Will things improve under new Revenue Authority?
From Mary King, Trinidad Express
Many years ago our best brains went into the Public Service. Read more….
Part I
Many years ago our best brains went into the Public Service.
Today we are being told that the Public Service employees are
indolent, inefficient and corrupt and that it is impossible to
discipline anyone or reform the service because of our service
commissions. Our Public Service no longer attracts the best.
Worldwide, however, we are witnessing the IFCs and IMF-induced
reduction in the size of public services, a process
recommended by the Washington Consensus and glorified by the
Anglo-American pair, Thatcher and Reagan.
This process saw the growth of outsourcing of Government
activities (or as the Minister of Finance prefers, transfer of
activities from the Public Service) to both the private sector
and Government-owned special purpose companies (in T&T,
UDeCOTT, HDC, T&T Sports Co. etc.) that pride themselves on
operating private sector business models. All of this is being
done on the altar of ’good’ governance and efficiency in an
economics/business interpretation of State functions.
In essence, this New Public Sector Management (NPSM) is the
transfer of business and market principles and management
processes from the private sector into the public service
itself, or outsourcing government activities to the special
purpose companies owned by a government or even to the private
sector.
However, there is no empirical evidence that NPSM reforms of
the public service or outsourcing have led to productivity
increases or public welfare improvements even by private
sector standards; this is admitted also by the IMF (see
Drechlser’s ’Rise and Demise of Public Management’). This is
because there are basic problems implicit in the NPSM model
which derive from the fact that the aims of the public service
differ from those of the private sector.
The State has monopoly power in certain areas but with the
orientation of serving the public good. The private sector is
about competition and profit maximisation. The proponents of
NPSM seek to treat the public as though they are consuming
private sector goods and services. The use of these business
techniques in the delivery of public functions constricts the
accomplishment of the basic tenets of the state: democracy,
regularity, transparency and due process, which are surely
more important than perceived efficiency and speed.
The proponents of NPSM claim, especially if the task is
outsourced, that efficiency and even ’good’ governance are the
objectives. But, efficiency in the private sector, the hand
maiden of profit maximisation, has little to do with
efficiency and effectiveness in carrying out public sector
tasks-done as a public service precisely because no direct
profit or gain should/could be made.
Further, the NSPM treats the public as a customer and denies
her the ability, the right, of participating in or criticising
the service delivery, so eroding the fundamental concept of
the state being the servant of the people.
It also tends to abolish the career civil service, destroying
administrative capacity while encouraging the growth of the
’entrepreneurial bureaucrat’ with the power of the state but
with much less responsibility-eg UDeCOTT. Therefore, typical
business processes may indeed be inappropriate.
More astute governments are now questioning the NPSM in
governance that presumed to improve task efficiencies and make
their ministries more effective in accomplishing their goals.
We in T&T are now faced with the issues of sustainability,
dynamic development, innovation and technology that can only
be fostered by an increasing role for the State in economic
growth, eg as the investor of last resort. The present
knowledge- and innovation-driven world would not exist without
capable states-for example, the emergence of India and China
depended on strong state sectors.
Many governments went for NPSM because it was an in-fashion
attempt to improve their ability to provide ’good’ governance
- this good has nothing to do with private sector efficiency.
Our Government, faced with the task of improving the
effectiveness of its revenue collection, would never have
conceived of placing it in an enlarged ministry suitably
resourced.
This was not the fashion but, according to John Spence
(Express, 2010-02-25), the Government’s policy position is to
replace the Public Service with institutions it can control
directly.
The model that has usurped the NPSM is the upgraded Weberian
method of public administration. In its basic form the model
stipulates a set of offices in which civil servants operate
under the principles of merit selection, division of labour,
exclusive employment, career advancement and legality (Weber,
1922).
These are not obsolete criteria and are the basis of the
recent principles agreed by the European Administration Space:
reliability, predictability, openness, transparency,
accountability, efficiency and effectiveness – comprising good
governance. But, the Government’s sustained attacks on
transparency, accountability and openness denies that its
objective is indeed good governance. (To be continued)
maryking@tstt.net.tt