

32 Fiscal Decentralization and Citizen Participation in East Asia, at

http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/apcity/unpan049833.pdf

33 . There is an interesting IDS report, which asserts that “governments of countries that are administratively
decentralized (deconcentration) tend to spend a higher proportion of their revenues on pro-poor social spending
while politically decentralized states spend little on social sectors. The research concludes that “there is no
consistent, significant statistical association between the degree of fiscal decentralization and pro-poor public
spending. See Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex: www.id21.org/society/s8aas1g1.html

18 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
Box 3: Indirectly elected district nazims in Pakistan –
accountable to whom*?
The indirect election of the district nazim (administrator) in
Pakistan complicates the accountability linkage with voters because
the re-election of an incumbent nazim is not decided directly by the
voters, but rather by a few hundred union councillors who function
at the sub-district level. Indirect elections like these raise the
potential for abuse. Nazims are very conscious of the need to keep
their "electoral college" (i.e., the union councillors) on board.
Therefore, they often decide to use funds by parcelling out small
sums to councils in order to try to secure support. As a result, union
administrations may not be left with sums needed to carry out the
schemes their constituents need, particularly water and sanitation
for rural areas. Conversely, where nazims have used other criteria
to allocate development funds between union councils, those who
have received little funds have accused the nazim of partisan
behaviour.
* Manning N., Porter D., Charlton J., Cyan M. and Hasnain Z. (2003): Devolution in
Pakistan – preparing for service delivery improvements, Working Paper prepared
for the Forum on Intergovernmental Relations and Service Delivery in Pakistan
27-29 June 2003

Safeguards against elite capture

The overall outcome of decentralization in developing countries is mixed: good and not so
good cases of success. Despite an elaborate legal framework to ensure participation of
weaker sections of citizens in resources, benefits and services, elite domination prevails.
For instance, public goods provided by the local government are community and site
specific and it is often possible to exclude immigrants, minorities, or some other ethnic
groups. Specific safeguards are needed to protect their interests.
Accountability is a prerequisite for improving public sector performance, and information
is the key to accountability. Unless the public knows what public goods and services are
provided, how well they are provided, who the beneficiaries are, how much the goods and
services cost, and who paid for them, local constituencies will not encourage effective
government34.
Through a carefully designed methodology, it is possible to measure the performance of
local institutions, and to what extent they are inclusive and participative. Their
performance should be publicised so as to increase the sense of competition amongst them.
Bangalore (a metropolitan city in South India) and several other Indian districts use report
cards to evaluate service delivery, Uganda requires beneficiary feedback on some
government services, and Nicaragua used a series of public opinion surveys to reform the
bus system and adjust fares.

34 http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/decentralization/what.htm

19 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
Decentralization may reduce the imbalance between the centre and the regions, but, in the
absence of appropriate accountability norms, it may increase the disparity between the
richer and the poorer regions. For instance, the concern of some Indonesian and foreign
experts is that in the absence of transparency and accountability at the local level,
decentralization could bring about corruption and the rise of “little kings” in the regions. In
this regard, it is worth noting that the experience of the Philippines with decentralization
was not entirely successful. According to former Philippine Presidential Adviser Jose
Almonte, some of the unintended effects included corruption at the local level, emergence
of fiefdoms, and degradation of services formerly delivered by the central government.
To sum up, effective public service performance requires both, centralization and
decentralization, and a healthy balance between the two needs to be maintained for
effective and efficient functioning of government. There are some functions that cannot or
should not be financed and managed in a decentralized fashion. Even when national
governments decentralize responsibilities, they should retain crucial policy and
supervisory roles. At the same time they should create such enabling conditions that allow
local units of administration to become effective. With passage of time the local
governments could take on more responsibilities.
Political economy of reforms
While designing any strategy for reforming the civil services of developing countries the
political context has to be kept in view. Trying to promote a universal model of reforms
along the lines of UK or New Zealand in which civil servants are chosen on merit, protected
from arbitrary removal, and remain politically neutral is not likely to succeed unless there
is political consensus amongst the national elite on such a model. Power in many countries
is intrinsically linked with kinship, ethnicity or personal factions that shape the roles,
behaviours and expectations of all stakeholders. Institutions and personal interests in such
countries may thwart formal incentive and accountability systems and prevent
mobilization on the basis of shared interests rather than narrow sectional loyalties, and
thus influencing negatively on the outcomes of civil service reforms 35.
Even in many democracies of the developing countries the quality of public management
depends to a large extent on the nature of party politics and the quality of political
leadership. There is a growing belief widely shared among the political and bureaucratic
elite in many governments that state is an arena where public office is to be used for
private ends. Immediate political pressures for distribution of patronage are so intense that
there is no time or inclination for the ministers and bureaucrats to improve governance, do
conceptual thinking to design good programmes, weed out those that are not functioning
well, and monitor the programmes with a view to take remedial action to improve the
effectiveness of delivery.
External donor pressure for reforms is thus often nullified due to resistance from those
who stand to lose from the reforms. The losers may not only be the politicians, often civil
servants too oppose reforms. Although many senior civil servants in India hold the view
that it is the nature of politics that largely determines the nature of the civil service and the
ends to which it would be put and, therefore, civil service reforms cannot succeed in

35 http://www.ids.ac.uk/idsproject/the-political-economy-of-successful-governance-reforms
20 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and
Opportunities
isolation, causation is also in the other direction. Non-performing administration leaves
little choice to the politicians but to resort to populist rhetoric and sectarian strategies 36.
Harun37 argues that civil servants in Indonesia opposed reforms as it meant downsizing or
reduction in their wages or perks. More accurate monitoring and reporting of financial
operations were also seen as a direct threat to their income levels in Indonesia where the
dependence on non-salary, quasi-legal or illegal forms of remuneration of bureaucrats is
significant. In such countries therefore a short term goal could be ‘just enough
governance’38, where the initial focus is only on economic growth, with the aim of
addressing specific capacity and institutional constraints affecting growth, and not seeking
to address in one go all possible institutional constraints affecting delivery of government
programmes.
Conventional administrative reforms in the developing world have had a mixed record for
several reasons. A major problem is in mobilizing the kind of political and administrative
will necessary to implement them. Vested interests are able to block many reforms and
make it difficult to monitor the few that tend to get adopted. It could also be that people are
not certain about the final outcome of some of these reforms. As a result, many ambitious
reforms are proposed in official reports that are seldom acted on. Much time and money
are wasted on exercises that produce no impact on the ground.
However political pressures may also act in the positive direction if reforms result in better
outcomes for the masses. In India, for instance, lately there has been a growing realization
among some chief ministers (Bihar, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh are good examples) on the
need to improve governance, and this has paid political dividends as they have been able to
overcome anti-incumbency factors and have been able to get re-elected in the elections.
Even in these states reforms have not been to the liking of many politicians as giving up
patronage based administration in favour of building institutions has immediate costs and
gains are delayed. The successful Chief Ministers have had to keep legislative assembly
members and ministers under check, which is difficult when the state is under a coalition
regime or the ruling party is constrained by a thin margin in the assembly, or is divided
into factions. However the repeated electoral success of some chief ministers has certainly
put pressure on others to professionalise administration and deliver on their promises.
Conditions for success
The local context in both low-income and middle-income countries may favour as well as
oppose public sector reforms. Incentives for initiating public sector reforms include
globalization, regional integration, or aid dependency 39. Intensive economic growth (and
the shifts in interests and pressures accompanying it) appears to be a potentially powerful
driver for public sector reforms. Brazil, China, and India have all been undertaking a range
36 Saxena N.C. 2010, The IAS Officer – predator or victim?, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, Vol. 48, No. 4,
November, 445–456

37 Harun 2007: Obstacles to Public Sector Accounting Reforms in Indonesia‘ Bulletin of Indonesian Economic
Studies Vol. 43 No. 3, pp. 365-376

38 Brian Levy & Francis Fukuyama, 2010: Development Strategies: Integrating Governance and Growth; Policy
Research Working Paper 5196, The World Bank January

39 European Commission 2009: Public Sector Reform, An Introduction, January, at

http://www.uquebec.ca/observgo/fichiers/10454_GRA-1.pdf

21 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
of public administration reforms in recent years – albeit often unfinished – that have
feedback links with their economic development 40. However, this may not be true for all
countries.
Many central Asian countries, such as Uzbekistan have shown high rates of economic
growth without following the route of traditional governance reforms, such as
‘fundamental improvements in the security of property rights, transparency of state
actions, checks and balances for state institutions, accountability of government officials
and regular channels of participation in decision-making – all culminating in effective rule
of law.’ This is due to the growth pattern in such countries which is based on export of
natural resources (oil, gas) or labour-intensive raw materials (cotton), commodities that
allow high degrees of monopoly at the expense of broad-based pro-poor economic
development. The manufacturing and service sectors, by contrast, remain underdeveloped,
unable to compete in international markets41. Governance as well as human rights affairs in
such countries continue to be run with medieval outlook.
Globalization, increased international competition and volatile capital flows enable
capitalists to push for administrative reforms that reduce transaction costs (ports, customs,
courts), level the competitive playing field (monopoly and trade regulations), and enhance
transparency (budgets, international reserves, monetary policy) 42. Globalization is
associated with a speedy dissemination of ideas, and success in one country puts pressure
on its neighbours to follow its example. In Sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana pioneered the
introduction of autonomous agencies in an attempt to improve public service delivery.
After transforming its Rural Water and Sanitation Department to an agency, other
countries, including Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and Zambia, followed suit 43.
Reforms designed to improve efficiency and reduce waste and corruption may have a
better chance of success if there is a free media and electoral competition with open
elections. Free media and elections transmit demands for change and can be useful in
holding politicians and officials to account. On the other hand, it can also be argued that
significant improvement in the functional capability of the state often takes 10 to 20 years,
if not more, which is clearly beyond the life-cycle of a single government for most
democratic countries. Therefore the argument that implementing reforms in autocratic
regimes is easier than in democratic regimes (given the limited opposition forces, and less
dependence on electoral cycles) is quite appealing keeping in view the success achieved in
Vietnam, China, and Singapore. However these countries are also endowed with a strong
civil service, which is one of several reasons why in several East Asian economies,
especially Japan, China, Singapore and South Korea, authoritarianism has coexisted with
excellent economic performance. It can be argued that the link between authoritarianism
and economic decline, so evident in Africa, has been inoperative in these Asian countries
40 Gaetani, F. (2003): Public Management Policy Change in Brazil: 1995-1998‘ International Public Management
Journal No 6, Vol. 3, pp. 327-41

41 Jörn Grävingholt, 2011: The Political Economy of Governance Reforms in Central Asia, German Development
Institute

42 Blanca Heredia and Ben Ross Schneider 1998: The Political Economy of Administrative Reform: Building State
Capacity in Developing Countries, March, at http://lasa.international.pitt.edu/LASA98/Heredia-Schneider.pdf

43 Mansuri, Ghazala, and Vijayendra Rao. 2013. Localizing Development: Does Participation Work? Washington, DC:
World Bank

22 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
Box 4: Factors behind Singapore’s success
How is it that Singapore has been so successful in building up an efficient civil service? This is
because of the successful implementation of the following five policies: (1) the adoption of anti-
corruption measures; (2) selective recruitment of the 'best and brightest'; (3) competitive pay;
(4) massive computerization leading to transparency and greater consumer satisfaction; and (5)
linking promotion and pay increments with both potential and actual output of the public
servant.
While these policies promote individual excellence, attention has also been given to maximize
institutional outcomes through (1) delegation of authority for operational decisions to
autonomous agencies, while retaining the power of oversight with central agencies; (2) instilling
in organizations a sense of pride and ownership of their outcomes through training and ethical
movements; (3) linking performance measurement systems of institutions with incentives and
awards for innovative practices; and (4) leading by example which transmits strong values and
principles of good governance socially rather than formally throughout the organization.
It must be noted that the city-state’s situation is evidently very different from many developing
countries. In coordinating the supply of trained personnel to meet the needs of the expanding
economy, Singapore has one distinct advantage when compared with other countries. Its small
geographical size and compactness (supported by an excellent communication infrastructure),
besides lowering transaction costs associated with monitoring bureaucratic behaviour, allow for
efficient planning, cohesive decision making, channelling of information, and deployment of
personnel within and between the government and private sectors. Another is the virtuous circle
through which resources for bureaucratic reform (such as civil service pay increases) have both
contributed to, and been generated by, Singapore’s remarkable economic ascent.
In addition to rules and procedures, performance of an organization is also influenced by its
culture, which is created by and springs from the beliefs, values and assumptions of the
founders of the organization. The early generations of leaders in Singapore, such as Lee Kuan
Yew, Goh Keng Swee, and Rajaratnam, strongly believed in building up an effective civil service
based on integrity, meritocracy and result orientation that would facilitate economic growth and
social development. Overtime, these values were internalized by the civil service, and since then
have stood as guiding principles for its policies and programmes.
Culture has also influenced the relations between state and the people. The success of the
paternal culture that has developed in Singapore as regards how people view government is to
some extent aided by the ingrained Asian values of respect and trust towards authority. The fact
that two generations back most Singaporeans were immigrants with no sense of identification
with the state and its politics, but at the same time hard working, rugged, pragmatic and
concerned with their own economic development, has also helped in the evolution of state-

largely because of their strong civil service. Greater efficiency and effectiveness can
legitimately be demanded of public administrations in many East Asian countries. Clearly,
civil service systems in many East Asian countries cannot be considered a problem; they
are, rather, an important part of the solution to these countries’ other problems.
Though freedom of the media is limited in Malaysia, an alliance of business interests,
politicians and civil servants supported the need for efficiency and flexibility in public
services, in the interests of national development and economic growth. Mahatir, as Prime
Minister of Malaysia, explicitly rejected western style liberal democracy and yet pushed
through reforms of the civil service from early in his incumbency. China, a one-party state,
has implemented extensive public sector reforms, including reforms to recruitment,
performance pay, avoiding over-reliance on deference and hierarchy, etc. 44 Sometimes an
44 European Union, Public Sector Reform An Introduction March 2009

23 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
overarching goal such as membership of the European Union for the Central Eastern
European countries may put pressure on governments to pursue reforms 45.
In some cases, socio-economic and political dynamics often run counter to reform attempts,
especially when these threaten the elites who enjoy privileges such as access to jobs, public
sector contracts, and regulatory distortions. Therefore the operational design for reforms
must explicitly build in the specific country context and should have the support from key
political leaders.
Summing up
A good civil service is necessary, but not sufficient for good governance; a bad civil service
is sufficient, but not necessary for bad governance 46. However, as argued earlier, efficiency
cannot be defined narrowly only in terms of achieving the stated goals of the regime in a
cost effective manner. This is because a competent civil service may serve interests of the
elite only, and be sometimes indifferent to the interest of the poor, women, and minorities,
even in democracies. Therefore public service reforms should not only aim at delivering
public services to the people, especially the disadvantaged, but should also aim at making
them equal partners in administration and policy-making. Rather than look upon people as
mere users of government services, the new way of developing public institutions is to
argue that ‘people are the main value creators for a number of traditional public goods and
an increasing number of public policy issues’ 47. This shifts the relationship between
government and people from one of subordination and dependency to one of parity,
mutuality and reciprocity.
Some of the constraints identified in this paper that impede fulfillment of the above
mentioned objectives and programme delivery are patronage based personnel
management, antiquated and dilatory budgetary procedures, lack of focus on performance
evaluation, disempowered citizenry, and insufficient accountability systems that are
merely internal and upwards. The civil service's accountability to the public may be limited.
While internal administrative accountability should be strengthened, it is rarely sufficient,
because internal controls are often ineffective—especially when the social ethos tolerates
collusion between supervisors and subordinates. Outward accountability with greater
responsiveness to the needs of the people would need new institutions of citizen’s charter,
social audit, and transparency laws. People should be able to contribute and share power
and resources, and be involved in decision making through appropriate decentralization
mechanisms. The paper has discussed an imaginative range of possible prescriptions for
enhancing outward administrative accountability to society and citizens. For instance,
Right to Information Act has been used in many countries to curb misuse of power and to
promote transparency and fairness in decision making by the agents of the state.
Regulators have been set up to control tariff where delivery of public service has been
outsourced. Autonomous and powerful vigilance commissions have been set up to control

45 Simone Bunse and Verena Fritz 2012 fn

46 Schiavo-Campo, S., de Tommaso, G., & Mukherjee, A. (1997). World Bank policy research working paper 1771:
Government Employment and Pay in Global Perspective: a Selective Synthesis of International Facts, Policies and
Experience.

47 http://www.nsworld.org/findings/Why-is-a-New-Synthesis-of-Public-Administration-Needed%3F/Citizens-as-Value-
Creators

24 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
 corruption. The number of countries aiming at better governance is likely to increase in
future because of internal pressure from their own citizens and civil society, as well as
because of external pressure from globalization and
The Centre should aim international organizations. As discussed below, it would be
to be a platform for useful if the new Global Centre at Singapore can disseminate
public service knowledge about these best practices to all concerned.
practitioners from both
the developing and
developed world to be
able to participate in
generation, production
and dissemination of
knowledge based on
experiences from the
field.

Caption of the photo

Credit of the photo
POLICY OPTIONS AND ACTIONS
ROLE FOR THE NEW CENTRE
A new Global Centre for Public Service Excellence has been set up at Singapore with the
collaboration of UNDP and the Government of Singapore. The Centre will be dedicated to
policy, learning, and knowledge sharing on cutting edge research and practice in public
services management and reform. The Global Centre will draw on the respective strengths
of the two partners and strive to create a Centre of excellence in research and a convening
hub on the theme of public services. Its goal of galvanising public service capacities for
excellence can at best be indirectly achieved through dissemination of relevant knowledge
to stakeholders and networking with appropriate national advocacy institutions. Obviously
the Centre has to take a lead role in research and generating knowledge so that it could act
as a convening hub on the theme of public services, and as an advocacy platform towards
influencing senior public servants in other countries responsible for policy formulation and
its implementation.
As already discussed, in the area of civil service reform, Governments face many critical
challenges. They must enhance the productivity of the civil service and make certain that
each employee is performing socially relevant tasks. They must ensure the long-term
affordability of the civil service, and must enforce procedures for rewarding and promoting
merit, disciplining malfunction and misconduct, to strengthen accountability and
performance quality. It has become necessary to reshape the bureaucracy so that it
performs its core public functions and develop new ways of ensuring that critical economic
and social services are provided directly or indirectly. A new work culture will have to be
evolved at all levels of the staff. Innovation and performance should be encouraged and

25 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
rewarded and steps should be taken to ensure effective supervision and control over the
functionaries. To deal with the newer challenges, civil servants also need to continuously
update themselves. They have to continuously expand their horizons through learning and
training. Only this would equip them to keep pace with the changing times.
The Centre should develop a virtual portal where experiences of public service
practitioners can be shared with intellectuals and academics. It should provide space for
public service practitioners to reflect on their practices, through discussion forums, and
will make available to a wider audience the work being done by individual public servants
to bring about change in their respective sectors. As they reflect upon their own and the
experience of others, organizational learning would be facilitated.
Partnerships and research agenda
As a leading research hub, the Centre should draw upon the best quality material
emanating from the various think tanks, universities, and from on-going policy practice in
Singapore and other countries, so that it helps in enhancing UNDP’s existing knowledge
and research capability. The Centre should bring together diverse experiences of many
countries for promoting South-South collaboration, by sharing, exchanging and co-creating
such knowledge so as to catalyze policy thinking on public service capacity for sustainable
development. Best practices tried in low and middle income countries may also be useful
for the richer nations. For instance, PROGRESA, the system of cash transfers for poor
households pioneered in Mexico, is now being given a trial run in New York 48.
Such studies should be widely disseminated for advocacy. It will also build up public
opinion in favour of reforms. Without adequate publicity acceptability of civil service
reforms by the people cannot be assumed, even when intended reforms will benefit those
who need them most.
The work plan for the new Centre needs to be drawn up keeping in view the requirement of
the developing nations. While the detailed plan for achieving civil service reforms has to be
prepared by each country, the new Centre could provide best practices by researching on
themes that would necessarily be part of any national plan. In addition to subjects already
discussed in the first part, the proposed research plan for the Centre may also include
Public Private Partnerships, use of IT, and developing a good management information
system (MIS), which are in the nature of low-hanging fruits, and are being adapted by many
developing countries, with far reaching impact on public service delivery.
Some of the subjects on which the Centre should prepare policy and analytical papers so as
to be useful to other countries are discussed below.
Public-private partnerships and outsourcing
Many countries are today setting up hybrid institutions 49 to undertake commercial
activities that are somewhere in between totally state controlled (such as banks and

48
http://www.mckinsey.com/features/government_designed_for_new_times/leading_transformation_in_the_21st_centu
ry

49 Hybrid PPPs: Levering EU funds and private capital, January 2006, Report prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers
LLP (“PwC”) for the World Bank

26 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
industries in China) and fully privatized (such as in USA). In such parastatals ownership
and management may be shared between the state and private sector. Such public-private
partnership (PPP) takes different shapes, such as provision of land and concessional tax
regime in SEZs (Special Economic Zones), total transfer of responsibility to private sector
entities for providing essential services such as water and power in cities but setting up
simultaneously a Regulator for deciding tariff, etc.
Some of the parastatals such as BBC in UK, Temasek Holdings Ltd in Singapore (a
government-owned investment company), and Railways in India are wholly owned and
controlled by government, but given considerable autonomy, and many are able to compete
with the private sector. However lack of public scrutiny may sometimes impact on their
accountability and may inhibit inclusive growth.
PPPs are quite popular in infrastructure projects where government commits to make in-
kind or financial contributions to the project, whether through subsidies or guarantees, and
the private partner builds, maintains, and operates the assets in exchange for some
combination of user fees50.
Many interesting innovations in governance and partnerships between the public and
private sectors are coming from the developing countries. Manila Water Reforms deserve
special mention because the city was infamous for its outdated, inefficient water system.
The privatization of Manila’s Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System, on which
IFC (International Finance Corporation) was lead advisor, fundamentally changed the
sector. The privatization required the transfer of full operational and investment
responsibilities to the private operators, and an independent regulatory unit was
established in 1997 to monitor and enforce the concession agreements 51.
In the past three decades several states in Sub-Saharan Africa, in the Eastern Caribbean and
in Europe (and other states as well) have used forms of outsourcing, usually to regional
organizations, as a means to reduce the cost and increase the quality of some public
services. In Sub-Saharan Africa: the Banque des Etats de l’Afrique Centrale,1 (BEAC) and
the Banque Centrale des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest,2 (BCEAO), established in the 1960s
have been pioneer multi-country central banks worldwide. Multi-country security
agreements, as in the African Union (AU) or the Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS), have been increasingly used to prevent or quench local conflicts. These
agreements allow the deployment of multinational troops to help stabilize a potentially
volatile situation. The rationale underlying a government decision to subcontract provision
of some public services to a regional organization is to access higher quality (and possibly
lower cost) public services than could be produced domestically. In that respect,
contracting out a public service is not radically different from importing private goods and
services, when producing these goods domestically is more expensive than purchasing
them in the rest of the world52.

50 http://bit.ly/YrJmvK
51 http://www1.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/3f64d180498391a5856cd7336b93d75f/SuccessStories_MWSSweb.pdf?
MOD=AJPERES

52 Edgardo M. Favaro, 2010, USING REGIONAL INSTITUTIONS TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF PUBLIC SERVICES,
World Bank, Economic Policy and Debt Department, October 15

27 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
 The role of private sector in providing low cost sanitation and potable water can be quite
significant and needs to be explored. Currently, in many cities, a water and sanitation unit
is generally operated as a traditional public sector, line department. In this context, reform
options may include converting the water and sanitation department into a corporate
utility operated under an independent board with a legally binding performance
management contract between the city and the utility. In this case, the city remains the
owner and policy maker but service provision is now in the hands of a corporate provider
at arm’s length from the policy maker. Another option would be to bring in a private
operator to manage the utility, further strengthening the arms length relationship between
the policy maker and provider. In the solid waste sector, to take another example, cities
may institutionally separate the operations of collection, transfer and landfill into different
entities bringing private sector participation in where appropriate in the chain. If
warranted by the economies of scale, a cluster of cities may jointly own and manage a
common landfill operated by a corporate utility. Again, the regulatory function could be
passed onto the State. These are examples of how the roles of policy making, provider and
regulator can be separated.
One of the areas where public-private partnerships can be introduced is in the running of
care homes. Asking government servants to run such homes is expensive (as salary and
pension burden in government may be higher in many countries such as India than what
the civil society pays to corresponding levels), and they lack the skills and motivation to
provide care to the elderly or the disabled. Transferring such homes to the NGOs is cost-
effective, as well as will ensure better services. Some other areas where Government
organization-NGO partnership can be effective in making administration citizen friendly
are
 Peoples’ participation in natural resource management
 Community health and sanitation
 Monitoring primary education
 Village development schemes
Internationally, PPPs have demonstrated that sharing risks between private firms and the
state can provide strong incentives for services to be delivered more effectively to users
and, thereby, more efficiently for taxpayers. However, lessons learnt so far highlight the
need for a robust governance framework, to ensure that PPPs provide value for money
overall, are affordable in the long-term, and entail appropriate risk transfer. Otherwise,
there is a risk that PPPs may be pursued because of short term fiscal constraints or
ephemeral accounting reasons, with the consequent risk of exposing governments to
unaffordable and perhaps unexpected long-term liabilities. This means that, on the one
hand, PPPs are not seen as a mainstream route to infrastructure provision, and, on the
other, PPPs are frequently applied inappropriately - early efforts to adopt PPPs for
motorway projects in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland have not been successful in
delivering results, and consequently tarnished the public perception of PPPs 53.

53 http://nsworld.org/findings/Building-New-Capacities-Resilience/Resilient-Public-Policies#!
prettyPhoto[examples2]/2/

28 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
 The Centre may study different models and write papers on the comparative advantage
and disadvantage of such arrangements. What are the conditions under which hybrid PPP
arrangements lead to better public satisfaction?
E-Governance
As is well known, e-governance applications are now being widely used in the developing
countries. This has made the citizen-state interface much easier, reducing transaction costs
and public dissatisfaction. E-governance is less threatening to those in authority in contrast
to some of the complex administrative reforms that have remained dormant in official
reports. An e-governance application may look simple and limited in scope, yet it may have
far reaching implications for the operating culture and performance of governments. E-
governance is thus fast emerging as an important tool for achieving good governance
especially with regard to improving efficiency, transparency and making interface with
government user friendly.
Singapore is at the forefront in e-governance applications. It has used new technologies to
streamline and speed up its interactions with, and services to, the public in almost all
sectors of activity. It has also used IT in a big way in improving the internal management of
its systems with respect to funds, personnel and assets (internal housekeeping). Based on
this experience, the benefits of e-governance can be summarized as follows:
 It improves government’s overall productivity.
 It promotes greater transparency and public accountability.
 It simplifies and speeds up the delivery of a wide range of public services.
 It improves service quality and thus increases citizen satisfaction.
 It aids dissemination of information and thus empowers people.
 It can make government seamless, and integrate departmental activities.
However the full potential of e-governance can be realized only when several other reforms
are undertaken. Governments must be willing to share information with the citizens.
Access to government information may be a right in many countries, but, practically
speaking, it is usually cumbersome and often not achievable. Most citizens have little
knowledge about what information is held within government coffers; let alone how to find
it. Finding information can be time-consuming, costly and frustrating. If more than one
agency is involved, the citizen can become a pinball, bouncing from one source to another.
Application of ICT must be accompanied with elements of organizational transformation
and change. It needs new mind-sets, culture and processes in government organizations.
Therefore, of late, most e-governance efforts inherently include business process re-
engineering, aimed at generating citizen-centric and citizen interactive systems 54. In the
absence of these reforms ICT can be quite frustrating for the citizens, as they lose face-to-
face contact with public servants, and are bombarded with information that is of little use
to them. There is a great deal of evidence to show that people are not happy with a faceless

54 Hannah Beardon ICT for development: empowerment or exploitation A two-sided coin; at

http://www.actionaid.org.uk/_content/documents/ICTpo.pdf

29 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
 bureaucracy that is unable to meet accurately expectations of personalized services that
recognize differences and uniqueness55.
Singapore’s success as a leading purveyor of effective E-Government is more than just
enabling government services with technology. It also involves a monumental effort to
reform the public service, which entails significant structural and operational changes.
Over the last twenty years, the government’s progressive and meticulously crafted national
ICT programmes have established a strong foundation to transform the public service,
coupled with a holistic E-Government framework that addresses not only technology but
also management, process, governance, and social and cultural issues to deliver accessible,
integrated, and value adding e-services to its constituents. Other countries with poor
governance will therefore not be able to take full advantage of technological possibilities
that ICT offers. One can only hope that application of e-governance would slowly put
pressure on governments to initiate other administrative reforms too that are necessary
for efficient programme delivery.
Management Information Systems
The Centre should study the prevalent management information systems (MIS) for
important national programmes of various countries, as it impacts on the quality of
programme delivery. In most developing countries field staff reports only on activities, they
are not involved in impact assessment, or in qualitative monitoring. The concept of
stakeholder monitoring is unknown. No indicators exist for assessing public participation
or their awareness. Emphasis is laid only on the initial or current expenses. After five years,
little is done or monitored. Secondly, when money has been allocated for a particular
activity in a particular area, it is assumed that the work in question has been done, and that
it was sufficient. This ignores the fact that either of the above assumptions could be wrong.
The primary monitoring activities have to do with fiscal accountability. While it is
necessary, it should not be allowed to overshadow the need for technical and resource
monitoring and planning work accordingly. At present, there is great pressure on the field
staff as a whole to account for funds utilized, but not in terms of longer-term results,
because those are not monitored. Thus financial planning is divorced from physical
planning.
Performance budgeting on the lines of Singapore and other developed countries has either
not been introduced or is only on paper in many developing countries. Generally there is
ex-ante rather than ex-post control of expenditure by line agencies through the institution
of Financial Advisors or the Ministry of Finance. Thus the performance budgeting system
for reporting of outputs and outcomes is divorced from financial reporting and budget
preparation. Given departmental allocations, operational efficiency and effectiveness
crucially requires accountability. This encompasses
 fixing individual and collective responsibility for delivery of defined service outputs;
 personnel policies linked to performance, with performance being measured by actual
outputs in relation to prescribed service delivery standards and preset targets;

55 http://wiki.dbast.com/images/4/4b/The_digital_media_and_the_reinvention_of_government.pdf

30 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
 independent internal and external, financial and performance auditing with mechanisms
for effective corrective or disciplinary action based on audit findings; and
 “customer” satisfaction surveys.
Further, transparency in financial management requires
 publication of programme performance reports, and
 feedback mechanisms to elicit client feedback on the quality of services provided. Aside
from internal and external auditing, the institutional framework for service delivery in the
developing countries hardly meets these standards and sanctions linked to poor
performance, or programme modifications based on client feedback are sporadic, at best.
The new Centre should prepare policy and research papers covering the above issues with
the ultimate objective of promoting south-south partnerships in collaborative learning.
Structures of rewards and punishments
The Centre may like to study the prevailing incentive structure that motivates public
servants to excel. In many countries there are no well-enforced norms and rules of work
discipline, very few punishments for ineptitude or malfeasance, and there are strong
disincentives to take bold, risky decisions 56. Howsoever we may criticize these constraints,
but the hard reality is that little can be done to change them overnight. At the same time, it
is possible to create some (perhaps symbolic to begin with) incentives for good
performance within the system. Here, the magnitude of the reward or the severity of the
penalty matters less than their certainty, swiftness and fair and uniform application. A rise
in individual accountability must be accompanied by commensurate rewards and
consequences for non-performance (on-the-job training, rather than penalties, may be the
right response). The weight of evidence from all countries shows that the lack of credible
consequences turns serious accountability reforms into bureaucratic formality.
Apart from the subjects discussed above, the Centre should develop expertise in issues
relating to accountability, programme delivery and evaluations, human resource
management, and corruption.
Training
Should the new Centre be involved in organising training programmes for senior civil
servants engaged in policy making in the developing countries? This is one issue that needs
to be seriously considered. The other UNDP Centres at Oslo and Rio do not hold training
sessions. However, international training programmes help the policy makers of a country
to understand how governance has improved in a neighbouring country which faces
similar constraints of political economy. For the faculty of the Centre and senior
government officials networking would be mutually beneficial.
In addition to running short-term training programmes (duration may vary from one to
two weeks), the new Centre should also be able to offer long-term fellowships for middle-
level policy makers from developing countries, for periods ranging from three months to

56 http://epress.anu.edu.au/narayanan/mobile_devices/ch07.html

31 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
one year, so that the fellowship holder may develop expertise in a variety of subjects
relevant to his/her country and Ministry.
In not too distant future it may also consider developing partnerships with national
training institutions with a view to develop their capacity and hold joint training
programmes.
However, training should be seen as an integral part of personnel management, and should
be linked to recruitment, career and promotional avenues, human resource development,
and general environment of governmental functioning. Without improvement in these
related sectors, the efficacy of training would be limited.
Dissemination strategy
The new Centre could also promote communication among local stakeholders, such as
businessmen, bureaucrats, economists and donors, which will improve acceptability of
technocratic solutions and ownership of reform programmes by them. These may be
accompanied by strategies to understand and address obstacles to reform that will often
rely on communication among networks within and outside of government, among civil
society organizations, and between citizens in the public sphere 57. This method of reaching
out to political leaders, policy makers, and legislators may be effective in many democratic
countries. Similarly such training programmes and networking may also help in gaining the
support of public sector middle managers, who are often the strongest opponents of
change, and then foster among them a stronger culture of public service.
Many studies58 have shown that ‘successful implementation of public sector governance
reform depends on high-level political commitment, strong technical capacity, and
incremental approaches with the potential for cumulative impact over an extended time
frame’. One needs to take into account the domestic conditions and work with reform-
oriented politicians and bureaucrats with modest aims and build on incremental progress.
Some other subjects, such as Accountability, promoting peoples’ participation, and
decentralization that should be essential part of the Centre’s research agenda have already
been discussed in the first part of the paper.
Dealing with increasingly uncertain, and complex policy issues
Apart from long-term challenges such as national security, climate change and population
that cut across traditional Ministry and agency boundaries, the Public Service will in future
need to address more complex issues, such as the possibility of low-probability but high-
impact events (known in the literature as “black swans”), like the 9/11 terrorist attacks
and SARS epidemic. This suggests that it will not be possible for any government to
correctly anticipate and prevent all major crises, all the time. Therefore, it is necessary for
each country to go beyond its existing strengths in optimization and efficiency, to develop
capabilities to manage and respond to shocks and unforeseen events, and to enhance
institutional resilience within the Public Service itself.

57 World Bank 2008 Governance Reform under Real-World Conditions

58 http://www.ids.ac.uk/idsproject/the-political-economy-of-successful-governance-reforms

32 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
Given the importance of risk management skills and the ability to deal with unexpected
events, the focus of public service reform should – in addition to enhancing the
performance and efficiency of the bureaucracy – also be to develop an entrepreneurial and
risk tolerant role. This would aim to prepare the Public Service to meet ‘the known and
unknown challenges’ in the present and the future.
Recognising the need for greater policy coordination on complex issues, the government of
Singapore has established national agencies headed by Permanent Secretaries and situated
within the Prime Minister’s Office. Inter-Ministerial Committees have also been established
to coordinate policies on cross-agency issues such as export controls, population ageing
and sustainable development, drawing together representatives from a spectrum of
relevant public sector agencies. However, there are still obstacles to be overcome as
members of such committees continue to receive their mandates from their parent
organizations, with their own traditional priorities.
The new Centre may like to study how different countries have faced such situations, and
what lessons can be drawn for building administrative capacity for addressing such
unforeseen crises.
Nevertheless, coordinated and synergistic whole-of-government policies and
implementation will become ever more crucial to achieving complex national outcomes.
The success of countries will depend not on the strength of any one aspect of public policy,
but on the synergistic whole in concerted action. The challenges facing whole-of-
government initiatives are not to be under-estimated. It is not merely a question of wanting
to work differently. The design and functions of complex organizations like federal
governments cannot change overnight. Parliamentary mandates, accountability measures,
financial legislation, organizational culture and the political undercurrents are just a few of
the variables that will determine the success of such initiatives. Moreover a reverse trend
to sectoral approach is being witnessed in some areas where it is seen as providing better
results, e.g. the anti-corruption machinery that needs to be kept away from the influence of
other Ministries.
Summing up
To sum up, the Centre should aim to be a platform for public service practitioners from
both the developing and developed world to be able to participate in generation,
production and dissemination of knowledge based on experiences from the field, and
where the practitioners and empirical researchers communicate their practical experiences
and learnings. Envisioned to empower them for change through dissemination and by
connecting civil servants working on similar themes from across the world, the Centre
should act as an intermediary for knowledge on innovative practices.
The new Centre should therefore have a robust research agenda on themes that are not
only being tried with success in some countries leading to excellence, but should also
include new thoughts that are emerging in the literature. UNDP as well as many external
donors are engaged in helping governments in improving public service performance.
UNDP provides technical assistance on administrative reforms and governance to many
countries. Its portfolio also includes decentralization and peoples’ participation. Hence the
Centre should conduct systematic review and analysis of work being done in these sectors

33 Public Service Reforms: Trends, Challenges and

Opportunities
 so that the capacity of UNDP's front-line staff to address these new challenges facing
administration improves and their advice carries greater credibility.
In brief, the Centre should position itself as a think tank for germinating ideas, develop
analytical frameworks and bring together public sector reform champions (intellectual,
policy makers, and practitioners) to share their experiences and foster knowledge transfer
and dissemination. It would create a bank of best practices, methodologies and tools in
public service excellence both from the developed and developing world.

Cover Photo: credits here.

Acknowledgements: This Discussion Paper was prepared by Dr. Naresh C. Saxena,
independent consultant, under the guidance of Knowledge, Innovation and Capacity Group
and Democratic Governance Group in Bureau for Development Policy. The paper is as part
of a horizon scanning exercise which informed the strategic focus of the new UNDP Global
Centre for Public Service Excellence in Singapore. It was discussed by experts and
practitioners as part of the first Public Service Dialogue organized by the Centre on 5 March
2013. The drafting team would like to thank Ashley Palmer (UNDP), Albert Soer (UNDP),
Faiza Effendi (UNDP), Petrus Van de Pol (UNDP), Patrick Keuleers (UNDP) and Donald Low
(Institute of Policy Studies, Singapore) for comments to the earlier draft.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not
necessarily represent those of UNDP, the United Nations or its Member States
Contact Information: Niloy Banerjee, Deputy Director, Knowledge Innovation and
Capacity Group, Bureau for Development Policy, UNDP, niloy.banerjee@undp.org

For more information: www.undp.org/

34
United Nations Public Service
Development Reforms: Trends,
Programme Challenges and
Opportunities
One United Nations Plaza • New York, NY 10017 USA