Any­one in­volved with a pub­lic sec­tor in­sti­tu­tion, or any com­pa­ny knows the gaps be­tween em­ploy­ees’ per­for­mance and com­pa­ny and cus­tomer ex­pec­ta­tions are of­ten en­dem­ic in­sti­tu­tion­al prob­lems. In the pub­lic ser­vice, these in­clude a de­bil­i­tat­ing risk-averse cul­ture, ar­cha­ic reg­u­la­tions in­clud­ing in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions and ser­vice com­mis­sions, hi­er­ar­chi­cal and bu­reau­crat­ic sys­tems, vir­tu­al­ly non-ex­is­tent hu­man re­source plan­ning, un­work­able dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ce­dures, dys­func­tion­al pol­i­tics and fre­quent pol­i­cy and strat­e­gy changes as a new po­lit­i­cal regime en­ters. And for state com­pa­nies, one may add po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age, the re­volv­ing door of boards and CEOs. The in­ef­fi­cien­cies in pub­lic ser­vices ad­min­is­tra­tion and de­liv­ery aren’t a present-day oc­cur­rence. It’s his­tor­i­cal.

Per­ma­nent sec­re­taries (PS) who are re­spon­si­ble for im­ple­ment­ing gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy of­ten face crit­i­cism and have their per­for­mance com­pared to past per­ma­nent sec­re­taries. But times and val­ues have changed, so too pub­lic ex­pec­ta­tions, the pol­i­tics more ra­bid, and min­is­ters’ pro­cliv­i­ty to over­reach un­der­mine the PSs pur­pose prob­a­bly be­cause the min­is­ters aren’t sat­is­fied with their per­for­mance.

Is re­cruit­ing pri­vate-sec­tor tal­ent to fill per­ma­nent sec­re­tary po­si­tions the so­lu­tion to pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tive in­ef­fi­cien­cy? Re­gard­less of where the tal­ent comes from, the pub­lic ser­vice will con­tin­ue to face se­vere chal­lenges un­less there is the po­lit­i­cal will to deal with fun­da­men­tal is­sues. The right-fit pri­vate-sec­tor tal­ent steeped in mar­ket com­pet­i­tive­ness that sus­tains prof­itabil­i­ty may add val­ue. How­ev­er, they will face the same chal­lenges as ca­reer of­fi­cers, per­form­ing with­in the same ob­so­lete sys­tems. There is a marked cul­tur­al dif­fer­ence be­tween the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors. Pri­vate sec­tor CEOs can re­struc­ture as and when they wish with­in the laws gov­ern­ing them. Pub­lic sec­tor ad­min­is­tra­tors can bring about change on­ly through chang­ing leg­is­la­tion, which is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Cab­i­net through Par­lia­ment.

Of­ten, there’s talk about con­sti­tu­tion­al change as if that will be a panacea for greed and in­com­pe­tence. The Con­sti­tu­tion does not man­date a gov­ern­ment how to ad­min­is­ter gov­er­nance. Sec­tion 74 gives the Cab­i­net “gen­er­al di­rec­tion and con­trol” of the Gov­ern­ment. It is up to the Gov­ern­ment to take poli­cies for leg­isla­tive changes to Par­lia­ment. If the per­ma­nent sec­re­taries of the day are not per­form­ing as they should, the buck stops with Cab­i­net. So, when the Gov­ern­ment pub­licly crit­i­cis­es its em­ploy­ees, it is de fac­to con­demn­ing its own per­for­mance. Po­lit­i­cal­ly, the crit­i­cism may play to pop­ulism, but the elec­torate even­tu­al­ly holds the Gov­ern­ment ac­count­able.

Take WASA as an ex­am­ple. Through­out 60 years, the man­age­ment has been kicked up pub­licly for wa­ter woes. One is not say­ing man­age­ment’s per­for­mance isn’t a prob­lem, but af­ter six decades, is that the re­al sto­ry of why we don’t have wa­ter 24/7?

As­tute pri­vate sec­tor tal­ent in the pub­lic sec­tor shouldn’t be an is­sue, but prob­a­bly more pro­found­ly makes sense at the Cab­i­net lev­el al­though they will not be elect­ed of­fi­cials. They can bring ex­ten­sive ex­pe­ri­ence in all as­pects of cor­po­rate gov­er­nance in the fi­nan­cial, in­dus­tri­al, com­mer­cial sec­tors, and oth­er dis­ci­plines nec­es­sary to gov­ern. A few could con­tribute to the Sen­ate. Elect­ed of­fi­cials could then ful­ly ded­i­cate en­er­gies to rep­re­sent­ing their con­stituen­cies and at­tend­ing to the nu­mer­ous par­lia­men­tary oblig­a­tions. That con­cept may well be the piv­otal change and cat­a­lyst need­ed to over­haul the en­tire sys­tem of gov­er­nance, for call­ing a spade a spade. The on­ly jobs in the en­tire coun­try re­quir­ing no ex­pe­ri­ence, no ed­u­ca­tion, no train­ing, and no qual­i­fi­ca­tions are min­is­te­r­i­al and par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive jobs, in­clud­ing prime min­is­ter and op­po­si­tion leader po­si­tions. Let that sink in.

It’s time politi­cians shift the par­a­digm. Af­ter all, per­ma­nent sec­re­taries and oth­er pub­lic ser­vants have no mo­nop­oly on poor or good per­for­mance. Bil­lions of dol­lars in­vest­ed in projects nev­er yield eco­nom­ic and so­cial re­turns. When a new regime en­ters, it tends to aban­don the last gov­ern­ment projects, ren­der­ing any no­tion of long-term plan­ning use­less.

Take the mil­lions that were in­vest­ed in off­shore pa­trol ves­sels to se­cure our bor­ders on­ly to be washed away by po­lit­i­cal cur­rents. There’s in­co­her­ence and no shared vi­sion. Is there a mu­tu­al un­der­stand­ing of ex­pec­ta­tions be­tween the Cab­i­net and per­ma­nent sec­re­taries? Min­is­ters want to get things done and fast, but per­ma­nent sec­re­taries must ex­e­cute poli­cies with­in the con­fines of reg­u­la­tions. They can ex­er­cise dis­cre­tion on­ly with­in these reg­u­la­tions. They must mit­i­gate in­sti­tu­tion­al and per­son­al rep­u­ta­tion­al risks as­so­ci­at­ed with po­lit­i­cal di­rec­tives.

Per­ma­nent sec­re­taries play a crit­i­cal role in the de­liv­ery of pub­lic ser­vices to en­hance the well-be­ing of cit­i­zens and cre­ate an en­vi­ron­ment to sus­tain eco­nom­ic and so­cial de­vel­op­ment. Re­quired is a holis­tic ap­proach to in­sti­tu­tion­al reengi­neer­ing. It can­not hap­pen overnight, but that is im­per­a­tive.