The Nepal Civil Service and Re-structuring of the State Government of Nepal Ministry of General Administration THE NEPAL CIVIL SERVICE AND RE-STRUCTURING OF THE STATE II The Nepal Civil Service and Re-structuring of the State AN OPTION PAPER Ministry of General Administration/UNDP Project to Prepare the Public Administration for State Reforms (PREPARE) Professor Pushkar Bajracharya and Dr Clive Grace Government of Nepal Ministry of General Administration The Nepal Civil Service and Re-structuring of the State Copyright © 2014 Published by Government of Nepal Ministry of General Administration Project to Prepare the Public Administration for State Reforms (PREPARE) Singh Durbar, Kathmandu, Nepal Tel: 977-1-4200458/459 Fax: 977-1-4200486 Email: [email protected] United Nations Development Programme Post Office Box 107 Pulchowk Kathmandu, Nepal Tel: 977-1-5523200 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.np.undp.org All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission. ISBN: 978-9937-2-9092-0 Design and Printed by: Quality Printers, Kathmandu Printed in Nepal Table of Contents Preface VI Acronyms and Abbreviations VII Executive Summary IX 1. Background 1 2. The Nepalese Civil Service: An Introduction 5 3. Lessons Learned 22 3.1 Lessons Learned in Nepal 22 3.2 Lessons Learned from Elsewhere 23 4. From Lessons to Choices 31 5. From Choices to Options 34 6. Options for Structures 37 6.1 Principles 38 6.2 Structural Options 40 7. Preferred Models 44 7.1 Models with Different Features 46 7.2 Choosing Between the Models: Risks and Opportunities 49 7.3 The Best of Both Worlds? 50 8. Further Preparatory Work 51 9. Transition and Conclusion 54 9.1 The Challenges of Transition 54 9.2 Transitional Management Plan 57 9.3 Transitional Roadmap 58 9.4 Transitional Activities 59 9.5 Conclusion 61 10. Best Practices and Lessons Learned for Civil Service Decentralisation: Ten + Two Possible Lessons for Nepal 62 V THE NEPAL NEPAL CIVIL CIVIL SERVICE SERVICE AND RE-STRUCTURING AND RE-STRUCTURING OF THE STATE OF THE STATE LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Roles and Functions of Civil Service 10 Table 2: Existing Positions by Level and Sex 12 Table 3: Civil Service by Category 13 Table 4: Distribution of Civil Service at Various Levels 14 Table 5: Distribution of Civil Servants by Region 14 Table 6: Characteristics of Sound Civil Service 16 Table 7: Choices and Options 36 Table 8: Summary of the Proposed Level-wise List of Responsibilities and Powers 40 Table 9: Different Bodies that are to Remain at the Centre 41 Table 10: Three Broad Options 44 Table 11: Action Plan 61 LIST OF ANNEXES Annex 1: Programmes of Consultations and Interactions and List of Participants 80 Annex 2: Committee on Restructuring the State and Distribution of the State Power 90 2.1 List of Powers of the Federation (centre) 90 2.2 List of Powers of the Provinces 91 2.3 List of Common Powers 92 2.4 List of Powers of the Local Level 93 2.5 List of Powers of the Autonomous Regions to be Formed Under the Special Structure 94 Annex 3: Committee on Sharing of Natural Resources, Economic Powers and Revenue 95 References 98 VI PREFACE This paper has been developed as part of the Project to Prepare the Public Administration for State Reforms (PREPARE) of the Ministry of General Administration of the Government of Nepal. Funded by the UNDP, it aims to contribute to the Ministry’s work in preparing the civil service and public administration more generally to meet the challenges which flow from the constitutional and political commitment to federalise Nepal. We are very grateful to many colleagues in the Ministry and at PREPARE/UNDP who supported the work in many ways, and who provided an important and valuable contribution to our thinking at every stage. This has been a focussed and concentrated piece of work, and we have been pleased to be able to adopt many of the foundations of analysis already carried out by the Administrative Restructuring Commission and the Constituent Assembly. That work has its own limitations, inevitably, but where we can we have built on it. As will be seen, we have been able to go on to stake out potential paths forward for the Nepal civil service well beyond what has been done already. Professor Pushkar Bajracharya and Dr Clive Grace (Professor Bajracharya is Professor of Management at Central Department of Management, Tribhuvan University ([email protected]) and Dr Grace is an International Public Services specialist and a Senior Advisor to the Forum of Federations ([email protected]) VII THE NEPAL CIVIL SERVICE AND RE-STRUCTURING OF THE STATE Acronyms and Abbreviations ADB Asian Development Bank ARC Administrative Restructuring Commission ARCR Administrative Restructuring commission Report CA Constituent Assembly DDC District Development Committee FMIS Financial Management Information System HMIS Health Management Information System LSGA Local Self Governance Act MoGA Ministry of General Administration MIS Management Information System NPM New Public Management NASC National Administrative Staff College O & M Organization & Management PARSC Public Administration Restructuring Steering Committee PIS Personnel Information System PREPARE Project to Prepare the Public Administration for State Reforms PMO Prime Ministers’ Office PSC Public Service Commission TRC Technical Restructuring Committee VRS Voluntary Retirement Schemes VDC Village Development Committee VIII Executive Summary Section I: Introduction: Nepal faces a huge challenge in moving to a federal, secular and democratic state. A federal approach should make government more efficient and receptive to the demands of the Nepalese people. Access to quality public services depends in large measure on the skills and motivation of the public employees who provide these services or oversee their delivery. An efficient civil service management system is needed for improved motivation and effectiveness, and hence, better services to private businesses, the public, and to the poor in particular. This paper explores structures and models for restructuring the civil service in Nepal, taking into account the existing context of public administration and civil service management. It reviews existing arrangements and explores the principles which should inform the process of federalising the civil service, as well as possible models of civil service structure and management, and the transition and assumptions thereof. Section II: The Nepal Civil Service: The role of the Nepal civil service is to serve the state in promoting public welfare by maintaining peace and order in society, making arrangements for the just distribution of economic resources available in the country, and running the development activities for overall socio-economic development. The government’s major role is to deliver the services to the people according to their demands and needs in a speedy, efficient and effective manner. Changes in approaches to government and developments in public service over several decades have prompted efforts to improve both structures and governance, and also the quality of services through the involvement of the people and by fostering partnerships between the private sector, civil society and the government. Efforts at reform have addressed the role and function of the civil service, its organisational structure and working modalities, its human resource system, and its governance arrangements. But despite many repeated efforts the civil service still has many weaknesses, including: l The low level of motivation of civil servants; l The administrative machinery becoming too much bloated due to the government assuming the whole range of functions affecting people’s lives; l Unnecessary expansion in the number of government agencies and its employees; l Too many layers in the decision-making process; l Weak mechanism to make individual officials responsible; l Adopting new technology effectively remains a challenge; IX THE NEPAL CIVIL SERVICE AND RE-STRUCTURING OF THE STATE l Lack of responsiveness towards citizens; and a lack of decentralization of necessary authority to the officials down to the field offices. Significant structural, managerial and behavioural challenges remain to be addressed, but some positive lessons have already been learned, including: l Decentralisation brings governance closer to the people and helps service delivery and also empowers the people; l Strengthening local governance has brought many positive changes; l Local hiring helps to retain the personnel locally and improve a sense of ownership; l Many local level agencies feel more empowered; and l Limiting rights to transfer has helped to retain people at decentralised sites. However, negative lessons include: l Civil servants prefer to work at convenient places and at the centre; l Civil servants stay at the centre, making service delivery at the local level more difficult; l Local level personnel tend to be located at the district headquarters only, seriously affecting service delivery and other development initiatives in the field; l The pace of decentralisation is slow and Local Self Governance Act (LSGA) has not been implemented; l The administrative culture is not performance oriented; l Incentives are limited and not fully linked to performance; and l Accountability is avoided rather than shouldered. Sections III and IV: Lessons and Choices: There are lessons to learn (and to avoid) from elsewhere about the process of federalising a civil service, including those learned from reform experiences in Nepal. Twelve lessons are identified, and these are summarised together with indications of their relevance for Nepal, but always bearing in mind that they must be viewed from a Nepali context, which is in many ways unique. These lessons give rise to choices which Nepal can make as it embarks on the process of federalising the civil service. These include choices about: l Leadership, l Timescales and decision making, l The framework for the civil service, l Merit and inclusion, and l Performance, technology, and ways of working.