Taking civil service to the next level

Since 1974, the resilient Nigerian civil service drag-ged itself forward by sheer survival will. There were two significant reforms that followed the Udoji Reform: the 1988 Phillips and 1995 Ayida Reforms. The Phillips Reform is significant because it had the task of reorganising the operations of the civil service in terms of professionalism that will […]

Since 1974, the resilient Nigerian civil service drag-ged itself forward by sheer survival will. There were two significant reforms that followed the Udoji Reform: the 1988 Phillips and 1995 Ayida Reforms. The Phillips Reform is significant because it had the task of reorganising the operations of the civil service in terms of professionalism that will eventually align it with the managerial revolution recommended by Udoji. The reform failed essentially because (a) in adopting a concept of professionalism which attempted to make a professional out of everybody within the civil service, it threw up a spate of conception-reality irresolvable issues; (b) these issues perhaps might have been interrogated and resolved if the reform was not implemented as a blueprint, but through flexible approaches that enables continuous learning, experimentation and change management and (c) its own unique managerial thrust which was directed towards integrating the civil service into the then newfound presidential system of government.
One of the unintended consequences of this is the renaming of the administrative post of permanent secretaries as director-generals within a framework that essentially politicised the service. The Ayida Reform’s subsequent attempt at damage control unfortunately inspired serious reversals which, in not just disbanding the Decree 43 of 1988 but its managerial assumptions and expectations, unwittingly threw away the baby with the bath water.  
What then would it take to move the Nigerian civil service system forward? At the first level, there are some incontrovertible truths about reforming the civil service that we cannot escape. First and happily, a significant part of required reform entails ‘getting the basics right’ through a mix of reforms to reform the past reforms, restoring elements of basic management system in MDAs and basic housekeeping issues. Two, the MDAs constitute the structural template around which the reform of the service can be measured and projected. Three, there is a need for an open mind in the service leadership to new ideas to enable sharing and learning and professional knowledge inter-change. Four, given current development debili-tating capital-recurrent budget ratio, civil service needs to work out significant efficiency savings and productivity compact with which to negotiate enhanced remuneration package.  And lastly, civil service reform requires support from a committed administrative and political leadership.
The starting point for reform going forward is reorientation for culture change in the service in the drive towards building a rebranded professional institution. At the prog-rammatic level, Nigeria has been blessed with a reform document—the 2009 Natio-nal Strategy for Public Service Reform (NSPSR), a framework with which the Nigerian civil service can be re-envisioned. In developing NSPSR, current systems and past reforms were reviewed, while impact assessments of some on-going reform were undertaken.  
Implementing NSPSR will require audits to determine current level of capacity readiness of the MDAs. Workforce review to establish their current capability and gaps will run concurrently. MDAs might require, in the short-term, huge technical support to enable unhindered implementation of government development agenda while system’s renewal is on-going. The reviews will create benchmarks around which the basic management systems of the MDAs can be standardised.
There is also a theoretical angle to reform. The rela-tionship between theory and practice therefore demands the existence of a community of practice in a revamped National Association for Public Administration and Management (NAPAM) to drive the continuous theoretical and practical rethinking of public administration in Nigeria. The challenge therefore is to rethink the assumptions and base fundamentals that underpin public admi-nistration theory and practice in Nigeria with a view to articulating a philosophical and institutional foundation for a new public service that accords with both the democratic and technological demands of a knowledge society.
Reform at administrative leadership level will also be critical. Burt Nanus once remarked that a strategy is as good as the vision that guides it. The other side of the leadership story, according to Bob Garratt, is that rottenness enters the fish right from its head! Consequently, the civil services needs to re-concept the strategic role of its leadership corps with a view to increase the Intelligent Quotient (IQ) of service and enhance its strategic intelligence, competence and performance accountability.  A new Senior Executive Service (SES) with a clear sense of purpose that operates a performance-oriented service is recommended. It will plan the business of government much more strategically and expose itself to peer or outside reviews within the framework of performance management.  The new service will operate with metrics that objectively and clearly distinguishes and rewards good and poor performers; manages diversity within a competency-based system that is more open to talents from other professional domains and to ideas. This will enable a measure of cross-fertilization that should be galvanized by an active network of community of practice and service.
Creating a new gene-ration of public managers requires a unique HRM policy architecture, the professionalization of the core functions as well as the reconceptualization of the policy functions, the planning, research and statistics departments within a new competency framework. ‘If there is a spark of genius in the leadership function at all,’ writes Warren Bennis, ‘it must lie in this transcending ability…to assemble…a clearly articulated vision of the future that is at once simple, easily understood, clearly desirable, and energizing.’

Dr Olaopa is the Perma-nent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Communication Technology, Abuja ([email protected])