Why Civil Service reforms are bound to fail?

A capable and professional Civil Service is intrinsic to the success of a lot of other policy objectives spanning the large swath of public administration. Though, it has higher visibility on the national and international development to-do list, it does not receive the same impetus in public policy implementation decisions as it should.

Since inception, Prime Minister Imran Khan has taken up the proverbial heavy mantle of Civil Service reforms and has given it to the old horse — Dr Ishrat Hussain. Since the latter’s much-anticipated report is yet to see the light of the day, we have to rely on his last such effort. Going by this report published in 2008, he intends to bring about “Sea Changes” in the bureaucratic structure by removing discrepancies between services; slimming down the support staff; bringing an efficient system of reward and punishment; and introducing lateral entry of technocrats in various bureaucratic cadres. All these efforts may culminate into forming a new structure — National Executive Service (NES).

The agenda sounds music to the ears but it is too big to be implemented in the remaining short life the government. While it all appears too good on paper, it is bound to remain unsuccessful. Here it is why.

The political economy in a country conditions the effectiveness of civil service reforms. Given the politico-economic environment in developing countries, including Pakistan, wholesale changes and complete overhauling of the system — in a short span of time — does not achieve its promised goals due the following reasons.

Firstly, civil service reforms are too dear to be implemented in for a shorter period of time. Their benefits are to be placed in future which do not incentivise the political governments that come for a short period of time. According to de Weijer and Pritchett (2011), it takes about 20 years to see the fruits of structural reforms which far exceeds the average term of a government

Secondly, political elites in developing countries are not attuned to systems which function as ‘limited access orders’. These elites shun meritocratic recruitment systems which can result in the breakage of their elite parochial and patronage networks (Douglas North et al, 2007). Their deep-rooted interests in their social and parochial belongings incentivise them to maintain the status quo.

Thirdly, bureaucracy likes to see the things as they are when they flow smoothly for them. Their intrinsic inertia (prevalent in Weberian models) provides resistance to any changes at a grand level. They may accept these changes being disciplined, but they will clearly lack motivation to effect those changes (Simone et al, 2012). This is particularly true to our governance structure where salaries are meagre and public officials turn to informal or illegal means to earn extra incomes.

Fourthly, the political governments are interested in those reforms only if their suffrage see and acknowledge the potential benefits of the proposed reforms. As argued in the first point, it takes 20 years on average to see the qualitative effects of the reforms. Hence, if these structural reforms are to be implemented, people will not see them functioning during the life of this government. This will leave them even more disillusioned.

We need to have a paradigm shift — from “creating a better civil service” to “creating better citizenry experience”. Rather than allowing itself to be swallowed by “endless reforms” for the sake of reforms, the government may just emphasise only on one aspect i.e. changing daily lives of people. What I mean to say is to change the focus from the bureaucrat to the man on street. The latter may not be interested whether the former is properly incentivised or timely promoted. What he wants is an overall improvement in his daily life experiences. How to do this will be discussed in the next episode.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 31^st, 2019.

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