Olaopa recommends strategies to transforming civil service 

The Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission, Prof. Tunji Olaopa, on Wednesday, recommended strategies that could be deployed in transforming Nigerian civil service.

Olaopa, who is a Professor of Public Administration, said the proper implementation of the strategies would make the civil service to significantly contribute to good governance in the country.

Speaking on the topic “Reengineering the Engine Room: The Civil Service as the Fulcrum of Sustainable Development” at the University of Ibadan, Oyo State during the maiden Distinguished Annual Public Lecture series of the Association of Retired Heads of Service and Permanent Secretaries of Oyo and Osun State (ARHESPSOOS), the seasoned bureaucrat said the service workforce structure is characterized by many people doing nothing and few doing too much.

The FCSC Chairman said that the ministries, departments and agencies of government must be adequately capacitated to become effective and efficient as the formidable institutional framework that would be ready at all times to meet the challenge of nation building, good governance and national development.

According to him, a change management framework that is anchored around the quality of bureaucratic efficiency; the quality of service delivery and performance accountability within a democracy; and the professionalism of the public servants must be implemented. 

He said: “These critical frameworks focus the objective of institutional reform: the public bureaucracies must be transformed to become:
Fast moving, intelligent, professional, information-rich, flexible, adaptable and entrepreneurial; less employee-focused and rule-driven, deliver quality service; performance-focused, accountable and productive — defined by objectives and measurable results, outputs and outcomes; capable of creating the policy climate that will unlock the energy of the private sector and other sectors and to install a new productivity paradigm in the national economy; operated by multidisciplinary team of new generation public managers and project teams signed on to performance agreements or contracts within carefully crafted ministerial scorecards to which everyone is held accountable; bound within a framework of social compact stewardship that sees citizens as clients deserving of effective and efficient services. “

According to Olaopa, the change management to achieve the vision requires adequate blueprints and action plans that connect present realities with future aspiration.

He added that the nation needs a planned change which relies on a programmatic change model that is focused on changing systems and structures, changing people and work culture.

“Second, there is a critical need for a mix of (a) leadership-led radical change rooted in a transformation change model involving fundamental shifts; (b) incremental change implemented in a gradual manner based on conditions learning and incremental improvement. And third, the change agenda must proceed within an overlapping reform process, phasing and sequencing”, he said.

He noted that the institutional reform must be undergirded by several fundamental systemic and structural changes that go straight to the heart of the old Weberian administrative tradition, and its business model and procedures.

He said: “It is essentially a transition from Theory X to Theory Y, according to Douglas McGregor. Theory Y is more transformational than transactional, and more managerial than administrative. The responsibility of a Theory Y manager is to provide the atmosphere that unleashes this potential of his already motivated employees.Theory X and Theory Y are not mutually exclusive in the formulation of the new public bureaucracies. Indeed, both are encapsulated within the context of what is called neo-Weberianism. The idea of the neo-Weberian is useful for two reasons. First, the managerial revolution in most Western countries was not an attempt to entirely jettison the Weberian model. Rather, the reform efforts were an incremental attempt to recalibrate its efficiency and effectiveness.

“Second, the Weberian bureaucratic framework has not outlived its utility, especially when considering the African context. The implication of this is that the new public management has to be brought into conversation with the Weberian tradition to be able to achieve the effectiveness and efficiency of the new public service envisioned in Nigeria. “

Olaopa also stressed the urgency of rethinking the intellectual foundations of public administration as the vehicle for the administrative reconstruction of the Nigerian state and the quest for good governance.

“This will involve several developments. One, the need to reflect on a non-adversarial and cooperative relationship between politicians and administrators. Two, a firm and meritocratic gatekeeping measure that is founded on the principles of public-spiritedness and professionalism. And three, the necessity of keying into global and regional best practices in terms of competency and human resource framework for doing government business and articulating efficiency in the workplace”, he said.

According to him, there is need to build a new generation and cohort of public managers who are capacitated with the requisite values and competences to manage the demands of the new public service that the developmental state in Nigeria needs to make an appearance in the fourth industrial revolution.

“This will not only be the first immediate gain of the new public service; it will also necessarily serve as the first condition for the possibility of instituting a new performance management system and HRM framework that could transform the workplace efficiency and productivity.

“This is especially cogent as such a new HR function must not only be calibrated to accommodate the changing nature of work in the post-COVID-19 new normal, but also the emergence of the Gen Z and the flexibility required for the workplace.

“This will critically be important in beefing up the service IQ in the form of a strategic leadership intelligence through the creation of a multidisciplinary talents-reinforced senior executive service (SES). It is also the basis of creating a new ethical and professional basis that guides public service practices.

“There is the demand of facilitating public-private partnership dynamics, and moving them to a higher level that allows good corporate governance principles to drive the frameworks for democratic governance. This enables, as part of the HR function transformation, the possibility of incorporating commercial skills as part of the HRM capacitation of the public managers”, he said.