• University of • Bedfordshire Title An Analysis of Administrative Reforms in Pakistan’s Public Sector Name Faisal Iqbal This is a digitised version of a dissertation submitted to the University of Bedfordshire. It is available to view only. This item is subject to copyright. AN ANALYSIS OF ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS IN PAKISTAN'S PUBLIC SECTOR FAISAL IQBAL PhD 2014 UNIVERSITY OF BEDFORDSHIRE i AN ANALYSIS OF ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS IN PAKISTAN'S PUBLIC SECTOR By FAISAL IQBAL A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December, 2014 ii DEDICATION I dedicate this thesis to my beautifully united family. The credit of which goes to my lovely parents who strived for it, they taught us to value our relations with love, forgiveness and sacrifice. Of which the picture is painted by my whole family during this testing time of my PhD. They have not only showered their unconditional love, but also backed me with their financial and physical presence - I love you all. iii AN ANALYSIS OF ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS IN PAKISTAN'S PUBLIC SECTOR FAISAL IQBAL ABSTRACT Context: Despite a long history of reforms, Pakistan‘s public sector (PS) is still considered cumbersome, corrupt, and inefficient by its citizens, government and international development community. Recent reforms were operationalised in 2001 under a new economic policy called the Poverty Reduction Programme (PRP) designed to facilitate the New Public Management (NPM) influenced transformation. The overarching objectives of these reforms were to strengthen the market and public sector simultaneously and so that they complemented each other. The PS reform actions taken under this strategy were mainly based on the World Bank‘s (WB) experience of developing countries which identified the state‘s weak institutional capacity as bottleneck to this transformation. Therefore, with the view to removing these impediments, actions to train the public servants, improve their salaries, and enhanced the use of information technology (IT) were included. However, many recent reports and indicators confirm the situation in Pakistan has remained unchanged. Various generic explanations of these compromised results have been provided; however, the concrete reasons in a Pakistani setting are still unknown. Research Questions: This study aims to investigate the reasons why Pakistan‘s PS organisations appear to be resistant to reform and why the repeated attempts at reform appear to have had so little impact. It addresses the following questions: . What effects, if any, have NPM-inspired reform attempts had on the way that public sector organisations function? . What have been the intended and unintended consequences of reform attempts? Research approach: This case study aims to bridge this gap through analysing the effects of administrative reforms in the federal tax agency where these actions have been revived as a part of the comprehensive reform programme. This study is qualitative and adopts a social constructionist approach. This case study is ethnographically oriented and works within pragmatist criteria of truth and validity; the case study organisation has been conceptualised as negotiated order (Strauss, 1978); and the initiatives of training, salaries and information technology are understood as managerial attempts to reshape organisational structures, processes, and the employment relationship with employees in line with the requirements of NPM. This research mainly depends on the interpretation and analysis of data gathered through 22 semi-structured interviews, participant observation and documentary iv sources of information including public and classified reports from donors and government repositories as well as published scholarly articles. The data were analysed in two stages: 1. abstract analysis took place during data collection, arranging, cleaning, and extraction of themes and patterns; and 2. firm analysis happened through an iterative process of comparing these themes, patterns, and field notes to make the sense of data. Findings: The findings suggest that the desired results of efficiency, transparency, fairness, and controlling corruption could not be achieved due to the takeover of prevalent contextual corrupt practices of nepotism, favouritism and recommendation at the time of its implementation. Moreover, this content-focused approach has also ignored the context and processes that led to compromised results. I have supported these findings through the identification of these contextual problems at the organisational and national levels. Contribution: This research contributed to a greater understanding of the initiation and implementation processes of the NPM-inspired PSR in Pakistan through the identification of factors limiting its results at organisational and national levels. In turn, it helped to highlight the problems behind reformer‘s taken for granted assumptions of quick-fixing the institutions through rapid dosage of reform. The results will also be valuable to reformers as they will not only help reformers to understand the reasons affecting its intended results but also help them to include these in the list of safeguard. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I start with the name of Allah almighty for making this gigantic task possible for me. After that there are a number of people who qualify to be acknowledged for their contribution towards the completion of this thesis. In the following paragraphs I will now express my gratitude to all of them. Above all, the credit goes to competent and dedicated supervisory teams I have had. Initially, a team consisting Dr. Alison Hirst and Professor Stephen Perkins helped me to start my journey; then, the inclusion of Dr. Christina Schwabenland, as appropriate replacement of Professor Perkins and finally the addition of another experienced mentor, Dr. John Clark, helped me through the final stage. I would like to acknowledge their exceptional professional and human qualities and pay sincerest gratitude to them. However, I am highly indebted to Dr. Alison Hirst, for her generous time, detail guidance, patience, and support throughout my research. Here I would also like to acknowledge the role of the University of Bedfordshire and Research Graduate School (RGS) for facilitating this journey. Especially, I would like to mention Ms. Kim Potter for being so helpful and supportive. I am very grateful for the innumerable sacrifices made by my younger brother, Muhammad Adnan Shahid, and his family for co-financing my research at a time when all my calculations went wrong. He, despite of all his constraints, never made me feel that either I, in the UK, or my family, in Pakistan, were a burden on him. I would also like to extend my thanks to all my PhD fellows and friends for their moral and professional support; especially Arshad Ali Cheena, Nadeem Iqbal, Dr. Naveed Iqbal Chaudhry, Sonal Godhania, Shahzad Akbar Bajwa, Tasnim Khair, Asif Tanveer, Mazhar Sidhu and Sajjad Muneer Randhawa. They helped me on this journey, and without their support it would not have been the same. I am also indebted to my parents and sister whose prayers have always been with me in all my endeavours; and, last but not least, my love and gratitude to my wife Mehwish and two little girls, Zakia and Zara, who along me suffered the roller-coaster of consequences following my decision to undertake a PhD. vi Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own unaided work. It is being submitted for the degree of PhD, at the University of Bedfordshire. It has not been submitted before for any degree or examination in any other University. Signature: Name of candidate: Faisal Iqbal Date: December, 2014 vii Table of contents: DEDICATION ............................................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................... vi Declaration .................................................................................................................... vii List of Tables: ................................................................................................................. x List of Figures: ................................................................................................................ x List of Abbreviations: .................................................................................................... xi Chapter 1. Public sector reforms in Pakistan .................................................................. 1 1.1 Aim and Introduction .......................................................................................... 1 1.2 Research Context and rationale ........................................................................... 4 1.3 Methods ............................................................................................................... 8 1.4 Structure of thesis ............................................................................................. 10 Chapter 2. The historical evolution and future direction of Pakistan’s public sector ... 14 2.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 14 2.2 Heritage of Pakistani bureaucracy ...................................................................