Our public service needs much reform, driven by a coherent vision and leadership, writes Breda O'Brien.
THE MOST depressing aspect of the whole sorry Fás saga is the damage it does to the many dedicated public servants who would never dream of committing the kind of abuses filling recent news reports.
The public service has been under sustained attack for the last few months from commentators who act as if it were a parasitic infestation rather than a vital part of any functioning democracy.
The arrogant sense of entitlement displayed by Rody Molloy has allowed these critics to crow even louder. Given that Fás is meant to be serving some of the most disadvantaged, it was little short of nauseating.
While the sense of entitlement on display was an egregious example, was it encouraged by the culture of political strokes over decades? Was it coincidence that Rody Molloy's attitude was reminiscent of P Flynn and his complaints about running three houses and co-ordinating three housekeepers? Why did Paddy Duffy turn up smiling in Florida? There have been innumerable other political strokes that encouraged a kind of nod-and-wink culture.
To give one example, Charlie McCreevy decreed that TDs and senators could claim an untaxed mileage allowance if they live more than 15 miles from Leinster House. Even if they take a bus or cycle, they still can legitimately claim mileage of €1.26 a mile.
Forget the blow-dry in Cocoa Beach. In 2007, 55 TDs and eight Senators were paid expenses in excess of €60,000. No one would begrudge legitimate claims. But startling disparities in the level of claims between constituency colleagues lead to cynicism.
It is too easy to focus attention on individuals and incidents. We need to address the causes of the malaise, which lie in a lack of leadership. Perhaps the greatest political failure is the failure to provide a vision of the kind of society we aspire to be, one where rights are balanced with the common good, and integrity and service are rewarded, not derided.
Our public service needs much reform, but we will go from bad to worse if reform is driven by a mish-mash of neo-liberal market values rather than a coherent vision of public service.
Morale in many sectors of the public service is at an all-time low. Decentralisation has meant the loss of irreplaceable expertise. Accountability has become a mantra. Sadly, the kind of accountability now being practised often merely involves endless paperwork, which does not increase service or efficiency.
Instead, it is a massive exercise designed to ensure there will be a scapegoat when things go wrong. Senior people are constantly micromanaging instead of devolving responsibility. Power is constantly being pulled to the centre. Able people end up frustrated and bitter.
At its best, public service is a privilege, because it is an opportunity to do work that has a positive impact. From the earliest years of the State to the 1980s, the brightest and the best were attracted to public service, because of the sense that they were helping to shape the future of a fledgling country. Sadly, that sense of a shared mission has all but disappeared. It is a huge loss.
In 2006, Henry Mintzberg, Cleghorn professor of management studies at McGill University, Montreal, wrote an article as if he were commenting from the future. It begins, "Looking back on the great depression that began in 2008 . . ." With great prescience, he pinpoints the key causes of the global meltdown, including the obsession with maximising profits for shareholders, and rewarding senior managers for making decisions that focused on "results today, not sustenance tomorrow".
The fact he was able to predict this collapse two years ago surely gives him some credibility when he writes about other issues. In an earlier article, Managing Government, Governing Management, in the Harvard Business Review, he cautions against blind acceptance of the mantra that government works best the more it mimics business.
As a result of this bias, "the private sector has become good, the public sector bad, and the co-operatively and non-owned (non-profit) sectors have become irrelevant". In short, our society has lost a vital level of balance.
In Ireland we have become convinced the only direction that learning must flow is from private to public. In many ways, though, the job of the public service is far more complex. The business model operates primarily on relationships based on the customer or client model.
Mintzberg suggests the public service must take into account human beings as citizens and subjects. Citizens have rights, and there are many complex tensions between competing rights.
The word "subject" is perhaps an unfortunate choice for those of us reared in a republic, but he merely means the responsibilities such as paying taxes that are the flip-side of rights. The business model is inadequate when dealing with complexities of conflicting citizen rights, multiple stakeholders or political pressure.
He cautions against performance-driven management, and suggests we need management guided by "accepted principles, rather than by imposed plans, by visions rather than by targets". In this model, members share responsibility. They feel trusted and supported by leaders. Performance is judged not by arbitrary benchmarks, but by experienced people, including recipients of the service.
The possibility of real movement between sectors in the public service is one of the proposed reforms. Imagine if some of the best school principals in the country were seconded to the Department of Education. Imagine the reality-based, service-driven ideas that would result. Instead, everything is driven by the Department of Finance. Imagine reform that was driven by the idea of putting service back at the heart of public service, instead of a short-sighted cost-cutting agenda.
This economic crisis is very serious, but it is an opportunity to begin focusing on more sustainable and humane ways of living. But we need leadership.
We never needed it more.