Public Sector Reform Initiatives Research Articles

Public Policy Issues in the Context of Public Sector Reforms: A Qualitative Storytelling of a Former Government Department in the Asia-Pacific Region

Predominantly public policy is a set of guidelines initiated by the government of a country to work in favour of mass people or the public. We showcase and represent public policy materials against the backdrop of being involved in the process of accountability, transparency, and efficient and effective administration and program delivery. In addition, the selected government department used private-sector management control technologies to deal with the public-sector reform initiatives. These elements are considered part of the modern approach to public administration also. The study may be useful to policymakers formulating new public sector policies. Moreover, the findings reported in this study would be useful to public sector managers in their daily decision-making process.

Applicability of public sector reform initiatives of the Yemeni government from the integrated TOE-DOI framework

Effective resource allocation and accountability are critical for public services in countries facing a crisis, to ensure minimum inequality and even save lives. Administrative innovation is introduced as public sector reform to improve the performance and accountability of public sector organizations. Despite the said benefit, little has been done to study public administrative innovation in countries under crisis. This study extends the literature by examining the attitude of civil service managers to the administrative innovation in the Yemeni government representing a country in crisis from an integrated perspective of technology-organization-environment (TOE) and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory. Data was collected from a survey of 200 civil service managers of the Yemeni central government. The result shows that the attitude of managers to private sector management style is scored the highest representing the key tool of the public administrative innovation. On the other hand, the downsizing elements were ranked the least significant as public sector reform elements. The explanatory model highlights the use of information technology, quality of human resources, and budget management orientation as significant factors for the applicability of public administrative innovation in the Yemeni central government.

The Effect of Public Accountability and Transparency on State Financial Management Mechanism: A Quantitative Method Analysis

Since public sector reform initiatives, public accountability and transparency have advanced democracy and good governance on managing state finances. State financial management mechanism involves regional policies and fiscal decentralization trend in the devolution of responsibility for empowerment from central to local units of governments, but the governance face challenges to effectively manage and control the use of public funds that best meet citizen’s needs. This study determines the effect of public accountability and transparency on the management of state finances in Indonesia, as well as the extent to which public accountability and transparency affect the management of state finances. Based on a descriptive quantitative case-oriented research approach, 60 survey interviews are collected and analyzed with multiple linear regression analysis techniques. This study concludes that Public Accountability partially has a significant effect on the Financial Management Mechanism. On the other hand, partially public transparency has no significant effect on the State Financial Management Mechanism. Cumulatively, some aspects of Public Accountability and Transparency have a significant effect on the State Financial Management Mechanism. If unaccountability in decentralised administrative model prevails, problem of ineffective policy output may persist to impair sustainable finance and public values for good governance in times of covid-19 crisis related society.

Effects of Public Sector Entities Reform on Transparency and Accountability in Nigeria between Year 2015- 2020

This paper examined the effects of public sector reforms in entities and how the reforms promote accountability and transparency. The purpose is to examine public sector reforms between 2015 - 2020 that support transparency and accountability. We further examine to what extent the objectives have been attained and factors or challenges militating against efficient public sector reforms in Nigeria. We focus on a three specific proxies and their dimension of transparency and Accountability-Ease of doing business, Open Budget Initiative and Corruption Index using World Bank's Indicators and Transparency International Rankings. We carry out a thematic survey and find that in the Nigeria context, several public sector reform initiatives have been implemented over the years covering all sectors and different levels. The reform measures vary depending on the priority of the political leadership, however, it all anchored on the principles of economy, efficiency and effectiveness, transparency, social growth, innovation, and good governance. In the end we discovered that some of the reforms initiatives yielded moderate result why other have little or no impact on transparency and accountability. We concluded that, though, Nigeria has developed general guidelines and evolve initiatives to improve the ease of doing business and its budgeting processes, corruption is a widespread problem and is responsible for poor socioeconomic growth and development. We recommend that government take a more direct and frontal route, like imposition of death penalty in the fight against corruption. This will create an environment in which graft and fraud are less likely to proliferate. Additionally, it will ensure government operate seamlessly to the benefit of the general public, the emergence of strong public institutions and finally, a nation where the rule of law actually rules.

A Framework for Results Based Management to The Public Sector in Egypt:Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract:After the Second World War, the newly emerged independent third world countries faced immense problems such as poverty, illiteracy, poor health, low agriculture and industrial productivity and social instability. The idea of development administration was born with the above-stated pragmatic concern. Since then, third world countries strived to adopt development administration principles and techniques; in order to transform their conventional traditional public administration into modern development administration that can lead the prospective development.Such conventional public administration deals with regulatory aspects of administration such as law and order, judicial administration and revenue collection, development administration is concerned with the socio-economic developmental activities. Thus, traditional public administration is structure-oriented while developmental administration is action- oriented. Many third world countries failed in realizing such desired shift by converting its conventional public administration to effective development administration; able to achieve the intended national development via the formulation and the implementation of plans, policies, programs and projects necessary for sustainable development purposes. Such bad governance had led the people to go up against such government; as it happens lately in some Arab countries like Egypt and Tunisia.Therefore, the public sector in Egypt need to be deregulated, a new results-based management is a must; to hold managers accountable. This is a fundamental change: holding managers accountable for what they do, not how they do it. The public sector reform initiatives (especially the New Public management –NPM) have resulted in changing the accountability concept; from accountability in terms of procedural compliance to accountability in terms of efficiency and results (effectiveness and cost effectiveness).

Innovation in local government and governance: observations on emerging practice in New Zealand

This article addresses aspects of the evolution of local government and governance in New Zealand – arising largely from some unintended consequences of major public sector reform initiatives of the late 1980s and early 1990s which are now being adapted to the more demanding conditions of the early 21st century. Observations are included on the emerging practice and its potential to play a positive role in the on-going debate about the future proper role and function of local government and governance.

Craft and Capacity in the Public Service

Over the past 8 years, debates about Australia's public service have evolved from being focused mainly on skills and capacities to being now increasingly concerned about the operating environment for career officials, their ability to fulfil their stewardship obligations, and to practice their ‘craft’. In this article, I track those changes and ask what is the craft of public administration? How should we understand it? Are concerns it is imperilled or has been lost valid or overblown? I draw on the observations of current and former senior officials, and the findings of recent Capability Reviews. My primary focus is on the Australian Public Service, because here is where the debate has been most public and direct. I note that the focus of concern has shifted from public servants towards ministers, who have been largely absent from public sector reform initiatives of the past 40 years.

Public Sector Reforms in Fiji: Examining Policy Implementation Setting and Administrative Culture

For many years, public management reform has been an evolving concept. New Public Management (NPM) and Good Governance have been the two ground–breaking ideas, generating colossal discourse over the past three decades. Inspired by NPM-led policy changes in the developed world, many developing countries have lately joined the reform bandwagon but achieved limited success. Policy analysts observe that the policy planners in the developing world seem to have spent more resources in policymaking than addressing the policy implementation challenges. Also, the policy transfer effort ignored the issue of administrative culture. Focusing on Fiji, this article examines how the country's recent public sector reform initiatives have largely failed to bring about expected results. Based on the case studies of two organizations, it explains that the success and failure of policy change occurs in several ways, manifesting multiple challenges including a lack of well-prepared implementation framework and culture change.

Public-Sector Reform Initiatives in Development Cooperation: A Case Study of the Kyrgyz Rural Advisory Service RAS

Public-sector reform initiatives as part of development cooperation challenge many agricultural support services in developing countries of Central Asia. This article analyses the application of the results-based payment system in the Kyrgyz Rural Advisory Service (RAS) and identifies key determinants that are likely to influence its effective adaptation. The article is based on a literature review of public-sector reforms in developing countries, donor agencies' program documents, and participatory action research of the authors. The results from this research indicate that although the RAS develops in a positive way under the new system, it directed its accountability towards the donors, rather than towards local actors. Crucial impediments to the effective implementation of the results-based payment system are first and foremost institutional uncertainty and the limits of management capacity. These non-intentional reform effects, which are to some extent directly opposed to the underlying theories, are discussed in the article.

School Reform in a Vacuum: Demographic Change, Social Policy, and the Future of Children

In their search for magic bullets to fix failing schools, policymakers seldom directly address powerful ecological factors impacting schooling. This article identifies several major demographic, societal, economic, and educational changes and trends in U.S. society over the past several years; analyzes their impact on schoolchildren; and offers a series of policy recommendations for public sector reform initiatives that show promise in ameliorating these conditions, which in turn would improve the educational prospects for all children, particularly those most at risk.

Challenges of Making Donor-Driven Public Sector Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa Sustainable: Some Experiences from Ghana

This article investigates the difficulties associated with the sustainability of implementing donor supported public sector reform respecting human and institutional capacity building interventions in Ghana. It is based on an exploratory case study design; it triangulates both secondary and primary sources of data. Employing self-completing questionnaire and interview schedule tools it covered 105 local government employees from national, regional, and district levels as well as interviewed 16 senior public officers in 9 public and quasi-public organizations. These primary sources were complemented with relevant secondary documents. The article finds that donor funded public sector reform initiatives can either facilitate or constrain the expected improvement promised by reform due to the financial and technical resource inadequacies experienced in Ghana. In this regard, public sector reformers have to become innovative and adaptive in delivering public services, since the mechanistic donor-driven reform agenda tends to affect the quality of service delivery.

Privatizing Responsibility: Public Sector Reform under Neoliberal Government

In light of public sector reforms in Canada and elsewhere, this paper focuses on the shift of emphasis from social to private responsibilities and raises new questions about the forces of private enterprise and market-based partnerships. Under neoliberal governmental agendas, privatizing responsibility links to three main developments: the reconsideration of the relations of public and private; the mobilization of responsible citizenship; and the formation of a cultural mentality of rule that works alongside these developments. The research for this article is based on extensive analysis of policy documents and public sector reform initiatives, as well as interviews with Canadian federal public service employees.

Market Responsiveness versus Political Responsiveness

Considerable attention has recently been given to possible contradictions between public sector reform initiatives aimed at making agencies more responsive to political institutions and publics, and initiatives designed to make them more responsive to markets. This article reports on a study that demonstrates ways in which tensions and conflict can arise within a government agency when the aims of political responsiveness and market responsiveness are pursued simultaneously. The study also shows that conflict arises not only from contradictions between political and market responsiveness, but also from failures in organizational structure and change implementation strategies. Despite this, it is possible that the contradictions between the reforms need not be fatal if integrative structures are adopted and if conditions are created for effective participation and collaboration.

Can Public Sector Organisations Learn?

In recent years, considerable attention has been focused on the importance of managing information in organisations, as well as the challenges for organisations to make use of and adapt from it. Organisationsare expected to value information, to be able to learn from the past and to adapt to changing circumstances. While much of the literature has focused on private sector organisations, public sector organisations and indeed thegovernments within which they operate are undergoing significant reforms and face equal challenges. This paper considers organisational learning in the public sector in light of current public sector reform initiatives, many of which have implicitly been based on the assumption that the public sector can indeed use empirical evidence on past experience to inform current decision-making. In doing so, the paper tries to avoid treating organisational learning anthromorphically, focusing instead on the processes and procedures that form the life blood of organisations. Learning in organisations relates to how the organisation deliberately changes and adapts over time in terms of structures, functions, values, attitudes and behaviour. Organisational learning, as we shall use the term, refers to formal structures of information and whether or not they are used. Our interest is in how organisations can bring together information on past performance and have it influence decisions. Building on organisational learning literature, we will argue that while individual learning is important, it is not enough. There is a need to institutionalise learning processes within a public sector organisation...

Reinventing government and reformulating public administration

The National Performance Review is the most recent of a succession of major public sector reform initiatives. The conceptual base of the Review draws from Osborne and Gaebler and competitive market models of administration. This article discusses the relevance of the base and models, given the current responsibilities of the national government. An alternative concept, governing capacity, is proposed as the appropriate theoretical focus for the study of public administration.

Reflections on Responsive Public Administration in Hong Kong: The Citizen’s Charter, Performance Pledges and Beyond

Administrative responsiveness and the quality of service delivery have increasingly become important issues in public sector management around the world. In Hong Kong, there have been several significant developments, including the introduction of “Performance Pledges” as a variant of the “Citizen’s Charter” in the United Kingdom. This article addresses these pledges by: (a) examining some of the core elements of the Citizen’s Charter and its historical and theoretical antecedents; (b) exploring the salient issues and problems pertaining to the adoption and implementation of the pledges; and (c) assessing the significance of the pledges in the light of other public sector reform initiatives. The article also provides some pointers on the likely future direction of the public sector reform movement in Hong Kong.