Service Delivery And The Change Agenda: New Impetus For A Service Delivery Culture In Government Parastatals, Agencies And Commissions
Being A Paper Presented
By
Isa Bello Sali, CFR,
Former Head of the Civil Service of the Federation
At the 1st National Policy Dialogue on Strategies for Improving Service Delivery in Government Parastatals, Agencies and Commissions
27th – 28th March, 2017
SERVICE DELIVERY AND THE CHANGE AGENDA : NEW IMPETUS FOR A SERVICE DELIVERY CULTURE IN GOVERNMENT PARASTATALS, AGENCIES AND COMMISSIONS
1.00 Introduction
As a first year student of Political Science at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in 1974, I can recall the then Head of Department of Government Prof. J. C. O’Connell telling us over and over that “Government exists for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of the good life”. This saying is true today as it has been since the beginning of formal association of human beings to protect and defend their interests. Put in another way, it refers to the reason for the existence of Government as being primarily for the provision of public security and favourable material outcomes for its citizens.
The vehicle that delivers the secure life and favourable material outcomes in all Governments is the Public Service and although the modes of delivery are many and varied, the vehicle still remains the same, i.e Public Service.
This presentation will start by defining what the Public Service is, what it does and how it does the job of providing the favourable outcomes. This will include categorizing the Service into its major components before we zero in on our primary target, which is Government Parastatals, Agencies and Commissions.
In the process, we will identify the common features, bring out the differences and highlight cross-cutting issues that will afford us the opportunity to address the issue at stake i.e. service delivery by Parastatals in an environment undergoing fundamental changes. The paper will highlight best practices, identify what works and what does not and why not. It will also attempt to bring out the major thrust of the Change Agenda from the global perspective as well as our own current circumstances. We will end the presentation by prescribing ways of improving the ability and capacity of the Parastatals to deliver the public good, in line with best practices and the change agenda.
2.00 Government Business
Public Service is a service which is provided by Government to people living within its jurisdiction, either directly (through the Public Sector) or by financing provision of services through the Private Sector. It is made up of the core Civil Service on the one hand and Parastatatls, Agencies and Commissions on the other.
The Civil Service is an institutional platform which provides the framework to guide the conduct of Government business. It is the vanguard of service to the people, the backbone of decision making, strategic policy formulation and implementation machinery. It provides policy support to Government and serves as the institutional memory and repository of Government knowledge and network. It is meant to facilitate the actualization of peace and stability as well as growth and development. It enjoys continuity of existence.
In Nigeria, the Civil Service refers primarily to Ministries and Extra-Ministerial Departments who draw their manpower requirements from staff appointed by the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC) and whose careers are managed by the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF). The Ministries are headed by Ministers while the Extra-Ministerial Departments are headed by Executive Chairmen. They are basically responsible for policy formulation for the various Departments of Government. The Ministries also exercise supervisory control over Parastatals created to provide services within the Minister’s portfolio.
On the other hand, Parastatals, Agencies and Commissions are established to provide specialized services to the populace. The scope of the services they provide is usually sufficiently complex to warrant their establishment as separate bodies outside the normal operations of Government Departments. The laws setting them up do not only allow considerable flexibility as against the rigid demands of the Civil Service for high degree of accountability, but also guarantee some measure of autonomy, subject to Government’s general direction of their operations to ensure the achievement of the desired objectives without sacrificing accountability. They are generally led by Chief Executive Officers and have Boards that determine policy and whose Chairmen are answerable to the Honourable Minister.
3.00 Public Service Delivery
The primary responsibility of any public administration system is to deliver services that the private sector may not deliver at all or to deliver services to those who cannot afford the market price of such services or products. Fundamentally, the ability of a Government to legitimately tax and govern people is premised on its capacity to deliver a range of services required by its population which no other player will provide. In other words, Government owes its existence and legitimacy to the fact that there are services in which though the possibility of market failure is great, but the people must have and enjoy them, at a basic minimum costs.
Increasing globalization and mounting pressure for good governance have correspondingly necessitated better service delivery. The quality of service and its delivery mechanisms are directly dependent on the strength and coordination of the service management structures and the extent of the trust and respect accorded to them by the political leadership. Service improvements, innovation and quality are most effective if service management structures are strong, transparent and coherent.
4.00 Contemporary Trends in Public Service Delivery
In modern day parlance, the people or citizens who are recipients of public services are also referred to as customers. Being a customer pre-supposes access to options and choices in a market. In spite of this development, Public Service Delivery all over the world has progressively deteriorated over the years. Several factors have individually and collectively combined to make the supply and delivery of public goods inadequate for citizens. This global phenomenon is generally attributable to very many factors which include urbanization and the growth of mega cities, population explosion, increased demand for social services in the face of global pandemics like HIV/AIDS, malaria, globalization and its attendant movement of goods and services across borders, increasing scope and range of issues that need public attention, dwindling resources available to Government, corruption and misuse of the available resources, etc. The result of the interplay of these factors has been that supply has fallen far short of demand resulting in a situation where the largest group – the poor – have found themselves perpetually short-changed by the Public Services.
Fortunately enough that realization has not escaped the attention of the international community who in 2004 through the World Development Report 2004 brought to global attention this phenomenon. In a publication titled, Making Services Work for Poor People, the report highlighted the pitiable plight of poor people across the globe, but with particular reference to developing countries where the development indicators were abysmally low. The Report stressed the need for Governments to pay greater attention to the demand side of Public Service by being accountable to the people.
5.00 The Nigerian Experience
This global initiative was taken on by the Government of President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2004 when he set up a Study Team to diagnose Public Service Delivery in Nigeria. The outcome of the entire process included the drawing up of a publication titled, “Delivering Service in Nigeria : A Roadmap” and the setting up of SERVICOM Office to implement the recommendations contained in the Roadmap. The President in opening the Retreat that gave birth to SERVICOM stated “Public offices are the shopping floor for government business. Regrettably, Nigerians have for too long been feeling short-changed by the quality of public service delivery by which decisions are not made without undue outside influence, and files do not move without being pushed with inducements. Our public offices have for too long been showcases for the combined evils of inefficiency and corruption, whilst being impediments to effective implementation of government policies. Nigerians deserve better. And we will ensure they get what is better”.
SERVICOM principles, which emphasize on the re-orientation of Public Servants to be committed, responsive and accountable to the citizens align with Government’s commitment to promote effective and efficient use of public resources, proper financial management, accountability and fiscal prudence. Public institutions were required by this, to establish SERVICOM Units and draw up Service Charters with explicit Vision and Mission Statements. The charters convey individual and corporate commitments to providing basic services to which every citizen is entitled in a timely, fair, honest, effective and transparent manner. The charter is a set of clear, sincere and achievable undertaking to the citizens (customers) for effective and efficient service delivery. This undertaking gives the citizens the right to demand for quality service from the service providers. The charter in any public establishment holds Government (the service provider) directly accountable to the citizens. The obligations contained in the charter are a promissory note that must be honoured on demand. SERVICOM and the Service Charters that have been drawn up by Ministries, Departments and Agencies since the introduction of the scheme have indeed proved useful in inculcating the culture of effective and efficient service delivery. In that regard, they align with the tenets of the Change Agenda.
6.00 The Change Agenda
The major problems that faced our country at the on-set of its democratic rebirth in 1999 were internal security, corruption and a failing economy in the face of unprecedented rise in the prices of petroleum products in the international market. This situation only worsened in the course of sixteen years of democratic Government and the people sought for change and got it at the 2015 general elections. During the election and at its inauguration, the new administration announced these three issues i.e insecurity, corruption and a failing economy as the core of its change agenda.
(i) Security
The levels of internal security had been dwindling before the on-set of democracy, but they reached their apogee with the rise of Boko Haram, militancy and economic sabotage, secessionist threats, armed rural banditry, religious and ethnic intolerance and general insecurity of life and property in the course of sixteen years after our democratic resurgence. Of course, many of these challenges were fueled by ‘leaders’ either in their quest for power or their lack of courage and political will to tackle them in their bud with tact and determination. This was made worse when corruption became the operational ethos of some leading members of the society including members of the Security Services.
(ii) Corruption
Corruption is private appropriation of public resources through illegal and fraudulent means. In the Public Service, this amounts to denying or constraining the delivery of services and goods to the people by direct stealing from the public purse or conniving with works, goods and service providers to renege or short-change on delivery. Corruption has been a major thorn in the flesh of Nigeria and although past Administrations, including Military, have made attempts to curb it, it still remains one of the greatest ills plaguing our country. It has been responsible for our inability to provide the good life for our people as well as being considered a serious player in the international arena. Recent and ongoing revelations are clear pointers to the depth of that cankerworm in our national life. Tackling the issue decisively, which this Administration has undertaken to do, remains the only hope for this country and its teeming members.
(iii) Economy
When insecurity and corruption crowded the public space, the economy became a free-for-all with the strong doing as they wish and the weak suffocating in agony. Large sections of the country became populated by angry, educated but unemployed youngsters. Many took to crime and insurgency in order to survive. High price of petroleum products indulged the rulers and their rich and powerful collaborators to ignore the damages of a mono-cultured economy, with a large and embittered army of unemployed and underemployed population. The nation’s dependence on oil as the sole source of economic activity has robbed it of the vast opportunities that exist in the other sectors of the economy. Agriculture, Solid Minerals and other sources of revenue were neglected to the detriment of the country.
The Change Agenda of this Administration which neatly dovetails into the universal good governance agenda therefore became inevitable. The universal good governance has many faces but generally speaking, the major ingredients include the following :
i. A participatory democratic process i.e. that access to political power is through elections;
ii. Supremacy of the Constitution and respect for the rule of law and due process;
iii. Transparency and accountability in the conduct of Government business;
iv. Entrenchment of technical competence as the major yardstick for appointment into public offices;
v. Promotion of freedom of information and respect for fundamental human rights of citizens; and
vi. Liberalization of all economic activities in such a way that provide succor to the lives of the poor and the downtrodden.
This administration’s change agenda places emphasis on entrenching a culture of selfless service, fighting corruption, provision of services that will improve the quality of lives of citizens, changing habits that tend to divide our people, doing things differently and generally doing different things to lift our country from its pitiable situation and taking it to its rightful place in the comity of modern nations. In short, the agenda is about the Public Service delivering successful outcomes to the people which you will recall we said was the raison d’etre of Government. Change is both an activity and a process and in governance parlance whether you call it reforms, innovation, transformation, it still remains the same, i.e the ability to do things that will enhance the welfare and wellbeing of citizens.
The agenda, like all policies of Government, can only be transmitted to the citizens by the Public Services, especially Parastatals, Agencies and Commissions, whose creation was done purposely to address the critical needs of the people.
7.00 Service Delivery and Change in General
It is pertinent to state that the issues of innovation, change and transformation have gradually found acceptance in public service matters.
Their introduction into the public service parlance is among other things a by-product of the growing closeness between the private and the public sectors, through which avenue a swathe of private sector ideas and concepts are being imported into the public sector. That notwithstanding, it must be stressed that Public Services the world over are generally regarded as bureaucratic and rigid with a culture that is averse to risk taking.
Given the antecedents of the Nigerian Public Service and indeed the nature of Public Service in general, it is difficult to envisage a Public Service where Public Servants are indeed at liberty to rely on their own initiative, creative thinking and discretion to deal with matters of state and citizens. It might sound unthinkable, but it is happening increasingly in many countries around the world such as Norway, Canada and the USA.
Thus, we must start by asking: Why do we need to reform? Why do we need to innovate? Why do we need a change agenda? The simple answer would seem to be because nothing is static, everything else is evolving, e.g the needs of the citizens, the types of services they require, the ways, places and times at which such services are to be delivered to them. Geoff Mulgan (2014) has it that “The world’s public sectors face acute pressures to adapt: fiscal pressures from public expectations and pressures to tackle challenges such as ageing, climate change and migration”.
A static Public Service cannot deliver services effectively to a dynamic citizenry. Therefore, innovation, change and reform are essential to steer the service towards newly identified or redefined goals of the administration, which is usually some measure of improvement in the lot of the citizenry. Herein lies one of the reasons why we need to do things differently.
8.00 Imperatives for Provision of Effective and Efficient Services to the Citizens
From the foregoing analysis, it should be very clear that the motivation to provide the desired outcomes by the Public Services has always been there. This is especially with regards to democracies where ascension to power is based on a participatory democratic process anchored on choice. The availability of choice which citizens exercise in democracies provides a major safeguard that ensures that Governments once elected try as much as possible to fulfill their campaign promises. The reverse is perhaps more poignant, i.e. Governments that fail in fulfilling their campaign responsibility of providing favorable outcomes for their citizens end up rejected at the next polls. Other factors include :
(i) Moral Imperatives
Given the fact that the salaries and other appurtenances of officialdom are provided for from the taxes paid by the people, Services have no justification, moral or otherwise to fail to live up to their own side of the bargain.
(ii) Competition with other Service Providers
The introduction of the private sector in public service delivery in recent times has eroded the monopoly hitherto enjoyed by them. Although there are areas where the Private Sector may be generally handicapped or incompetent to handle such as security, these areas are progressively getting narrower thereby giving the customer the ability to chose from either the Private or Public Sectors.
(iii) Survival Instinct
The imperative of survival also serves as a motive force for the Public Service Providers to use all their ingenuity and resources to try to attract and retain their customers. This is especially true of Public organizations that cannot claim monopoly of either expertise or range of products/services.
(iv) Role of Civil Society Organizations (CSO)
Increasing public awareness of the role of Governments and their agencies through the work of Non-State actors has also made it possible for Public Services to sit up. A robust Civil Society Organization (CSO) can actually perform the role of the opposition in areas where the opposition is either weak or non-existent.
(v) Use of ICTs
The revolution being created through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has in recent times made many Government agencies to re-think and re-engineer their processes to ensure that they meet the needs of their clients.
(vi) Globalization
Globalization which has turned the world literally into a global village is by far the most compelling motive force driving change across the globe. Developments in far lands are transmitted live and they can snowball in many areas where similar situations exist.
(vii) Interventions by International Organizations and Donor Agencies
The activities of International Organizations and donor agencies have also served to step up public sector accountability and the inculcation of value for money culture. Successes from pilot projects as well as from others supervised by them have served to re-awaken many public sector organizations.
(viii) Implementation of the Good Governance Agenda
Global focus on implementing the good governance agenda has made it necessary for public sector providers to take a queue from other jurisdictions.
(ix) Adaption of the New Public Service Management
The adaption of New Public Service Management (NPM) by government agencies has changed their hitherto rigid and bureaucratic practices.
(x) Dominance of Market Forces
The dominance of market forces in driving economic development in modern nations is another incentive for public sector providers to adopt change.
9.00 Recommendations
Given the motivations outlined in the foregoing paragraph, it should be clear that public service providers need to do much more, especially in this era of change to be able to remain in business and retain their relevance. The following recommendations are some of the ways that will improve the service delivery capacity of our Parastatals, Agencies and Commissions.
(i) Reforming the Legal and Institutional Framework
There is the need to reform the legal and institutional framework of Parastatals to ensure that regulation and guidelines are in tune with current demands to facilitate proper implementation. In many cases, the disconnect between what legal framework put in place and what demands of the people are at that moment renders several legal frameworks ineffective. Therefore, the variables that link the two have to be in mutual correlation all the time. For example, legal instruments are effective only when they are targeted at the current philosophy of service delivery embodied in the change agenda of Government. There is also the issue of conducting Government business within the confines of the law. It is only when this is achieved that the objectives of transformation, reforms, good governance and indeed provision of public goods could be realized.
Furthermore, changes are required in the laws governing the operations and management of revenue earning Parastatals, Agencies and Commissions in order to stop spending public revenues on them. Thus, all public revenues should be paid directly into Government accounts and the Parastatals, Agencies and Commissions should obtain their needs through appropriation.
Another area is to strengthen the capacity of the Public Service to interpret and administer legal instruments appropriately. This is because every law or policy is not meant for itself, but rather to achieve some defined tangible outcomes.
(ii) Building Partnerships
Building effective partnerships across the board is very key in delivering efficient public services. The Private Sector and Non-State Actors are increasingly becoming indispensable stakeholders in modern societies. Their expertise, resources, influence and network are too enormous to be neglected by the Public institutions. As such, building strategic partnership with them could lift the burden off the shoulders of Government by widening the scope, dimension, quality and quantity of services to the people. Likewise, partnering them would significantly improve issues of efficiency, accountability, transparency and even speed of service delivery. Furthermore, it is a short way of making the Public Service innovative, responsive and entrepreneurial. However, there is the need to build substantial capacity in the Public Service to ensure successes in engaging the Private Sector and Non-State Actors.
(iii) Human Resources Development
There is no alternative to equipping the workforce with new knowledge, skills, competencies and attitudes to enhance their capacity for value addition. It is a well known fact that the quality of services being delivered to the people is a direct reflection of the capacity of the workforce that produced such services. The Public Service must therefore consider the development of human resources as a strategic element of improving the performance of delivering quality services to the people. For change to occur as a process, it certainly requires some new ways and methods of doing things differently, which is only possible by building the capacities of the existing institutions. Apart from this, the Public Service should focus seriously on the other elements of Human Resources Development, which are often neglected or treated as non-issues. The two that are directly connected to improving service delivery are succession management and mentoring.
(iv) Performance Management
The paradigm shift from processes and procedures to results and outcomes is an important instrument to enhance service delivery. Public Service should establish and operationalise accurate and objective measurement and assessment of performance. In other words, who is responsible for what and for how long?. In the process of translating vision into results, objectives have to be set, jobs standardized and performance measured, monitored and evaluated. At the end, this process allows people to hold Public institutions responsible for their performance. Recently, the Political leadership of the immediate past administration signed Performance Agreements/Contracts with Ministers and Ministers signed with their respective Permanent Secretaries on service delivery. What is yet to be accounted for, is the evaluation of those Agreements/Contracts as well as deepening it by cascading it down the line.
(v) Transparency and Accountability
Corruption needs to be tackled on three fronts: Judicial reforms, changing mind-sets on the evils of corruption, through robust community-based sensitization programmes, accompanied by curriculum reforms to prepare our children and youths for a corruption-free future. For all these to happen, we must quickly re-structure the economy to create jobs for all people.
As such, Public Service has to make openness and accountability its hallmark. In particular, issues of budgeting and procurement in Public institutions should be made readily available to the public for scrutiny as well as assessment. In fact, change in itself would be difficult, if not impossible, without being transparent and accountable. It is important to state that the enactment of the Freedom of Information Act, 2011 further raised public expectation and awareness on the quality and quantity of services expected to be delivered by Public institutions.
(vi) Diversification of the Economy
Fundamental economic reforms to chart a new course for the future away from total dependence on oil revenue are required.
(vii) Strengthening SERVICOM
In spite of its fifteen years of existence, SERVICOM office has remained a shadow of the organization initially envisaged. The Office should be strengthened to enable it institutionalize the Change Agenda in all Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
(viii) Re-affirmation by the Current Administration of the Service Delivery Initiative (SDI)
The present administration should take ownership of the SDI by re-affirming it and making it an integral part of the change agenda.
10.00 Conclusion
The present Administration as a democratically elected government has made change the cornerstone of its philosophy. The adoption of that philosophy is not only inevitable but the only option open to the administration following its take- over of a country on the brink of collapse in spite of its huge natural endowments.
Government in a democracy is a sacred duty and a service conferred on those honoured by the people, through periodic elections, to lead them. The people must also be prepared to give those elected the psychological and material support required to carry out the job. The challenges inherited by the administration are so enormous that it had no alternative but to take hard decisions to be able to restore the country to its rightful place in the comity of modern nations. The challenges are so fundamental that only adaptive work can help in their resolution. This means that the Government and the people must work together to address the challenges. Herein lies the significance of adapting the change agenda and the need for the Public Service in general and Parastatals, Agencies and Commissions in particular to wake up and join the bandwagon of change in the discharge of their mandates.
I thank you for listening.
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