Managing the civil service : what
            LDCs can learn from developed country reforms
The author examines current civil
            service management (CSM) practices in advanced countries to
            provide guidance for developing country governments that
            face the dilemma of how to recruit, retain, and motivate
            appropriately skilled staff at affordable costs, given a
            limited human resource base.  Advanced country
            administrations are following two distinct paths to
            improving CSM. Some countries, such as the United Kingdom,
            are engaged in sweeping "managerialist" reforms to
            decentralize civil service functions and make them more
            responsive to the client public.  By introducing complex
            financial reporting systems, managers have increased
            autonomy; some functions are spun off into semi-autonomous
            agencies operating on an increasingly commercial basis.  By
            contrast, other industrialized countries, such as Singapore,
            have retained more traditional, largely centralized civil
            service structures, pursuing only incremental improvements
            in specific aspects of CSM.  The author speculates about
            what is likely to work best in developing country
            administrations:  Centralized civil service management
            models provide the best starting point for most developing
            countries because decentralized agency systems require
            technological and human resources beyond their capabilities.
            Some better-endowed countries could use certain agency-type
            features selectively.  Such administrations could establish
            strategic plans to move toward a fuller agency system as
            their institutional capabilities increase. Developing
            countries face trade-offs in choosing which CSM functions
            should be strengthened first.  Two functions - personnel
            establishment control and staff recruitment - are essential
            for civil service performance and should get top priority.
            Senior Executive Services have proved difficult to design
            and implement in advanced countries, but many flaws can be
            corrected in adapting them to developing countries, where
            there is often an urgent need to groom higher-level staff.
            Assuming minimal, essential levels of personnel
            establishment and budgetary control, unified pay and
            classification could be relaxed in developing countries,
            following the lead of increasing numbers of advanced
            countries that have done this. Given the urgency of other
            CSM tasks, lower priority should be assigned to reform
            involving performance pay, the benefits of which have yet to
            be demonstrated in the public sectors of developed
            countries.  The management requirements and costs of
            installing performance pay systems can be considerable and
            employee resistance may subvert such efforts.  But
            performance-related promotion systems, even if imperfectly
            implemented, can help move developing country civil service
            values toward standards of competence and merit.