Thursday, February 07, 2013

Performance of the Civil Service

Someone ask: What is the service & efficiency level in the government sector? Are the bonuses of civil seIrvants "guaranteed", unlike the private sector? Is it a metal rice bowl mentality, leaving to complacency, no need to improve? Should the public has a chance to give them appraisal of the performance of civil servants?

Here are my views:

1. There is a fair degree of inefficiency in the public sector. Many civil servants stick to the book, instead of exercise judgement. They do not want to take any risk, as it may cause them to lose their job, if they make a mistake.

2. They impose systems that make them secure or reduce their work, but pass the burden to the public. I have spent hours on submitting many online forms that save just a few minutes of the time of the civil servant.

3. They spent too much effort on achieving their key performance indicators (KPI) that may be badly described. The effort goes to achieve results that are not useful. For example, they bring in foreign direct investments (FDI) that may not benefit our economy, but the numbers are counted anyway.

Not all civil servants fall into this description. Some are quite good and exercise initiative. But, I believe that a large number just follow the book blindly without regard to the wider consequences.

The civil servants receive a bonus that is related to economic growth, and not on the profit of their agency. They bonus is somewhat performance related, but there are people who doubt that economic growth is a good indicator of good performance.

1 comment:

Weng Mao Fa said...

When I am overseas, foreigner tell me Singapore is No. 1.

SG do is an achiever in certain specific are such as Airport, seaport, township, AAA SG bond and CASINO. Its society is rathr sick. It needs sociologist who see issue from perspectives.

A civil servant do the law only. A MP would see an issue from its respective political party.

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