Effective Senior Civil Services
Civil servants are often blamed for being ineffective. In this we explore what are the factors affecting the implementation of effective civil services. There are two axes below, one capable senior civil servant and second the supportive operating environment to deliver the capabilities and skills which the civil servants have.
Effective Senior Civil Service (high score on both axes): in these systems, Senior Civil Servants (SCS ) are highly capable and are working in ideal organisational contexts. There is nothing that should stand in the way of them achieving their governments’ policy objectives. However all systems can be improved and need to be updated to keep up with the fast pace of change. Therefore the focus of groups in this quadrant should be continuous monitoring of the changing context and adaptability to accommodate changes. Otherwise, they risk shifting to one of the other categories.
Constrained Senior Civil Service: in this case, SCS are well prepared with the right capabilities for their job, but still feel unable to achieve their objectives. They are often frustrated by the rigid structures and systems that may work against their best efforts. Constraints halting performance should be removed so that effective performance can be achieved.
Hollow Senior Civil Service: in this case many new policies and tools have been designed and implemented, but they are not being used to their strategic advantage. This is often due to a lack of capabilities and/or motivation of SCS. Changing the mentality and culture of the SCS can take time — longer than, e.g. installing new tools and performance management systems. This requires a concerted effort to promote new ways of working, and generate renewal at the top through term limits, competency assessments, and pipeline development.
Procedural Senior Civil Service: In this case, SCS are not trusted to lead, and are hence stuck in webs of rules and regulations, using old management tools that require them to spend most of their time working on management tasks rather than strategic leadership challenges. In these systems, the SCS have little autonomy, no genuine objectives to promote change, and are rewarded for keeping to the status quo at all costs. Breaking out of this system requires a concerted effort on multiple fronts — to renew leadership capabilities, rebalance incentives and review management tools.
Ease of being a civil servants should also be considered in Indian context.
In India, many capable civil servants operate under Hostile operating environment with little resources and less skilled staff.
Many civil servants fall into the Constrained Senior Civil Services category, where the operating environment hinders them from achieving full potential.
Blaming good civil servants without a good operating environment may be counterproductive.
By providing them with a better operating environment, many of these constrained civil servants can become effective civil servants.
At the same time, over a period, there are many Hollow Senior Civil Servants and Procedural Civil Servants who need to be converted to Effective civil servants or weeded out from the civil services.
