My
view of the "Public Service of the Future" can perhaps be best understood
if I explain to you my interpretation of the concept of "governing without
government"
This concept,
does not mean, of course, that there won't be any government at all.
It simply
means a significant reduction in the direct involvement of the government
in the administration of the Public Service.
But the invisible
hands hands of the government will always be felt.
The move
towards "governing without government" is inevitable in much the same way
that globalisation has now become very much a reality that we are all forced
to contend with.
We are all
affected by globalisation. For instance, many of us have access to and are
to some extent, influenced by CNN the American satellite news network.
What we are
fed by the international media may have a larger influence on the way we perceive
certain situations and make certain decisions.
For example,
the rules and regulations that been floated around the world due to advancement
in Information Technology may carry more weight for us than those that come
from within our own state or national boundary.
I repeat
here that in no way is this influence going to make us feel that there is
no need for "governing without government."
Rather, the
role of the government will be different. It will still play a large part
in the process of setting up rules and regulations but the enforcement of
these rules and regulations will be much more difficult.
The kind
of rules & regulations put up by nation states will be much more determined
by other players such as the 'greenies', NGOs and other international institutions.
Recent happenings
have shown that organisations like the IMF and other international market
forces are actively pursuing their interests in our region.
Therefore,
it is not just rules & regulations passed by Parliaments of the respective
countries that will determine the actions and decisions or its citizens.
The pervasive
influence of external forces, brought about by globalisation, will hasten
the process of "governing without government."
The breaking
of barriers between countries due to globalisation is accelerating, the world
is shrinking fast, and most activities that we do among nations are now done
in real time.
For instance,
when we watch TV, we are no longer watching a recording of the event, but
watching what is actually happening simultaneously on the other side of the
world.
"Governing
without government" is a good thing provided the Public Service sector is
prepared for it.
And that
is the question that we have to address - are we prepared for it?
Let me illustrate
further what I meant by saying that "governing without government" is a good
thing.
Take planning
regulations in the country - we have all kinds of planning regulations.
If we want
to put up buildings, we have to comply with many setbacks! We cannot put up
a building right up to a boundary.
There must
be a certain distance between the building and the boundary. This is a setback.
If there
is a difference in the gradient of a drainage, we have to build a retaining
wall, and so forth.
Rules which
the state have passed as legislation have to be followed and in a number of
cases over time, many of these rules have become outdated.
Even when
they are passed as laws, they cannot be applicable to all areas. And yet,
the rules are there for the civil servants to enforce!
There should
not and need not be such rules. Whoever is responsible for designing the building/roads/drains,
etc, should automatically consider what are needed to be done to enhance quality,
value and to prevent mishaps.
For example,
you'd have known in principle the desired distance for firebreaks in a building.
So you must
give a distance between one building and another so that in the event of a
fire starting in the next building, your building will not be affected so
easily.
Or if you
are not able to keep a reasonable distance between the buildings, you'd have
thought about another way to prevent the spread of fire.
Why should
there be rules and regulations, when all it takes is plain common sense.
And with
all these rules and regulations, it will require the government to employ
hundreds of people to enforce these rules & regulations.
The same
goes with efforts to protect the environment. Now we have a lot of environment.
Now we have a lot of environmental laws. Presently we are required to do environmental
impact assessment (EIA),
In forestry,
for example, the rule says you must not cut the trees below a certain diameter.
Why should there be such a rule?
The person
who makes money out of logging should known that if he cuts too many trees
and not leave enough trees for regeneration, the future generations will not
have any more trees.
What kind
of country are you going to have if you cut down all the trees - a desert?
Would your
children be happy to live in a desert rather than a place of tropical paradise
on earth?
There are
also rules which say that we must not dump toxic chemicals in the rivers and
waterways.
The person
responsible for generating the pollutant must know in the first place that
his actions will pollute the water and we and our children will have no fresh
water supply.
Again, why
should there be rules and regulations when these are things that can be easily
understood?
The same
could be said of issues related to public health. There are so many rules
& regulations governing our public health.
The food
caterers should be knowledgeable enough to understand simple basic rules about
hygienic food dispensing otherwise they should not have been given a
license to operate in terms of food hygiene, food storage, food preparation
and others.
Customers,
as a matter of plain common sense, should also be able to make a choice of
whether to patronise eateries which do not observe hygienic and healthy practices
in their operations!
On education
- why should there be an Arts or Science streams in our schools? Shouldn't
it be a mixture of both?
After all
you are not going to apply your primary, secondary or tertiary education knowledge
in your place of work.
The main
thing is that children be taught how to think, to distinguish between right
and wrong, good and bad, etc.
How many
of us have actually applied the calculus formula at work?
If our schools
should emphasize more on teaching our children how to think, the level of
common sense will be much higher.
Soon, there
will be less and less rules & regulations that need to be drawn up and
then, forced on to the public.
If the trend
is towards less and less governing, maybe we should look at the situation
the other way round.
There
should then be more and more people adopting their own standards and regulations.
Of course,
the government can still play the role of setting standards or sets of values
in the event that they are needed because in every society, not everybody
is good - there are deviants.
Basically,
the rest of the rules and regulations should be set by the public themselves.
The good
that we can derive from the concept of "governing without government" will
very much depend on how public sector has reinvented itself.
What shape,
form or structure will the Public Service of the future take?
What kind
of people will we have as public servants of the future?
From the
way that I tried to interpret it, I think we need people who are knowledgeable,
wise and courageous.
But there
still remains the problem of how do we get these people.
Following
the concept of "governing without government," the structure of the Public
Service of the future should be very different from the present hierarchy.
We have to
get away from this hierarchy. It has to be flat structure and
there has to be much more devolution.
If
there is such a structure, it doesn't really mean that leaders in the government
would actually lose their authority.
Devolution
here can be interpreted to mean administrative arrangement.
The authority
will still be there but devolution in the Public Service would mean having
people who will be networking, and having teamwork; where people will put
up their ideas freely and they will argue and negotiate, but not directly.
The managers
will no longer give directives - they will bring people together, networking
to get the best solution to a problem.
Only in the
event that there is a crisis would an authority be required. In day-to-day
working, you would be working as a team. There is not going to be a leader.
The one with the best idea would have a bigger influence.
The question
now is how do we realise this structure. I have recently spoken about Intellectual
Renaissance.
The idea
of Renaissance is similar to the Intellectual Renaissance of the 18th Century
where there was a revival of the individual vis-a-vis the feudal lords.
Where there
is such a revival, the individual is free to be able to contribute and give
the best ideas they have.
People will
be learning and continue to learn, able to think, become intellectual in the
true sense of the word.
In that situation
where you can get people of calibre, the system which we want to transform
will inevitably self-transform.
This will
in turn bring a lot of other changes to the Civil Service itself - everybody
will be less procedural and probably be more transparent.
The question
now is how do we start this Intellectual Renaissance? Somebody argued that
the structure must come first. If you are not able to provide the structure,
you are not able to get the people. This is a 'chicken and egg' situation.
It has also
been argued that unless you have universities, you are not going to have intellectuals.
I often wondered how Socrates became such an intellectual!
I am against
the idea of transformation although transformation can be done quickly. Transformation
still gives the idea that the old part is still there.
Similarly,
with the terms "the New Civil Service." It could mean that the reason we use
the word "New" is that somehow, the Civil Service is really the same as before
except that certain little things have changed.
This may
be a radical proposal but it may be better to reinvent something rather than
to work on the old system and trying to change it.
In
my opinion, the Public Service of the future has to be reinvented, incorporating
whatever is good and desirable from the old system into the 'reinvented' Civil
Service.
