THE STATE should stop establishing public service bodies with the names “authority” or “board” in their titles, the president of Dublin City University has said.
At a graduation ceremony yesterday, Prof Ferdinand von Prondzynski said the whole public service should be subjected to a “rethink” about its role in society. He said there was a growing perception among the public that it was there to direct, command and organise rather than to serve.
“Our public services are a key element in community-building and this is really important in difficult economic circumstances.”
It was also important given that many public service clients were from poorer sections of society and immigrant communities, who especially needed assistance and service rather than unsettling, intimidating bureaucracy.
Instead of the names “authority” or “board”, public service organisations should be known as “agency” or “service”.
“This might also help to instill a spirit of service among officials. All this is particularly important as the country seeks to harness entrepreneurship and creativity as ways to get us out of recession.”
He said there was no shared sense of what the public service was for, even among public servants. Nor was there sufficient communication between public bodies or joined-up thinking.
“There is a big risk that a public attitude is beginning to form that public services are a drain on resources, that they are not as necessary as we once thought and this is perhaps compounded by the fallout from the Budget.
“Necessary public services may come under threat, which would make public servants defensive, which makes for more negativity about them.”
Prof von Prondzynski said the Strategic Management Initiative, established by Albert Reynolds in 1994 to examine the purpose and practices of the public sector, had had initial success in changing aspects of senior management but had “ground to a halt”.
“Earlier this year, the OECD review commissioned by the Government on the Irish public service raised a number of questions about how it operates and concluded that the main reform needed was one of changing behaviour and that there was a need to co-ordinate the various elements to achieve an overall strategic direction.”
Public servants themselves were hard-working and behaved honourably, Prof von Prondzynski added, but there were signs the sector had not adapted to changes in the world.
