Governments every were are seeking new ways of reinventing their personnel systems to meet rising challenges in the way public service is delivered ,this need has given birth to a set of contemporary systems and these new systems are impacting the traditional civil service system and the way public services are delivered. The aim of these changes is to; Reduce the role of government and the number of public employees by using alternative organizations or mechanisms for providing public services and to increase the flexibility of employment relationships for the public employee that remain . Although these alternatives are not new, they are however becoming common and these new alternatives are taking over the traditional public system of the …show more content…
The previous assumption was that public servants would deliver public service that most private organizations are not equipped to handle, working within a structured agency and budgeted with appropriate funds, but alas this isn’t so anymore, the call for efficiency and accountability with fast and cheaper labor, have had civil service seeking alternative means of meeting public needs. Public programs are being performed by alternative organizations (nonprofit or contacted out), even when public servants are used; they are more often than not contingent workers with flexible employment and not protected by collective bargaining or enjoy benefits that are entitled to civil service workers (job security, pension etc.). Over the years different states have adopted managerial systems to suit their needs, some have achieved success and some have failed, below I have listed some that are still being …show more content…
The increased use of temporary, part-time and seasonal workers and the increased hiring of exempt employee through employment contracts. Employers are reducing cost and enhance flexibility by meeting the minimal staffing requirements through permanent employees and hiring temporary, seasonal and part-time workers to meet peak workload( these positions are usually low paid, no benefit and are fired at will employees), which requires minimal skills, and when skills are required such jobs are contracted out to avoid save money . Exempt positions means funds must be available before such positions are filled, they are not classified within the civil service system, the terms and conditions of these positions are specified through a contract listing pay and benefits and limiting the terms of employment, they can be fired at will in the event of a change in management or disagreement, this also means contract can be renewed or denied. This managerial flexibility allows for agencies to reduce their overhead expenses without having to deal with civil service regulations and collective bargaining and union issues.
2. Change in role of HR administration- In the civil service system the role of the HR administrator is technical, record keeping and processing personnel issues but the alternative personnel system have brought about a change in the job description of an administrator in that he is now involved in brokering of deals and mediating of conflicts among competing personnel systems.
Under the NPM umbrella, public sector has also been experiencing a shift to greater competition. The need to remove monopoly of service delivery and create contestability, through privatization, public tendering, and term contracts, justifies the adoption of competition principle (Dunleavy 1994; Hood 1991). Insisting to do bureaucratic provision on public services instead of contracting them out, knowing that private sector can deliver them better, it is believed would only force governments to lose comparative advantages on price, efficiency, and effectiveness (Dunleavy 1994. p.49). This way, governments are able to fulfil their responsibility in providing services and the financing, while simultaneously stimulate greater competition among providers under market dynamics. However, it is hard to instigate public service ethos in private parties. Therefore, the capacity of private entities to act consistently with the public interest is greatly questioned in this scenario. Are concerns such as public health and safety, environment sustainability, and social equity likely to be sacrificed underneath market mechanisms? When power is shared with organizations which have business objectives apart from government’s goals, the fundamental issue is how to detect which missions they are carrying out. Many public services being delivered by third parties are targeted for vulnerable sections of the community which can pose a higher risk of potential abuse, neglect, exploitation, and
I'm not too familiar with this field of public administration. However, I'm curious to read any research that you might currently have and perhaps even your class project if it relates to this subject.
The reading “Civil Service Reform in the United States” written by Kellough and Nigro analyses the notion adjustments and movement that that reforms have created throughout history. As we have learned form chapter three, reforms are adjusted in accordance with the internal beliefs, political ideologies or economic practices. Kellough & Nigro (2010) argued, “…they were and are driven by interests and purposes ranging from the outright partisan to the mostly technical” (p. 74). The effects of each reform goes along with the internal beliefs of participants that may not be able to assess or evaluate the effects of such reforms until the modification or creation of new reforms. The human resources department plays an important role on the management
Since Wilson, the nature of public administration has undergone three distinct areas of thought: the politically based Old Public Administration, economically based New Public Administration, and democratically based New Public Service (Denhardt &
Agranoff states that the process of integrating disparate human services in the 1960s and 1970s encountered serious problems, for example, the inability of getting agencies to work together to address complex issues and ultimately managers’ inability to collaborate with each other (p. 160). The traditional managerial and administration system has evolved throughout the years depending on theory findings, technology advancement and managers’ performance on leveraging resources— in a very exclusive cycle where government officials and policy makers take the lead to delay the New Public Management (NPM) wave, an inclusive cycle of interaction between public officials and per profit and non-profit partners (p. 198). There are four sets of forces
Civil service in the United States has a long and complex history. Civil service rules govern how public employees are hired, promoted and fired. This paper will focus on the selection politics of public personnel systems as divided in three time periods, the spoils era, the reform era, and representative bureaucracy. It will discuss the major civil service reforms throughout history in the Unites States and examine the role that politics and the environment play as an element of civil service reform in the public sector organizations. The paper will also touch on a number of institutions and players that play a role in the formulation of public personnel policy and some implications that they bring in the long run. Some of the
The need for financial stringency in public organizations due to budgetary pressures and tax resistance coupled with the need to Managing /balancing budget deficits and provide quality services with a reduction in revenue has always been a major challenge for public organizations. The need to save money and at the same time provide quality services, had forced government agencies to privatize and contract out. Recently, there is greater involvement of the private and nonprofit sector in public service delivery. More and more government functions in service delivery are now carried out by private and nonprofit organization. This is one part attributed to the belief that private organizations can provide services more efficiently and effectively than government operated services. And the other is the fact that it is cost effective and takes a lesser time frame. These two process are indeed unarguably beneficial to the government and private sector as well as the beneficiaries, but they can be also very daunting accompanied with huge challenges especially when not executed in the rightful manner. The case of the crummy contractor by Rainey depicts such a complex situation , where the process of contracting out was poorly conducted. The case highlights the demand for privatization and contracting-out and most importantly some of the challenges of privatization and contracting in government organization. it goes on further to identify some crucial pointed to be
Today, running state affairs and managing public sector are fast evaporating from the government to other peripheral authorities within and outside the government circles. Notably, decentralization of authority is on the rise, devolution of power to sub-national governments and governance (Bevir, 2012:4) are adding to the shifting paradigm in state powers.
The use of visual texts has been expanding over time; they are located almost everywhere from the city streets to magazines. Visual texts have a persuasive role on how to make us think about what the visual text’s message is. The image, text, and design work together to make up a meaning of that visual text. Public service ads (PSA) are examples of visual texts, which can present a variety of subjects like drugs, diseases, sex, and environmental issues. Public service ads alert us of an issue through an image and by a couple of words in a creative way.
On pages 115-117 in The New Public Service: Serving, Not Steering by Janet Denhardt and Robert Denhardt, the authors discusses the new public management and implementation. There is not a direct connection between new public management and implementation. Argument/Linkages New public management and implementation focuses on privatization and co production. Scholars suggest that implementation needs to be removed from bureaucracies and that business incentives have to replace it, so that nothing will go wrong (Denhardt, 2015, p. 116).
This comparative analysis will explore the administrative atmosphere surrounding California, Georgia, and New York in 2008. Through the utilization of The Pew Center for the States (PCS) report, entitled "Grading the States", I will assess the performance of governmental management in these 3 particular states. By examining four areas, including: money, people, infrastructure, and information, I will gain a more comprehensive understanding of governmental performance, the various factors contributing to its success or underachievement, and the "ultimate" factor necessary for overall positive government performance.
Managing today’s public organization is much more complicated than it was ten to twenty years ago. The external environment is changing faster than organizations can move to meet the changing demands. The ideology behind the bureaucracy or public organization is much like that of our United States Constitution, designed for stability and endurance. For this reason, the public organization has operated internally under strict guidelines while resisting change. These ideas have passed through generations of bureaucrats as, "the way things are done." In this manner, organizations hire specialists to perform routine procedures to provide some good, product, or service to the community. Employees are
In the following paragraphs, I will explain the dominant theory in public administration practice and elaborate on the major theoretical assumptions of the Old Public Administration. As stated in the question, the world has transformed through globalization, information technology, and devolution of authority since the latter part of the last century. The dominant theory in public administration has been replaced from the traditional rule-based, authority-driven processes of the Old Public Administration with market-based, competition-driven tactics in the New Public Management, beginning in the 1980s (Kettl, 2000, p. 3). This was an effort to privatize government and streamline public administration to maximize efficiency and productivity. Heavily relying on market mechanisms to guide public programs, public administrators in the New Public Management are encouraged to “steer, not row,” meaning they should not bear the burden of delivering services, but instead define programs that others will carry out, through contracting or other means (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2011, p. 13). Core values of the New Public Management include using private sector and business approaches to the public sector, squeezing as many services as possible from smaller revenues, market style incentives, providing customers more choices, and focusing on outputs and outcomes instead of mainly processes.
DEFINITON OF PUBLIC SERVICE 1 My Definition of Public Service T00586571 The Clinton School of Public Service DEFINITON OF PUBLIC SERVICE 2 My Definition of Public Service Scheingold and Sarat (2004) assert that whether or not something is done in the public interest is “in the eye of the beholder” (p.5). I interpret this to mean that one cannot truly define public service without doing so on an individual and very personal level.
Public service is the commitment to building social capital by working with a community to alleviate a systemic breakdown. It challenges the established structures under which a population has become marginalized and attempts to purposefully create new systems that empower and galvanize the community to sustainably transform societal gaps into opportunities. Written in a more grounded way, public service is a narrative, a story of actions examined through the lens of motives and results but whose message and moral primarily rely on the methods used.