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Government goes for sweeping Administrative Reforms

by Ravi Ladduwahetty

The Government will shortly begin sweeping reforms to strengthen the Administrative Service to increase its efficiency in serving the public.

The reforms include a complete review of the Establishments Code, the financial regulations and the procurement process, authoritative official sources told the Daily News yesterday.

The proposed administrative reforms have been formulated under the aegis of the Administrative Reforms Committee on the directive of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and headed by his Secretary Bradman Weerakoon.

A series of basic principles have been formulated. The recommendations to Government which revolve round:

(a) the need for an efficient, effective, and modern public service

(b) The need for the public service to care for and to serve the public

(c) public service focus to be on outcomes and not on compliance with procedures

(d) While providing traditional Government services in a cost effective and a caring manner, the public service should be development oriented and recognise and fulfil its new role of facilitating private sector development.

In the case of the Establishments Code, inappropriate/ outdated Human Rights practices and provisions, there will be two Groups which will be established to revise the Establishment Code and the Financial Regulations guidelines on procurement, efficiency, speed, transparency and accountability to be the guiding principles in the revision.

Civil society groups such as the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) will be encouraged to devise a Report Card system for client evaluation and constructive media evaluation, the sources said.

The Reforms also aim to establish an Independent Public Service Commission with reputed persons as members with all stakeholders being able to accept the credibility of the decisions taken by the Public Services Commission.

A series of strategies have been formulated with a participatory approach in a framework of co-ownership among stakeholders of the reform agenda by the political executive and the top management.

According to these sources, other highlights of the proposed reforms are :

Sustained commitment to and support for the reforms agenda at the highest levels.

Short and medium term plans to be formulated to ensure that the reforms are successful.

Priority will be given to measures on which some groundwork is already in place. Any measures which are likely to garner support for the entire reform effort should be given priority.

Each Ministry is to have one or more committed "drivers" of the reform programme with the Head of each institution including Ministry Secretaries to take primary responsibility. This is not a peripheral activity for them and success or failure will be a key performance criterion, the sources said.

It has been decided that the reform effort should be guided by local ground realities and not be donor driven. They should also hold out some benefits such as job enrichment, service conditions and medium to long term hopes of satisfactory remuneration packages for those who will remain in the system, sources added.

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