Proposed review of the Civil Service: Key policy indications and action focus

The president has just revealed that the government has set its eye on a structural review of the civil service payroll. We can surmise that the fundamental objective of this is the active containment of the protracted menace of cost of governance. The challenge is huge. One immediate manifestation of the cost of governance problem […]

The president has just revealed that the government has set its eye on a structural review of the civil service payroll. We can surmise that the fundamental objective of this is the active containment of the protracted menace of cost of governance. The challenge is huge.

One immediate manifestation of the cost of governance problem in Nigeria derives from the creation of ad hoc structures and units of government business parallel to the existing bureaucratic structures. This is compounded by the replication of these parallel structures across each state of the federation.

Another unique dimension of the cost of governance that broke the dam on recruitment without the aid of due process in human resource management is the gradual effacement of the internal establishment control mechanism. This internal administrative mechanism was built around the control tool of organisation and method (O&M) and the treasury control of establishment that benchmark the ratio of capital and recurrent budget.

The core elements of these controls were the manpower forecasting and planning system of identifying, planning and acting upon human resource requirements and problems related to the conceptualization of the role of the state in the running of the national economy, as well as the trend analysis of service’s growth in size and expansion of the scope of responsibilities.  

Though the jury is still out on the question of whether or not the civil service is over-bloated in spite of the obvious and urgent need for rightsizing. However, there is no gainsaying the fact that the system’s heavy dependence on experts, consultants, donors’ technical assistance, and all sorts, signals a low public service institutional IQ. This is due majorly to the near absence of competency-based human resource practices, as well as the inability of the system to attract, recruit and retain the core skills required for the civil service to function.

The dependence on external assistance and consultancy services takes its own unique expenditure toll on government coffers. And quite unfortunately, and 17 years after I came to that conclusion as part of my doctoral thesis, the public service in Nigeria is still an inefficient space where too many people do practically nothing (virtual redundancy), too many do too little (in a state of under-capacity utilisation), while too few are doing too much. And from the perspective of institutional reform that will transform the present service into a future performing institution, two reform paths are already obvious.  

The first is systemic and organisational. It concerns a system-wide restructuring that is both operational and cultural. On the one hand, a cultural adjustment programme is imperative through a deliberate attempt at culture change and value reorientation. On the other hand, there is the urgency of putting in place a result-based performance framework that is aimed at translating the old bureaucratic system into a technology-enabled, flexible, smarter, efficient and citizen-centred value-based institution.  

The second reform path the Tinubu administration must take seriously is more operational, and it concerns the restructuring of the internal dynamics governing government business in the MDAs. First, such a reform must immediately enforce a distinction into core and non-core functions in a way that frees up the MDAs to focus on growing their core capabilities, while the non-cores are outsourced, among other alternatives as documented in the literature. This is also important in strengthening the pubic-private and public-public partnership that will ensure that the public service and industry do not antagonise or obstruct their respective responsibilities.

Second, and following on the issue of institutional IQ mentioned earlier, the MDAs’ productivity capability rests on a rigorous skill and competency audit matched against the system’s skill requirements through workforce data, and benchmarked against global competency imperatives for efficiently running the business of government in the 21st century.

This establishment of a competency-based performance accountability will require, for example, implementing job evaluation reports and regrading in order to achieve enhanced, competitive and productivity-induced new pay and compensation structure that is capable of attracting and retaining the best and the brightest. And lastly, to return to the challenge of the cost of governance, the Tinubu administration needs, as a matter of urgency, to insert into the reform of the MDAs an efficiency and productivity audit that targets the entire recurrent expenditure of the government through a thorough assessment of the existing cost centers (deriving from wastages and redundancies), while allowing the system to regain its internal mechanism of efficiency around the following: the systematic planning for short and long-term needs; forecasting of retirement; anticipated vacancies founded on periodic functional reviews (to determine changes in tasks as a result of government’s new policy targets and programme emphases); structural changes and quantum of workload incidental; basic restructuring due to privatisation of government concerns; outsourcing (monetisation policy as for example); periodic personnel and process audits; review of the scheme of service; abolition of vacant posts; control of the creation of new post, units, departments and agencies; accounting for voluntary retirements, retrenchments, and staff reduction due to process reengineering; automation and system changes; etc.      

What I have tried to do in this piece is to take on the reform intentions of the Tinubu administration and see how they could be pushed to their logical conclusion in policy implementation terms with the lens of an expert-insider. Policy articulations must have their ends in the enhancement of democratic governance that demonstrates that the new administration really means business. 

Olaopa is a retired Federal Permanent Secretary and Professor of Public Administration [email protected]