LAHORE – The Punjab Planning and Development Board (P&D) hosted the launch of the action research report by the Centre for Public Policy and Governance (CPPG), Forman Christian College (A Chartered University) in the provincial capital.
The report titled “Improving Governance: Reforming Provincial Civil Service in Punjab” at the P&D Auditorium on Tuesday. The launch was attended by senior civil servants of several government departments including Services and General Administration Department (S&GAD), Education, Health, Revenue, Police, Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC), Management and Professional Development Department (MPDD).
On the occasion, FCC CPPG Research Fellow Naima Ahmad gave a presentation to the audience with reference to the objectives, methodology and findings of the research report on governance in Punjab. She said that the research had focused on the subordinate bureaucracy of grade five to 16 adding that the report is based on interviews and participant observations of four departments of the Punjab government including Education, Heath, Revenue and Police.
She said that the objective was to assess the recruitment, training and career progression of the subordinate cadre to understand how their motivation levels, efficiency and effectiveness can be improved to better service provision of the department as grade one to 16 constitutes 83.4 per cent of the bureaucracy in Punjab. Among other arguments, she highlighted that both the lack of training as well as lack of training linkages with career progression led to an inefficient and ineffective organization in Punjab.
The event was followed by the talk of CPPG Director Dr Saeed Shafqat. He said that although a number of studies had been conducted on civil services reform in Pakistan, still this is the first study of its kind that concentrated on grades five to 16, the ‘face of the state’ or ‘street level bureaucrats’ who are the citizen’s first point of contact with the state.
Dr Shafqat said that it is this cadre whose attitude, conduct and performance drove the delivery of services as well as shaped the perception about the governance among the citizens. He argued that for this very purpose, it is critical that the government of Punjab adopt a bottoms-up approach to civil service reforms inclusive of devolution of powers to the local level.
To improve the performance of subordinate civil services, he made a case for developing transparent and merit driven recruitment systems at the department level supported by District Recruitment Committees (DRCs), to ease the burden on Punjab Public Service Commission, for which he suggested a regulatory role. This was followed by a vibrant question and answer session with the participants.
One the occasion, Punjab M&E P&D Director General Dr Sajjad Mobeen appreciated the research findings presented by the research team and said that the study plugged a hole in the existing literature on civil services reform in Pakistan. He further said that this provided an opportunity to the government of the Punjab to improve governance mechanism by devising a strategy to incorporate the recommendations of the study.
He suggested for creating human resource (HR) departments in all departments of government adding that rather than administration, these should concentrate on developing and enhancing human capital.
PERI Director Dr Mumtaz Chaudhry agreed that stagnation in one grade could lead to demotivation and said that the shortage of staff did increase the burden, thus adversely impacting service delivery among the street level bureaucrats.
P&D Joint Chief Economist Dr Mohammad Amanullah in concluding remarks appreciated the qualitative study stating that a comprehensive training strategy and an elaboration of rules and regulations with reference to job descriptions, promotions and transfers for the subordinate bureaucrats should take precedence. He recommended further deliberations on the issue and requested his colleagues in the civil services to incorporate the recommendations in the agenda for civil services reform in Punjab.
The public policy students of CPPG were also present on the occasion. A CPPG Policy Scholar Sahabzada Khusro while expressing his gratitude and satisfaction over the report findings, appreciated the role of Dr Saeed Shafqat and his research team for their recommendations and report findings to improve provincial civil services in Punjab.
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