As we approach the general election, all political parties are now looking for new vote-winning policies. A problem for democratic societies is that some proposals that could benefit society greatly are of little direct interest to the voting public.
One obvious example is public service reform. It lacks popular interest because it sounds either technical, bureaucratic or nebulous. Furthermore, it should be on-going and is not deliverable in one electoral cycle. But it is crucial to the improved delivery of public services.
Public service reform featured strongly in the 2012 programme for government. At the peak of the economic crisis, greater efficiency in delivering public services was seen as providing a dividend in terms of lower borrowing or taxation. This, in turn, was viewed as enhancing Ireland’s competitiveness and our return to sustainable economic growth, and to having more resources to devote to improving people’s quality of life
Reform has been led by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, which since 2012 provides updates as part of its commitment to accountability, transparency and customer focus. Successes include improved procurement and IT systems, greater data sharing and setting up StateBoards.ie, which improved the quality of state board directors.
In my view, one outstanding issue for reform is greater professionalisation of the public service – making it fit for purpose in the 21st century. There has been some progress in terms of recruiting specialists, but it has been slow and much more needs to be done.
Implementing change
Another change needed is to provide a greater external challenge function at departmental level for senior officials in relation to implementing civil service change. Recent developments, including the first corporate governance code and the creation of the civil service management board and the accountability board, indicate progress but they are not enough.
Individual departments need business and operations committees, with external managerial and technical expertise, to complement the role of existing audit and risk committees. Such committees would free up ministers to focus more on policy, and should help reduce the need for and/or increase the effectiveness of consultancies.
Those who follow how policy processes are evolving know how challenging progress is and how much needs to be done to improve service design and implementation.
Troika programme
Many planned changes benefited from being included in the troika programme, which emphasised expenditure cuts with an efficiency focus. With the troika’s much-reduced role and with tax revenues now growing exceptionally rapidly, there is now a serious danger that the pressure for continuous reform will decline, especially where some of the required changes are not popular with politicians and public servants.
To the extent that changes since 2009 were reflected in reduced salary costs, a simple reversion to previous or slightly modified recruitment and remuneration models in recovery is not compatible with attracting and developing skills in the public sector. Greater critical reflection is required on what is in the best interests of the development of the public sector, in the context of what is now being sought be public sector unions as the economy recovers.
Greater transparency in recent years brought a stronger emphasis in the media on efficiency, with increased reporting of demonstrated inefficiency and waste – water leakages, for example. Current financial systems mean managers of publicly owned assets have insufficient financial incentives to use assets effectively as they do not have to demonstrate any financial return. Since efficiency is at the heart of any reform agenda, decision making must promote financial sustainability and efficiency. This means prioritising an integrated financial management system.
There is a risk the electorate would think emphasising public service reform is old hat (since it was in the 2011 programme for government). There is, therefore, a danger it will not feature strongly in 2016 manifestos.
Ireland needs individual politicians to make sure it does, despite it not being a vote winner. And we also need real commitment from senior officials, building on recent achievements and not reverting to the talk-but-little-action of the decades prior to the economic crisis.
Sustainable economic recovery needs further reforms. For substantive improvements, action is required by both the leaders in the public service and politicians – without the support of both, little will happen. Frances Ruane is an economist and former director of the Economic and Social Research Institute.