CAPAM Featured Report:

Perspectives in
Human Resource Governance

April 2009
Commonwealth Association for
Public Administration & Management (CAPAM)

Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management 1

Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and
Management (CAPAM)

L’Esplanade Laurier
300 Laurier Avenue West
West Tower, Room A-1245
Ottawa, ON Canada K1N 6Z2

Phone: 613-996-5026
Fax: 613-947-9223
Email: capam@capam.org

For more information, please visit: www.capam.org

Copyright © Commonwealth Association for Public

Administration and Management, 2009. All rights
reserved.

The views and opinions expressed in each document reflect those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of CAPAM. The material in this publication is
based on sources that we believe to be reliable. While every care has been taken
in the preparation of this publication, CAPAM gives no warranty that the sources
are correct.

2 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
Introduction
As a non-profit association, CAPAM represents an
international network of 1100 senior public servants,
Heads of Government, leading academics and
researchers located in over 50 different countries
across the Commonwealth. The association is guided
by international leaders that believe in the value of
networking and knowledge exchange and the promotion
of good governance for the betterment of citizens across
the Commonwealth.
CAPAM’s mission is to promote the practical requirements
of good governance, just and honest government across
the Commonwealth countries and beyond. CAPAM
provides a forum for the active exchange of innovations,
knowledge and practice in citizen-centered service
delivery, leadership development and growth, and
public service management and renewal. We serve our
members as a centre of excellence in good governance
and endeavor to build a more responsive and dynamic
public service.
Acknowledgements
CAPAM would like to thank and acknowledge the
leadership and management of the United Republic of
Tanzania, through the President’s Office, Public Service
Management and their tremendous efforts as partners in
the organization of the conference.
CAPAM extends great appreciation and thanks to the
contributing authors in this publication. The authors
offered not only their expertise and knowledge, but
the lessons and good practices of their respective
organisations. Their efforts have contributed to
the fostering of exchange and dialogue between
Commonwealth countries in the area of human resource
governance.

The purpose of CAPAM Featured Reports is to present

and capture strategies, approaches and implementation
challenges in three main programme areas; human
resource management & governance, leadership in the
public service, and innovations in citizen centered service
delivery. This publication will serve as a knowledge
transfer tool that complements and extends the sharing
and learning process of CAPAM conference programmes
and activities.

Each series offers a continued learning and analysis tool

for practitioners, academics and experts. The cases and
papers bring together various country approaches for
comparative and sharing purposes.

Perspectives in Human Resource Governance

Papers and cases included in this publication draw from

presentations or submissions for the CAPAM Governance
Excellence: Managing Human Potential Conference, held
March 2 - 4, 2009 in Arusha, Tanzania, in partnership with
the United Republic of Tanzania through the President’s
Office, Public Service Management. The purpose of this
report is to present and capture strategies, approaches,
implementation challenges, as well as recent research
and study in the area of human resource governance.

Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management 3

Table of Contents
Conference Summary
Governance Excellence: Managing Human Potential, March 2 - 4, Tanzania 5

Section I: Recruitment & Human Resource Practices in the Public Service

Child Support Agency: A program within the Australian Government Department of Human Services - 9
Janice Lappin, Child Support Program, Dpt. of Human Resources, Gov. of Australia

Oversight and Insight into Merit-based Hiring in the British Columbia Public Service - Joy Illington, Merit 13
Commissioner & Dodie Barber, Manager of Audits and Reviews, Office of the Merit Commissioner, Gov.
of British Columbia, Canada

Recruitment and Selection in the Public Service: The Case of Tanzania - Thecla W. Shangali, Secretary, 18
Public Service Commission, Tanzania

Public Servants, Change and Reform, Denis Osborne, Governance and Development, United Kingdom 25

Section II: Approaches to Building the Public Services of the Future

Recruiting for Sustainability and Success in Ontario’s Transportation Infrastructure Sector - Kelly Culver, 32
The Culver Group, Canada

Reflections on Experiences from Project HR Connect: A ley lever for successful HR Planning in the 35
South African Public Service - Geeva Pillay, Department of Public Service and Administration, Gov. of
South Africa

The substrata of good governance: people, policy, organisational learning - The PPP experience in 38
South Africa, 1999-2008 - Adrian Crewe & Dr. Ralph Lawrence, Public Policy Partnership, South Africa

How Brazil metamorphosed from a developing nation to a powerful economy, through staff development 50
- Tilda Mmegwa, (Governance, Leadership and Management), Royal TDI Global Inc., Canada

Section III: Performance Management Approaches

A Study of the Contract Systems of Employment of Permanent Secretaries in Botswana, Ghana, 55

Uganda and Zambia - Philip Duku Osei, Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social & Economic Studies,
University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica & Joan Nwasike, Governance and Institutional
Development Division, Commonwealth Secretariat, United Kingdom

Performance Management in the Tanzanian Public Service - Dr. Benson Bana, Department of Political 65
Science and Public Administration, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Performance Management in the Australian Public Service - Lynelle Briggs, Australian Public Service 73
Commissioner, Australian Public Service Commission

4 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
Summary Report
Governance Excellence:
Managing Human Potential Conference, Tanzania
CAPAM’s first designated African regional conference
welcomed nearly two hundred delegates to explore
themes, cases and issues in managing human resource
potential. The conference, entitled Governance
Excellence: Managing Human Potential offered delegates
the opportunity to explore the role of a non-partisan
public service, training and professionalism, planning and
recruitment practices, and performance management.
The conference re-affirmed the importance of human
resource planning and management as key to the overall
growth and effectiveness of the public service, and
broadly, national development.
The opening plenary welcomed senior officials from
the United Republic of Tanzania; Hon. Shamsa Vuai
Nahodha, Chief Minister, the Revolutionary Government
of Zanzibar, Hon. Hawa A. Ghasia (MP), Minister of State,
President’s Office, Public Service Management, Mr.
Philemon L. Luhanjo, Chief Secretary and Secretary to
Cabinet, Mr. George D. Yambesi, Permanent Secretary,
President’s Office, Public Service Management, and Ms.
Lynelle Briggs, Australian Public Service Commissioner
and President, CAPAM. Honoured guests and speakers
welcomed delegates to the conference and set the tone
and agenda for the discussions ahead. Each speaker
emphasized the key role of human resources and the
importance of nurturing and building up individuals to
succeed and deliver the objectives and goals of the public
service. It was acknowledged that the conference is
timely, considering recent world events and the growing
need to establish a foundation for future management
practices and leadership in the public service.
Strategic Human Resource Planning in the
Public Service
The first plenary session, Strategic Human Resource
Planning in the Public Service explored HR planning as
integral to an organization’s success both in terms of
business and financial planning.
Dr. John-Mary Kauza, Governance and Public
Administration Branch, UNDESA, presented on the
subject of Strategic Human Resource Planning in the
African Public Service. He noted that it is important to
recognize both the challenges and achievements of
sub-saharan Africa in the context of developing strategic
plans. He noted that despite the challenges Africa faces,
Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management
building and planning a strong public service relies on the
men and women that contribute to objectives and goals.
He also stressed the need for realism and planning that
reflects existing and lacking capacities. He outlined the
process of establishing development needs, performing
a diagnostic of organizational capacity, and planning for
future scenarios.
Dr. Kithinji Kiragu, Director, Africa Development
Professional Group Ltd., Kenya, stressed the importance
of strategic human resource planning, as HR remains
the most expensive investment of the public services. It
therefore deserves sufficient and strategic management
and planning. He noted the technical challenges of
aligning human resource planning with overall strategic
plans, the challenge of managing and obtaining data
and information, and the separation of HR budgets
with the organizational budgeting process. In terms of
public service culture challenges, he highlighted the
issues of antipathy to new ideas and changes, relative
rigidity in rules and practices and the centralization of HR
management practices. Strategies for addressing these
challenges includes harnessing human power, aligning
HR budgets with organizational budgeting and planning,
strategically derived staffing norms, and other strategies
such as developing a balanced score card.
The following discussions acknowledged that the best
policies, plans and aspirations of government cannot
be realized or achieved without individuals that have
passion, motivation, knowledge and the skills necessary
for implementation. As such, human resource planning
is inevitably a long-term endeavour and must be planned
and integrated both into short term activities and long
term objectives, and ultimately the overall strategic plan
for the organization in order to achieve real results.
Issues of trust and commitment were also explored
as essential underpinnings of an effective HR plan.
Individuals are not just ingredients in an organization’s
strategies. Rather, they have their own needs, aspirations
and personal values. An effective HR plan should align
with the organization’s objectives as well as the interests
of those within it. This requires strong leadership from
senior executives and strong support from across the
organization.
The challenge of human resource planning is to identify
key objectives for the future while managing the needs
5
of the present. HR plans should allow for contingencies
and for evaluating key elements in the public sector
environment that will effect planning success. Further,
it was suggested that plans should not be viewed in
isolation, rather, national educational strategies, the
mobility of skills and talent among neighboring countries,
and the mobility of workers between the public and
private sectors must also be considered. Effective
human resource planning must take into account broader
contexts and circumstances.
Recruitment and Staff Development in the
Public Services
Plenary session 2 on Recruitment and Selection in the
Public Services discussed recruitment and retention
strategies, the principle of merit and the need for the
public service to develop flexible and efficient staffing
processes.
Minister Dalmus Otieno, Ministry of State for Public
Service, Kenya, spoke about the importance and process
of identifying a skilled workforce that is both motivated
and dedicated to the public service. He emphasized the
need to establish employment not just as a source of
income but as a commitment that requires dedication. An
international panel of experts including Ms. Kelly Culver,
President, The Culver Group (Canada), Mr. Ab. Rahim bin
Md. Noor, Deputy Director General, MAMPU (Malaysia)
and Margaret Saner, Head of Public Service Learning,
National School of Government (United Kingdom), and
Chair of the session, Ms. Jacqueline Wilson, Director,
Governance and Institutional Development Division at the
Commonwealth Secretariat offered perspectives on talent
management, behavioral management and facilitation and
the adoption of more effective retention strategies that
improve public sector performance.
Plenary session 3 on Staff Development in the
Public Services contextualized rapidly changing work
requirements brought on by shifting public service working
environments, technological developments and global
influences. This necessitates continuous learning and
training for staff.
Ms. Amal Pepple, Head of Civil Service of the Nigerian
Federation noted that in developing countries like
Nigeria, citizens increasingly demand excellence in
service delivery by the public service, and that the
public service is under pressure to facilitate socio-
economic development on a wider scale. “The new
wave of democratic governance in Africa is exerting
6 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
tremendous pressure on the public service to complement
political leadership in delivering democratic dividends.
Accordingly, staff development in the public service is
prioritized given the strong interconnection between socio-
economic development and human capital development.”
She recognized the importance of merit based recruitment
and proper career management as essential foundations.
Mr. Prabhas Kumar Jha, Joint Secretary, Department
of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances,
represented the Government of India. India has
emerged as a leading economic power in the world.
The bureaucracy of eight million individuals presents a
challenge, and recruitment of public servants is conducted
through a transparent, merit-based system. Progressive
legislation has been enacted to increase transparency
and accountability, and training is acknowledged as a
critical and vital component to enhance human resource
development and to ensure good governance. He
acknowledged that training for lower level public servants
is a challenge, however, with steadily increasing emphasis
on training, a wide network of training institutions has
developed specialized training faculty, establishing the
use of modern training techniques. There has also been
increased emphasis on empowering public servants and
building morale and motivation.
The following discussions around the implementation of
merit based recruitment systems offered insights into the
challenge of identifying and assessing individual merit.
Despite the significant commitments in time and planning,
it was noted that traditional public service examinations,
interviews, and evaluations of credentials are not sufficient
to ensure the best fit between individual skills and position
requirements. Key qualifications such as a candidates
understanding of the environment, appreciation of
organizational cultures, and ability to engage citizens,
partners and colleagues are difficult to assess.
It was also determined that understanding, attracting
and recruiting young professionals will be key to the
performance, growth and effectiveness of the public
service in the future. Young professionals offer new
understandings of citizen’s needs and new ideas for
serving them well. To attract the next generation of
strongly motivated public servants, it was suggested
that organizations need to reinforce the core traditional
values of the public service including integrity, respect,
professionalism and the desire to serve citizens. It was
also suggested that to earn respect, organizations will
need to offer young professionals a voice and feedback
mechanisms. CAPAM was encouraged to offer special
sessions at future conferences and events to provide
a forum for issues, concerns and needs of young
professionals.
In the course of discussion, it was determined that formal
training and development programmes are necessary but
not sufficient to ensure a strong public service. Academic
and public service learning institutions are the foundations
for public service development across the Commonwealth.
While access and the range of programmes may vary,
these institutions are essential instruments for building
knowledge and developing skills in public service
organizations. However, knowledge and skills are
ineffective without the wisdom and good judgement
that comes with strong leadership, management and
experience. Formal and widespread coaching and
mentoring programmes at all levels of the public service
will be needed.
Performance Management in the Public
Service
On the third day of the conference, delegates were
given the opportunity to engage and explore in different
performance management models that have been
implemented or planned for various elements of the
public service. The plenary session offered delegates the
opportunity to explore these models and the mixed results
of their implementation and strategies.
Ms. Lynelle Briggs, Australian Public Service
Commissioner noted that performance management
relies on a three level approach to ensure that it achieves
desired outcomes. The first approach is to develop a
workplace culture that supports performance management
and discussion. The responsibility lies with individuals
who should take ownership over their performance,
however, it is also necessary to have a supportive
workplace environment that encourages this. The second
approach is to develop a useable and credible system that
is built on a simple yet effective framework that is clear
to employees. The third approach relies on developing
effective supporting practices that enhance employee
capabilities and recognizes good performance (while
addressing underperformance.)
Dr. Joan Nwasike presented a study undertaken by
the Commonwealth Secretariat, Governance and
Institutional Development Division on the Contract
System of employment for senior public servants in
Commonwealth countries. The study examined contract
systems of employment for Permanent Secretaries.
Chief Directors in Botswana, Ghana, Uganda and
Zambia were included. The research evaluated a broad
Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management
range of new management practices that have been
adopted. The study found that in order to benefit from
performance improvements in contractual agreements,
countries must fully implement performance contracts or
backup agreements with performance management and
performance measurement instruments.
In the course of discussion, it was noted that these
systems have an impact, not only for those covered by
the system, but also for the motivation and performance
of individuals who are not covered by the system. One
delegate noted that all employees have a “psychological
contract” with the employer, and that this is aside from
the performance management system that might be in
place. The challenge of implementing and ‘parachuting in’
a performance management system may undermine the
results across the public service rather than enhancing
them. It was determined that performance management
systems should be developed in the context of individual
organizations and the strategies and particular objectives
should be determined from within. The Commonwealth
Secretariat was encouraged to conduct further analysis
on the models of performance management that are
effective. CAPAM was urged to organize workshops on
the topic so that ideas, innovations and experiences could
be exchanged.
Concluding Remarks
The conference closing session offered the opportunity
for delegates to contribute final thoughts and conclusions
on the presentations and discussions that took place.
Overall, it was agreed that HR planning is a long-term
commitment by organizations that requires proper
integration with strategic and financial planning. As a
key investment and resource, individuals in the public
service are more than just employees, rather, they bring
a myriad of experiences, perspectives and goals that
can greatly contribute to the ability of public services to
meet the needs of citizens in the context of increasingly
rapid change and development. The implementation
of merit based recruitment systems and performance
management systems were also explored as mechanisms
(both successful and challenging) for greater improvement
in HR management overall. It was determined that in-
country experiences offer unique perspectives on the
overall implementation of these systems, and that these
perspectives should not be disregarded in favour of ‘one-
size-fits-all solutions.’ Finally, delegates acknowledged
the need to improve and understand the motivation of
young professionals in order to ensure continuity and
future excellence in the public service.
7
Section I:
Recruitment and Human Resource
Practices in the Public Service
Child Support Agency: A program within the Australian Government Department of Human Services - Janice 9
Lappin, Child Support Program, Dpt. of Human Resources, Gov. of Australia

Oversight and Insight into Merit-based Hiring in the British Columbia Public Service - Joy Illington, Merit 13
Commissioner & Dodie Barber, Manager of Audits and Reviews, Office of the Merit Commissioner, Gov. of British
Columbia, Canada

Recruitment and Selection in the Public Service: The Case of Tanzania - Thecla W. Shangali, Secretary, Public 18
Service Commission, Tanzania

Public Servants, Change and Reform, Denis Osborne, Governance and Development, United Kingdom 25

8 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
Child Support Agency: A program within the
Australian Government Department of Human
Services
Janice Lappin, Child Support Program, Dpt. of Human Resources, Gov. of Australia
Introduction
The Child Support Agency (CSA) is a program within the
Australian Government Department of Human Services.
The role of the CSA is to support separated parents to
transfer payments for the benefit of their children. The
CSA’s aim is to work with all areas of the government,
community and private industry service providers to
provide the best possible support to all our customers.
The CSA has around 1.5 million customers and transfers
child support payments for more than 1.1 million children.
Since its commencement in 1988, the CSA has arranged
the transfer of over $20 billion in child support payments.
The CSA has an office in every capital city and most large
regional centres in Australia, and services customers
Australia wide through telephone and online interactions,
and face-to-face through its Regional Service Centre
network.
The CSA’s strategic focus is on supporting separated
parents in taking joint parental, emotional and financial
responsibility for their children. To provide the best
possible support to all customers, the CSA is working to
improve its products and services in order to transform
customer experiences.
The Child Support Scheme was introduced by Federal
Government in 1988 and was aimed at ensuring
separated parents share the cost of supporting
their children. The Scheme is covered under two
Commonwealth Acts, the Child Support (Registration and
Collection) Act 1988 and the Child Support (Assessment)
Act 1989. These acts allow the enforced collection of
child support, use of a formula to determine amount and
application of administrative process to support collection.
Since its introduction the Scheme has undergone a series
of major reforms. Most recently in February 2006, the
Government committed significant funding over four years
to improve the Scheme, making it more balanced for both
parents and to focus on the needs and costs of children.
These reforms were designed to reduce conflict between
Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management
parents about parenting arrangements, encourage shared
parental responsibility and ensure child support is paid in
full and on time. At the same time, the Government also
announced the Building a Better CSA (BBCSA) reform
package that would focus on improving the delivery of
services to separated parents. The BBCSA reforms were
designed to reduce team sizes to provide better service,
review procedures and introduce improved customer
focus and to better educate customers and engage
stakeholders more effectively.
Background
Society’s expectations around separated parenting have
changed significantly since the Child Support Scheme
was introduced in 1988.
In 2006 the Australian Government invested $877
million in a major reform of the Scheme and the CSA.
A significant amount of this funding was allocated to
increase staffing numbers in the CSA to improve service
delivery and create a culture that put customers first.
To introduce the new Scheme, the CSA employed project
management methodology across the various programs
which were to deliver a range of new and improved
products and processes. The scope of one project was
to recruit approximately 1200 new employees to increase
staffing numbers to a total of 4000 CSA staff in 47 sites.
These new employees needed to develop new skills,
knowledge and behaviours to support nearly 1.5 million
separated parents in Australia who were affected by the
changes to the Scheme.
At the same time the business was working to implement
the BBCSA program. One of the major deliverables of
the BBCSA program was the development of a new
service delivery model which, when implemented, would
significantly change the roles of many CSA staff, and
create new positions at higher levels with different skill
and capability sets.
This project was to commence during a very tight labour
market, with many other employers looking for similar
recruits. Many of the new positions created promotional
9
opportunities for internal staff who, if successful, would
create subsequent vacancies at other levels. This added
a dimension of complexity that was difficult to predict and
build into the workforce plan.
To support the implementation of the Scheme reforms
and to ensure new employees received a high level of
support, it was necessary to reduce the size of service
delivery teams from 20 FTE to 13 FTE. The reduction in
team sizes was designed to improve customer service
and ensure greater management, coaching, performance
measurement and people development within each team
than was possible with the larger size. The reduction
translated directly to the need to recruit 126 additional
Team Leaders. This was identified as a priority area for
recruitment and would be the first phase of the recruiting
project. Team Leader recruitment practices, approaches
and methodologies would then be translated to the sub
projects to recruit into other levels.
Phase 1 – Team Leader Recruitment
Consistency in recruitment processes across Australia
was vital to the success of a project of this magnitude.
To minimise the risk of inconsistency a dedicated Project
Manager managed the end-to-end process which included
engaging an external recruitment provider. The Project
Manager was directly responsible for ensuring:
• adherence to the requirements of the Public Service
Principles of Merit under the Public Service Act
• consistent processes and practices were adopted
nationally, and
• effective communication strategies were delivered to
keep business managers well informed and engaged
The CSA Certified Agreement governing employment
conditions required vacancies to be advertised internally
prior to advertising in external market. This added a layer
of complexity to external recruitment. While immediately
advertising externally was not technically outside the
scope of the Collective Agreement, it was a move away
from accepted practice. To avoid industrial issues and
disputes it was necessary to engage representative
bodies early in the process to gain support.
Early in the project, a workshop was conducted with a
small group of leaders and staff representatives to clarify
and engage them in the recruiting process and to clarify
the Team Leader role. Team Leaders were seen as
instrumental in influencing the cultural change required,
so the objective of the workshop was to develop a job
description, duty statement, selection criteria, and identify
10 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
important capability requirements for Team Leaders.
The output from this workshop was then used to consult
with the broader business and staff to gain feedback and
develop the final products.
To support internal applicants, a series of job application
and selection workshops were offered in each state.
These workshops were designed to provide staff with
an understanding of the changing role, to support
them in writing applications and provide advice about
how to present their claims throughout the process.
The workshops were followed by the opportunity for
attendees to email their draft applications to a consultant
for feedback. This was a specific strategy to support
staff acceptance of the move away from the practice of
advertising positions internally first.
Final job descriptions and other information was then
used to develop advertising material, applicant information
kits, web information and the Statement of Requirement to
select an appropriate external recruitment provider.
Information for applicants was designed to be both
informative and attractive, included the mandatory
documentation such as selection criteria and duty
statements and provided sufficient information about the
role of the organisation.
The attraction strategy was aimed at both the public and
private sector with advertising material placed in specific
publications aimed at attracting recruits that may not
be actively seeking employment. Target groups were
identified and advertising was placed in journals and free
commuter papers to specifically attract these groups.
The advertising process attracted 699 candidates, 453 of
the applications were lodged by external candidates and
246 internal staff. Of these 172 external and 187 internal
applicants progressed to the next stage as outlined in the
assessment model. (see page 11)
Selection for these positions was based on assessment
of the applicant’s written claims, assessment centre
performance, interview performance and where
necessary, referee reports. A combination of methods
to assess the individual’s suitability was used, which
allowed for validity and bias checking and also for the
individual to demonstrate their abilities in a number of
different environments, ensuring they had the opportunity
to demonstrate their full range of skills.
There were 26 days of assessment centres at 12 different
locations, run nationally with a minimum of 3 assessors
Public Service Recruitment Practices: Assessment Model
Step 1: Assess Application
Applicants satisfying mandatory characteristics under all four CSA
capabilities proceed to assessment centre.
Step 2: Conduct Assessment Centres
Applicants satisfying mandatory characteristics under all four CSA
capabilities proceed to interview
Step 3: Conduct Interviews
Applicants satisfying mandatory characteristics under all four CSA
capabilities proceed to referee check.
Step 4: Contact Referees
Commence referee reports for applicants rated suitable
Step 6: Merit List
at each location. The activity at the assessment centre
was designed specifically around the role and included
scenarios and exercises that were likely to present
on a daily basis. The assessors observed the activity
and provided rankings across the range of exercises.
Applicants who met the predetermined bench mark at the
assessment centre proceeded to interview. The interview
panel included 2 of the assessors from the assessment
centre and were conducted over 25 days at 12 different
locations.
The final stage in the selection process was referee
checking. Relevant referee comment was seen as an
important part of assessing the validity of the applicant’s
stated claims. The recruitment provider obtained referee
reports by telephone taking the referees through a series
of questions and seeking clarification if necessary.
The table below tracks the internal and external applicants
along the journey from the 699 starters to the 128
successful applicants, showing the reduction in volumes
at each stage. The percentages under each stage
indicate the value of each component’s contribution to the
applicant’s overall score.
All Applicant Process
To ensure retention of internal staff who were
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 11
Applicants not satisfying mandatory chracteristics under all four CSA
capabilities short listed out of assessment and advised.
Applicants not assessed as satisfactory or above against the
mandatory characteristics under all four CSA capabilities short listed
out of interview stage. May be revisited.
Applicants not assessed as satisfactory or above against the
mandatory characteristics under all four CSA capabilities short listed
out at interview stage.
Step 5: Review/Re-test selected applicants
Possible further testing of applicants who are close to being
assessed as suitable based on all assessment elements.
UNSUITABLE
unsuccessful in the first round of Team Leader
recruitment, a feedback process was developed
to support increased capability for future rounds.
Individuals were provided with a comprehensive report
which included details of their performance during the
selection process and guidance in relation to their future
development needs to increase capability to perform the
role of Team Leader.
Throughout the entire process regular communiqués were
sent to the various internal stakeholders keeping them
informed. The communiqués were targeted to the various
different audiences and various mediums were used to
ensure wide coverage. This approach proved successful
in gaining engagement, acceptance and support from
staff, supervisors and executive officers. (See chart on
page 12)
Outcomes
Despite the environment of significant change and
uncertainty the project successfully delivered the
first phase, including a range of products, process
and procedures that overcame the daily challenges
encountered.
Phase one saw the delivery of a consistent national
process which was implemented throughout the 47
different locations and the successful recruiting of 128
 All Applicant Progress

800

Frequency 600 242

internal
400
190 external
200 457
95
166 85 70
115 68 58
0
application assessment interview (30%) referees recommended
(10%) Centre (40%) (20%)
Stage

Team Leaders. A total of approximately 1200 staff were
recruited over the life of the project. This was done within
short timeframes and delivered with support from a variety
of CSA business areas and stakeholders.
The business requirement to deliver the right number of
people with the right skills, capability and knowledge was
successfully achieved on time and on quality.
of the staff involved.
Ultimately the recruitment project delivered the required
number of staff and a range of sustainable processes and
products that were incorporated into ongoing business as
usual recruitment practices.

The development of an attraction and advertising strategy

generated a large pool of applicants. This translated to
sufficient suitable applicants to create merit lists in most
locations.

The advertising template and applicant information kits

developed as part of the attraction strategy proved to be
sustainable and have been adopted for all recruitment
activity.

Throughout the entire process the feedback provided by

staff and stakeholders was generally positive, with staff
representative groups perceiving that the project adhered
to the merit principles of fairness and equity. Evidence
that supports this perception was the minimal number of
grievances and disputes submitted which were not upheld.

Early engagement of stakeholders greatly contributed to

the success of this recruitment process and generated
continued support. This support ensured the project could
be delivered within the tight time frame and helped to
minimise disputes and ensure capability requirements
were met.

Conclusion

This large volume recruitment project supported the CSA

to deliver the largest reform agenda in its history, the
success of which was due to high level planning, project
management, stakeholder engagement and commitment

12 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
Oversight and Insight into Merit-based Hiring in the
British Columbia Public Service
Joy Illington, Merit Commissioner & Dodie Barber, Manager of Audits and Reviews, Office of
the Merit Commissioner, Gov. of British Columbia, Canada
Governments’ capacity to deliver public services to their
citizens depends on their ability to attract and keep
qualified, engaged employees.
The business case for employee engagement is
strong. Organizations with highly engaged employees
are more productive, have less absenteeism, retain
more employees and provide better service than other
organizations do. Employee engagement is dependent
on key factors in the work environment such as internal
communication, employee empowerment and respectful
relations. Some investments have better leverage
than others when trying to increase levels of employee
engagement - one of these is merit-based hiring.
This paper highlights what the British Columbia Public
Service has done to improve the engagement of its
employees, with particular emphasis on what has been
discovered about the relationship between staffing
practices and the engagement of employees.
Context
The BC Public Service has over 30,000 employees
serving throughout the province. They are organized into
ministries, each led by a deputy minister (these senior
civil servants are also known as permanent secretaries in
other parts of the Commonwealth). Together, the deputy
ministers form a Council, chaired by the Deputy Minister
to the Premier of BC.
BC has a lean public service, with 8.9 employees per
1,000 citizens. About 80% of the BC Public Service
consists of unionized employees, and about 15% of the
non-unionized employees are managers.
The Public Service Act provides for staffing to be
delegated from deputy ministers to these managers, who
are most knowledgeable about the operational needs of
the jobs to be done, and the qualifications required to do
those jobs. Managers’ staffing practices are guided by
legislation, corporate policies and, where applicable, by
provisions of collective agreements.
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 13
Appointments on Merit
Merit-based hiring has been the cornerstone of staffing
in the BC Public Service for the past 100 years. While
the principle of merit was contested in the early years by
politicians who wanted to reward their constituents and
supporters with government jobs, it has prevailed over
time and developed into the provisions that exist today in
the Public Service Act. This states that all appointments
to and within the public service must be based on the
principle of merit. This has been interpreted to mean that
appointments are made on the basis of an assessment
of competence and ability to do the job, and are not the
result of patronage.
Employees who form the core professional public service
are normally hired through a competitive process that
allows applicants to be rated and ranked relative to one
another, so that those who are successful are the best
qualified candidates. Employees hired for temporary,
short term work must be assessed for individual merit and
qualified for the jobs they do, but do not necessarily have
to compete against other candidates for the job.
The Public Service Act sets out a number of factors to
be considered in determining merit. These include the
applicants’ education, skills, knowledge, experience, past
work performance and, where it is applicable, years of
continuous service in the public service.
Merit-based appointments have these essential elements:
the process used to recruit, assess, and select is
transparent and fair; the assessment is relevant to the job;
and decisions that are made are reasonable. Merit-based
hiring considers the legislation, hiring policy and, where
applicable, collective agreement requirements affecting
merit.
In 2001, the Public Service Act provided for a Merit
Commissioner to monitor the application of the merit
principle in hiring and promotions in the BC Public
Service. In 2006, the legislation was amended to make
the Merit Commissioner an officer of the Legislature, so
that oversight was independent of government. To carry
out this mandate, the Office has three related business
lines: annual and special audits; independent staffing
reviews; and education about merit-based staffing,
including its impact on employee engagement.
Our audits and reviews assess whether recruitment
and selection processes were properly applied to result
in merit-based appointments; and that the individuals
appointed were qualified for the job.
Detailed audit reports are provided to the deputy minister
of each organization audited. These results are to be
shared with the hiring managers as they have been
delegated the responsibility to decide how best to recruit,
assess and select applicants for appointments. An
independent audit is one way in which managers can be
held accountable for their hiring results: to recognize work
that has been done well; and for deputy ministers to take
action so that identified problems are not repeated. Timely
reports help the heads of public service to act to produce
changes in merit-based staffing performance.
The Commissioner is accountable to all members of the
Legislative Assembly (government and opposition) and
reports on an annual basis, the results of monitoring merit-
based hiring performance.
These outputs all support the long-term goal of building
strong confidence among stakeholders that staffing is
based on the merit principle and fair process.
Challenge
In 2005, the BC Public Service estimated that one third
or 10,000 employees would be eligible to retire within 10
years, including 45% of all managers. Less than 10% of
the public service was under the age of 30. At that time,
recruitment was typically restricted to existing government
employees. The public service‘s engagement levels had
measured well below those of the private sector.
The public service was not considered an attractive
employer. Given the need to compete for skilled labour,
government had to change the way the public service was
seen as a place to work and the way the people employed
in the public service saw themselves.
In 2006, the Deputy Ministers’ Council introduced the first
corporate-wide Human Resource Plan, which treated
the government as one unified employer. To address the
impending challenges, the plan had three goals. One
goal was aimed at changing the culture of the workplace,
14 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
making the public service a place that supports
employees to contribute their best. Strategies related to
this goal included a commitment to improve employee
engagement. A Work Environment Survey was designed
to measure employee engagement and is administered
annually to every employee.
Employee Engagement Model
The statistics branch of the BC public service (BC Stats)
built a model of employee engagement. The model
depicts the critical components of engagement. Based on
employees’ responses to the annual survey, this model
can measure how engaged employees are.
Both levels of management (executive and supervisory)
are an essential foundation to employee engagement. Ten
building blocks identify the parts of the work environment
that have the greatest impact on this engagement.
The roof represents employee engagement at its core.
Three characteristics define employee engagement: job
satisfaction; organizational satisfaction; and commitment
to the public service.
BC Stats identified four principal drivers of employee
engagement. Interventions in these four areas produce
the greatest positive change toward engagement:
1. Executive-Level Management: The single most
influential driver of employee engagement is executive
level management i.e. deputy ministers and assistant
deputy ministers, who are the most senior managers
of the public service. As there are a small number of
these senior managers, improvements in executive
level management behaviour can have a great deal of
leverage. To be engaged, employees must believe that
their senior leaders communicate decisions in a timely
manner, that they clearly communicate strategic changes
and priorities and that they provide clear direction for the
future.
2. Supervisory-Level Management: The second most
influential driver of engagement is supervisory-level
management. Employees must believe the person
they report to keeps them informed and consults
them on decisions that affect their work and their
workplace. Employees want their supervisors to be
fair, to be personally interested, and to be honest in
communications.
3. Vision, Mission and Goals: The third most influential
driver of engagement is comfort with the vision, mission
and goals. In order to be satisfied with their organization,
 Employee Engagement Model

BC Public Service
Commitment

Organisation
Job Satisfaction
Satisfaction

Workplace Functions are the Building Blocks

Respectful Environment Teamwork

Professional Development Empowerment Physical Environment

Stress & Workload Vision, Mission & Goals

Pay & Benefits Staffing Practices Recognition

Management is the Foundation

Executive Level Supervisory Level

employees must believe their organization is well-led Research

and heading in the right direction. They must understand
how their work connects with the bigger picture of the
organization’s objectives.
4. Staffing Practices: The fourth key driver of
engagement is staffing practices. Employees must believe
that staffing practices in their work unit are fair and are
based on merit. Employees connect this to receiving
recognition for work performed, having opportunities for
training and development and to whether they see a future
for themselves in the organization.
These four key drivers are critical to having employees
who feel valued, who are satisfied with their opportunities,
who are committed to staying with their employer and
who will recommend their employer to others. Although it
is possible to make improvements in any of the building
blocks, without the key driver of merit-based staffing
practices, employee engagement in the public sector
cannot be sustained.
While the Deputy Ministers’ Council introduced strategies
to address the key drivers to engagement, the Office
of the Merit Commissioner has further investigated the
impact of merit-based staffing practices to employee
engagement.
With the help of BC Stats, the Merit Commissioner’s
Office analyzed the responses in the annual Workplace
Environment Survey about staffing practices; we held
employee focus groups; and we looked for trends in our
annual audits of new appointments.
(a) Work Environment Survey Results
One of the questions in the employee survey asks: “In
my workplace, the selection of a person for a position is
based on merit.” More than 14,500 employees responded
in 2006. These were the overall results: 40% agreed; 26%
were neutral; and 34% disagreed.
Our Office analyzed these responses and found there
were significant differences based on such variables as
government organization, occupation, employee type,
years of service, region, age and gender.
The most significant factor was an employee’s occupation.
Employees who work in front line services such as
enforcement: prisons, probation, sheriffs; in social service
delivery such as income assistance; or in administrative
support, all had the least confidence in merit-based hiring
practices. These are generally hierarchical workplaces
where there is not much employee empowerment or
discretion.

C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 15
Women, who tend to be clustered as front-line service
providers, were less likely to agree that hiring practices
were based on merit than were men. However, managers
of both genders were much more likely to agree that
hiring practices were based on merit. After all, they did the
hiring.
There was a direct correlation between employees‘
engagement scores and their belief that hiring in their
work unit was based on merit. Those who were least
satisfied with their job and organization had the lowest
confidence in merit-based hiring. Those who agreed
that hiring was based on merit, tended to be those most
engaged.
(b) Focus Groups
Despite audit results showing that the majority of hiring
and promotions were merit-based, it was clear from the
Work Environment Survey that there was a gap between
the primarily paper-based evidence that our audits
use and the opinions of employees about merit-based
hiring. To gather qualitative evidence and gain insight
into the reasons for employees’ responses, we hired an
independent party to conduct focus groups with a random
selection of employees. Participants were asked to share
their thoughts about and experiences with hiring and
promotions in the BC Public Service.
Although there were many observations, three in particular
cast a useful light on employees’ perceptions of merit-
based staffing.
First, participants used more than 80 different meanings
to describe what merit meant to them, ranging from
“experienced and qualified” to “earned and worthy”.
Managers should not assume that employees are working
to a common definition of merit-based hiring.
Second, nearly one-quarter of all participants (union and
management alike) believed that they have been in a job
competition where the results were already determined.
Participants talked at length about how the pretence of
fair competition frustrated them, lowered their respect
for hiring managers, and negatively affected morale
and engagement. Stories about unfair practices take on
legendary status and can persist and damage the work
culture for many years after they occur.
Third, participants were frustrated by a lack of
communication by managers before, during and after
staffing – this is a point that cannot be overemphasized.
Participants valued ongoing communication by managers:
16 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
talking to employees in the workplace about staffing
plans; describing the process to be used to make
selection decisions; and communicating the outcome and
the rationale for appointments made. Employees don’t
automatically assume that merit was the basis for hiring or
promotions when there is no transparency in the process.
Participants also stressed the benefits of receiving honest
evaluation about their performance as applicants. Getting
constructive feedback can make a difference to whether
employees stay engaged and see a future for themselves
in the public service, or become disengaged. The public
service cannot support employees to do their best if their
applications are not responded to, or their aspirations are
not addressed.
(c) Annual Audit of Appointments
Our 2007 annual audit sampled one in ten appointments
– out of 5,750 new appointments. The audit findings
confirmed that, for one in five appointments, managers
were not following basic hiring policy, collective agreement
or statutory requirements.
The results highlight a structural weakness in a staffing
system that delegates responsibilities to managers, on
the assumption that they know their obligations. Although
the audit results show that the majority of managers know
and carry out their hiring responsibilities, not all managers
do. There are many new managers, managers who are
new to hiring, and new advisors in the human resource
community who could benefit from a better understanding
of their responsibilities for merit-based hiring performance.
Reliance on passive learning methods about merit-based
staffing practices is insufficient. Our office recommended
a proactive campaign of training about merit-based hiring.
The audit results indicated that managers did not
understand how their staffing practices impact employee
engagement. For example, our audit showed that
hundreds of employees did not receive final notification
or offers of feedback when they were unsuccessful in
their applications for advertised job opportunities. When
managers are perceived to be unresponsive and fail
to offer to help employees improve their performance,
this damages the reputation of the BC Public Service
as an employer. Merit-based hiring is a management
accountability, not just a human resources issue.
Conclusion
As clear connections have been made between the
importance of merit-based staffing as a driver of employee
engagement, managers are learning that transparency
and communication about staffing is related to employee
trust in the integrity of their managers and of their
organization. In order to do their best, to be satisfied with
their job and organization, and committed to the BC public
service, employees want day-to-day encouragement from
their supervisor; honest feedback about the quality of
their work; personal and professional development; fair
opportunities for promotions and growth, and constructive
feedback about their performance in job applications.
Web Links
Office of the Merit Commissioner: http://www.meritcomm.
bc.ca/
Public Service Act: http://www.bclaws.ca/Recon/
document/freeside/--%20P%20--/Public%20
Service%20Act%20%20RSBC%201996%20%20c.%20
385/00_96385_01.xml

In two years since the 2006 Work Environment Survey,

employee engagement has risen by 8 points and
confidence in merit-based hiring has increased from an
average of 40% to 50%.

As a result of the merit performance findings by the

Merit Commissioner, and recommendations made, the
BC Public Service is offering new training and tools to
support managers in their hiring roles – with an emphasis
on managers’ accountabilities in merit-based hiring.
Given the impact on employee engagement, training to
improve merit performance will provide a high return on
the investment. Merit-based hiring is not a one-time event;
it is a key driver that helps to attract and to keep engaged
employees so that public services can be provided now
and in the future.

References

Office of the Merit Commissioner 2007/2008 Annual

Report. Victoria, BC, Canada. (2008). Retrieved March
17, 2009 from: http://www.meritcomm.bc.ca/What-We-
Provide/Publications.htm

BC Public Service “Being the Best 3.0 Human

Resource Plan 2008/2009 to 2010/2011”. (December
2008). Retrieved March 17, 2009 from: http://www.
bcpublicservice.gov.bc.ca/HRPlan_2008.pdf

Herrin, Lee “Employee Engagement: High ROI strategies”.

NetworkedGovernment.ca, Canadian Government
Executive Magazine (October 2008). Retrieved March
17, 2009 from: http://www.networkedgovernment.ca/
cp.asp?pid=762

C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 17
Recruitment and Selection in the Public Service:
The Case of Tanzania
Thecla W. Shangali, Secretary, Public Service Commission, Tanzania
Introduction
In any organization, Human Resource Policies are
important to maintain and enhance productivity and
effectiveness of the workforce. These policies must
have a set of well defined guiding principles, among
others on recruitment and selection, salary and wages
enhancement, performance appraisal and motivation.
Clear policy on the above aspects will attract new
employees and retain an existing labour force. Within
this context the Tanzania Government came up with the
Public Service Management and Employment Policy,
(1999). This Policy was the result of reforms taking place
in the Public Service since 1990’s up to date, namely the
Civil Service Reform Programme and later on, the Public
Service Reform Programme in the 2000’s.
The Policy opens a new era in Human Resource
Management in the Public Service. The overall objective
of the policy was to introduce ethics and best practices,
which guide the transformation of the Public Service
of Tanzania to be highly performing and meritocratic.
On the other hand, the Policy covers the wide range of
Human Resource Management aspects such as grading,
recruitment and selections, performance appraisal,
training and development, promotions, mobility of
employment, remunerations, leave (annual, sick, maternity
and unpaid leave), conduct and discipline.
This paper will focus on Tanzanian experiences on
the aspect of recruitment and selection in the Public
Service from post independence covering two periods,
one from 1961 up to 1990’s and the other from 1990’s
to date, looking at the factors that necessitate the
Government of Tanzania to bring about fundamental shifts
in the management of Human Resources, specifically,
management of employees in the Public Service. The
paper also discusses the initiative conducted by the
Tanzanian Government to attract new employees from
outside the Public Service and retain the existing labour
force.
The Historical Trend of Recruitment and Selection in
the Public Service
The historical trend of recruitment and selection in the
Tanzania Public Service can be traced back from the
period after Independence (1961), as follows:
18 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
The Period Between 1961 to 1990’s:
After independence up to the 1990’s, the Government did
not have clear and well defined Human Resource Policies
governing recruitment and selection. The Government
was operating with the Public Administration System of
the 1960’s which was inherited from the colonial period.
This system did not meet the challenges and expectations
of modern day public administration. Lack of a clear
policy that governs human resource management led to
low productivity, low morale of work, lack of discipline,
violation of rules, regulations and procedures. On the
other hand, during this period there was no clear policy on
remuneration hence pay levels in the Public Service were
relatively very low and not competitive compared to other
employers in the country (i.e parastatal organizations and
private sectors.) Furthermore, pension and retirement
benefit policies were rigid, so once recruited into the
Public Service it became difficult for one to leave without
losing pension benefits.
Methods of Filling the Vacant Posts in the
Public Service
The process of filling the vacant posts during that period
was guided by the General Orders, Administrative
Circulars and Staff Circulars, where the post was filled
using two methods, namely :
(a) External Recruitment
The filling of vacant post in the Public Service was
conducted by direct employment through the Manpower
Allocation Committee of the Central Establishment for
graduates and secondary leavers. The power to appoint
was delegated to three service commissions namely
the Civil Service Commission for employees in the Civil
Service, the Local Government Service Commission
for employees in the Local Government Service and
the Teachers Service Commission for employees in
the Teachers Service. In performing the function of
recruitment and selection each Commission put in
place its modalities, standards and procedures for filling
vacant posts. These differences resulted in the Public
servants receiving unequal treatments on the matter
of appointment, promotions, staff development and
remunerations. On the other hand, for those of common
cadres (operational service), the vacancy was filled by
applying the job to the Employers and was approved by
an Appointment Committee known as “KAMUS”, each
Public Service organization set up its own Appointment
Committee.
(b) Internal Recruitment
The filling of vacant post in the Public Service internally
was conducted through promotion and transfers, this
covered all positions (lower to higher levels).
The above practices of Recruitment and Selection were
associated with the following problems:
(i) Recruitment and appointment into the Public Service
was not based on competence and ability. The supply
driven recruitment policy for school leavers and graduates
from training institutions had no mechanisms to select
better individuals and reject incompetent individuals.
(ii) There were no established criteria for the
administration of vacancies, so employment was
conducted to fill improperly determined vacancies.
(iii) The operations of Appointment Committees were
not very transparent, thus limiting the effectiveness of
management in employment decisions in Ministries and
Regions.
(iv) Promotions were based more on longevity of service
than merit. Decisions on who to promote was often
based more on intuition and subjective criteria than on
institutional development.
In order to redress the above mentioned problems,
the government established the Management and
Employment Policy in 1999. The policy is an important
instrument as it expresses the Government’s decision to
improve management performance and service delivery
to the public. In that context, the policy is an important
pillar to support the establishment of Human Resource
Management principles in the public service based on
laws, regulations, transparency and fairness to all public
servants.
The period from the 1990’s to the present day:
Recruitment and selection is currently governed by
policy, principal legislations and other directives in human
resources management, namely the Public Service
Management and employment policy (1999), Public
Service Act No.8 of 2002, Public Service Regulations
2003, Public Service Schemes 2003, Employment
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 19
Guidelines, Establishment Circulars and Scheme of
Service for each cadre in the Public Service.
The Public Service Management and
Employment Policy
The policy defines recruitment in the Public Service as
initial entry into the Public Service. Further, the Policy
advocates that filling the vacancies both externally
and internally shall be conducted by open competition
through media advertising. This is designed to ensure
the widest possible field of suitably qualified applicants
from both inside and outside the Public Service. Also the
Policy insists on the creation of selection criteria so to
maintain the balance between academics or professional
qualifications and other aspects such as experience, track
records and learning potential.
Statutes Governing Recruitment and Selections
The principal legislation governing Recruitment and
selection in the Public Service is the Public Service Act
No.8 of 2002 as amended by Act No.18 of 2007 and
subsequently the Public Service Regulations of 2003
and Public Service Scheme 2003, together with other
government directives like employment guidelines,
establishment circulars and scheme of service.
The Act conferred the powers to appoint and confirm the
Public Servants to different institutions (The President,
Chief Executive Officers, Minister responsible for Local
Government Authorities, Local Government Authorities
and Department of Teachers Service of the Public Service
Commission.) In addition, the Public Service Regulations
clearly lays out the responsibilities of the Appointing
Authorities with regards to the above mentioned powers
conferred by the Act.
The National Actors in Recruitment and Selection
The Acts stipulates the main actors in the recruitment and
selection in the Public Service as follows:
(i) President’s Office, Public Service Management
(PO-PSM) is responsible for controlling the personnel
emolument budget in the Public Service, through
approvals and offering permits and facilitating the labour
mobility of employees among employers.
(ii) The Appointing authorities/employers are charged
with the function of preparation of personnel emoluments,
Applying employment permits from the PO-PSM and filling
the post through open recruitment procedures.
(iii) The President’s Office, Public Service Commission
as a regulatory body, prepares and distributes the
appointment guideline to the Appointing Authorities
which set standards for merit based recruitment and
selection. The Commission also has the role of ensuring
that the Public Institutions adhere to the prescribed rules,
regulations and procedures governing the merit based
recruitment and selection procedures.
Recruitment and Selection Procedures
Recruitment procedures in the Public Service is contained
in the Public Service Regulation (2003.) The purpose
of the regulations is to ensure that vacancies are openly
advertised (to attract the right candidates, in sufficient
numbers) that candidates are fairly and equitably
assessed and that the most qualified candidates are
selected.
There are two ways in which the vacancy in Public Service
may arise, these include:
(i) Vacancy through attrition (an existing post becomes
vacant due to the previous incumbent leaving the post.)
(ii) Vacancy through creation of a new post.
The Recruitment Procedures
Recruitment procedures, implies the steps that Public
Service employers should follow whilst implementing the
recruitment process, these procedures are summarized in
the following table;
Generally recruitment procedures consists of four main
stages:
(i) Budgeting: The Appointing Authorities has to ensure
that all posts recruited should be contained within the
Personnel Emoluments (PE) Budget.
(ii) Permits: Prior to recruiting, the Appointing Authority/
employer should request a permit from PO-PSM to fill a
vacancy or establish a new post.
(iii) Open Recruitment: Once the permit has been
approved, the employer must advertise the post, shortlist
candidates and select best candidates through interviews,
based on a set of selection criteria developed for the
position.
(iv) Entry into Public Service: The final stage of
recruitment includes medical checks, completion of an
appointment letter, entry of the employee into the payroll.

Table 1: Recruitment Procedures as per Public Service Regulations 2003

1) Budgeting 2) Permits 3) Open 4) Entry into the

Recruitment Public Service

Actors: MDA’s, LGAS, Actors: MDAS/LGAS Actors: MDAS/LGAS Actors: MDA’s/LGAS,

PO-PSM, MOF & & RS & RS PO-PSM & MOF
PARLIAMENT

Procedures: Procedures: Procedures: Procedures:

1. Budget Guidelines (PE)
2. Preparation of PE (Budget)
3. Approval of PE (Budget)
1. Application for Permits 1. Advertisement (based on
2. Approval/disapproval Scheme of service)
based on wage bill and 2. Shortlisting of
approved establishment Candidates
3. Interview
4. Selecting the Best
Candidates
1. Medical Checks
2. Completion of
Appointment Letter
3. Collecting of Personal
details
4. Entry of employee into
payroll

Procedures:
Monitoring & Evaluating 1. Issuing guidelines of recruitment
Meritocracy in matters
2. Conducting a Human Resource
Recruitment Procedures Compliance Inspection
3. Receiving and handling complaints
Actors: PO-PSC associated with recruitment and
selection practices

20 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
Recruitment and Selection Practices
Based on the existing recruitment and selection
procedures in Tanzanian Public Service, the practice and
experience reveal the following:
Budgeting: Normally, the MDA’s, LGA’s and Regional
Secretariats prepare the Personnel Emoluments (PE)
budgets reflecting the actual requirements of Human
Resources, the budget guidelines and ceilings of each
organization. Budget guidelines on PE is set by both MOF
and PO-PSM.
Employment permit: Normally the institutions
responsible for granting the employment permit are the
President’s Office, Public Service Management. The
Appointing Authorities apply for the permits through
approved establishments, and the PO-PSM grant the
approvals via the approved establishment and wage
bill. The Approved permit will be valid for a duration of 3
months.
Open Recruitment: Filling the vacant posts in the
Public Service both at entry point and senior levels is
done through open recruitment procedures through the
following steps:
(a) Advertisement: The procedures starts with the
advertising of the vacant posts through at least 3
newspapers which have wide coverage, normally the
advertisement outlines the qualifications, duties and
responsibilities, remuneration, the mode of application and
the deadline.
(b) Shortlisting: After receiving the applications from
job applicants the shortlisting is conducted through
established selection criteria which merges the
qualifications and skills with the experience and personal
attributes of candidates as stipulated by scheme of service
for each cadre.
(c) Interviewing: In conducting interviews, Appointing
Authorities appoint the ad hoc committees for the case
of Ministries, Independent Departments and Regional
Secretariats while the Employment Board is appointed
by Local Government Authorities. Basically, the roles of
these boards and ad hoc committees include reviewing
of interview questions and ranking them, conducting
the interview, presenting the names of successful
candidates to the Appointing Authority and promoting the
Public Servants. After interviews, both successful and
unsuccessful candidates are notified.
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 21
In ensuring that the Appointing Authorities adhered to
the prescribed rules and procedures governing the merit
based recruitment, the PO – PSC is mandated to be
represented as a member of both the Ad hoc Committee
and Employment Boards. The PSC’s role was to review
and go through all the preliminary procedures in the
interview process and make necessary comments
before the panel meeting, for the purpose of guiding and
maintaining meritocracy in Recruitment.
Entry into Public Service
After the Appointing Authorities receives results of
the interview from the Employment Board or Ad hoc
Committee, it will appoint the qualified candidates,
suitable for the post, followed by the following steps:
(i) Conducting medical check
(ii) Completion of appointment letter
(iii) Collecting of personal detail
(iv) Entry into the payroll
The Outcome of Recruitment and Selection Practices
The outcome of recruitment and selection practices
associated with the filling of vacant posts in the Public
Service reveals that some MDAs do not manage to
fill some of the vacant posts approved due to reasons
including:
Advertisements are expensive: Due to the expense of
advertising the vacant post in at least 3 newspapers,
some appointing authorities cannot manage to advertise
to cover a large part of the country. This leads to fewer
number of candidates applying for the post. As a result,
open competition to acquire the most highly qualified
candidates is limited.
Some candidates do not prefer to work in periphery work
stations: Experience shows that some candidates do
not prefer to work in the periphery regions, hence do not
apply for the job. Or, some successful candidates do not
report to the work station.
There are few technical professionals in the market:
Some cadres have fewer candidates in the market, this
creates strong competition between Public and Private
sectors. Consequently there are few candidates to apply
for the advertised job in the Public Service and the funded
vacancy may not be filled.
Filling senior positions in the Public Service:
The current amendment of the Public Service Act among
other things, insisted that, all the Senior positions will
now be filled through internal sources, while currently, the
number of experienced senior officers in the public service
are very low, hence making it difficult to fill such posts.
The Role of President’s Office Public Service
Commission (PO-PSC)
One of the primary roles of the PO - PSC is to monitor and
ensure that every Appointing Authority fully adheres to the
prescribed rules and procedures governing recruitment
and selection. Normally, the Public Service Commission,
through a Human Resources Compliance Inspection
System conducts a routine inspection to Appointing
Authorities and when it receives complaints from
individuals or a higher Authority regarding malpractices,
the Commission conducts a special inspection.
The Inspection Results
During the period of April 2005 to June 2008, about 161
institutions were inspected in the Tanzania mainland.
These institutions include 23 Ministries, 10 Independent
Departments, 21 Regional Secretariats and 107 Local
Government Authorities as shown in the Table 2 (below.)
Table 2: Inspected Institutions, April 2005 - June 2008
Institutions Total
Ministries 23
Independent Dpts 10
Regional Secretariats 21
Local Government Authorities 107
Total: 161
The result of the Human Resource Compliance
Inspections revealed that there is clear evidence of
continuous improvement in compliance with the rules
and procedures governing the merit based recruitment
and selection procedure, from 54% in 2005/06 to 72%
in 2007/08 as shown in Chart 1 (right.) Despite such
continuous improvement in compliance to procedures
there is still non-adherence in some recruitment
procedures which include:
(i) The Appointing Authorities failure to properly define
selection criteria. In order to select the right candidate
to fill the vacant posts, the required qualifications,
experience, skills and personal attributes required must be
clearly defined.
22 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
(ii) Poor record keeping, such as a list of applicants, list of
shortlisted candidates, employment permits and interview
score sheet/results. This information is very important
evidence in future audits or inspection and for proving
whether there were merit practices or not.
(iii) In some of the posts, the candidates shortlisted for
interview do not meet the minimum Qualifications for the
post. This resulted in the selection of wrong candidates.
(iv) Some of the Appointing Authorities are not able
to inform all interviewed candidates of the outcome of
the interview. This is very important to ensure that the
recruitment procedure is transparent.
Government Initiatives to Attract and Retain
Qualified Personnel
The Government made various initiatives in ensuring that
it attracts and retains qualified, experienced, technical
and managerial professionals in the Public Service. One
of the initiatives adopted by the Government was the
creation of the Medium Term Pay Policy (MTPP) as part
of the Public Service Reform Programme Phase I. The
MTPP, through the Medium Pay Policy Strategy, achieved
various positive results associated with pay and incentive
(for example in the fiscal year 2006/07.) Significant
increases in pay were realized, and also, a more
transparent pay structure has been achieved. Further,
the government adopted the Pension Service Retirement
Act. No. 2 of 1999, which established the public pension
schemes. Under such schemes, both employees and
employers are obliged to contribute to the fund monthly.
These government initiatives helped to attract and hire
new employees, and to retain the existing labour force in
the Public Service.
Chart : Human Resources Compliance for three year
100
90
80
70
72
Percentage
60
50 54
60
40
30
20
10
0
Year of 2005/06 Year of 2006/07 Year of 2007/08
The Challenges
The challenges associated with the attainment of
meritocracy in recruitment and selection to the Tanzania
Public Service are:
i) Long and cumbersome open recruitment procedures:
Experience has shown that an open recruitment process
is very long, from the permit application to the filling of
the post. The process is also expensive, and requires
the time of responsible officers effecting other duties and
programmes.
ii) Lack of IT skills and expertise in managing the open
recruitment processes: In most cases, many candidates
apply for the advertised vacant positions. As a result,
a large number of applications are received. There
after the candidates are shortlisted using the selection
criteria set. The shortlisting process becomes a difficult
job if it is done manually without the use of computer,
because the candidates possess competitive and identical
qualifications, thus it becomes difficult to make judgments
manually.
iii) Non-adherence to the Rules, Regulations and
procedures governing merit based recruitment and
selection: Despite the continuous improvement in
adherence to the rules, regulations and procedures
governing merit based recruitment by the Appointing
Authorities and the employer, there is still non-compliance
to some of the Appointing Authorities and employers.
iv) Finding and retaining competent and experienced
people becomes a problem: The Government Institutions
groomed and trained its workforce so as to equip them
with enough skills and experiences relevant to their
job (involving a significant commitment of funds and
resources.) But a public servants decision to leave the
public service for better positions in other sectors is a
challenge.
v) Competitiveness of Public Service Pay: Despite all
the success, Public Service pay remains uncompetitive
and compressed, hindering the recruitment and retention
of qualified and experienced technical and managerial
professions in the Public Service.
The Way Forward
In overcoming the above discussed challenges, the
government came up with several strategies that aim at
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 23
addressing such challenges. Firstly the amendment of
the Public Service Act. No. 8 of 2002, with the Act. No.
18 of 2007, addressed several challenges, including the
formation of a new Recruitment Secretariat that will help
to reduce or remove several costs associated with open
recruitment procedures e.g. Advertisement. Also the
Amendment would help in creating morale, motivation
and career development of Public Servants because the
senior positions will now be filled from within before opting
to go outside the Public Service.
Secondly, the enhancement of regulatory powers of the
Public Service Commission is expected to address the
issues of non-compliance to the Rules, Regulation and
Procedures of merit based recruitment by strengthening
Human Resource compliance inspections.
Lastly, the need for attracting and retaining qualified and
competent personnel in the Public Services is addressed
by the government through the introduction of Medium
Term Pay Policy and the Medium Term Pay Strategies.
The creation of the Presidential Commission on pay and
remuneration is also one of the critical steps towards the
improvement of the remunerations in Tanzania.
Conclusion
Merit recruitment and selection would be meaningless
if Public Service institutions are not able to attract and
retain qualified, experienced, technical and managerial
professionals in the public service. Thus it is expected
that public servants involved in recruitment and selection
practices will perform it diligently, and employ qualified
personnel to efficiently and effectively perform the
organisation’s goals and ultimately, deliver the quality
service that meets the desires and expectations of the
Public. On the other hand, Government has the role
of ensuring that it establishes sound pay and incentive
schemes that are competitive within the current labour
market, so as to attract qualified employees and to retain
the existing labour force in the Public Service.
References
Armstong, MA Handbook of Human Resource
Management Practice 9th Edition; Replika Press Prt. Ltd.
Kundli, 2004.
Aswathappa, K.; Human Resource And Personnel
Management (Texts And Cases) 3rd Edition; Tata Mcgraw
– Hill Publishing Co. Ltd. New Delhi; 1997.
United Republic of Tanzania (1999); The Management
and Employment Policy; President’s Office Civil Service
Department; Dar es Salaam; Tanzania.

United Republic of Tanzania (2002); The Public Service

Act No. 8; Government Printer; Dar es Salaam; Tanzania.

United Republic of Tanzania (2003), Public

Service Regulations, Government Printer; Dar es
Salaam;Tanzania.

United Republic of Tanzania (2003); Public Service

Scheme; Government Printer; Dar es Salaam; Tanzania.

United Republic of Tanzania (2004), Establishment

Circular No. 1; Government Printer; Dar es Salaam;
Tanzania.

United Republic of Tanzania (1999); Public Service

Retirements Benefits Act No. 2; Government Printer; Dar
es Salaam; Tanzania.

United Republic of Tanzania, (2008), Public Service

Reform Programme – Phase Two (PSRP II).

24 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
Public Servants, Change and Reform
Denis Osborne, Governance and Development, United Kingdom
Human Resource Development in the Public Service
needs to take into account changing priorities for reform.
Many reforms have been driven ‘top down’: some
demanded by donors as a condition for assistance,
some as initiatives of politicians, and most driven directly
or indirectly by citizens discontented with the services
received. Discontent increased as citizens became more
educated and, in recent years, much more informed by
global television and the web.
Reforms bring public servants instructions to work in
different ways and there has been talk of reinvented
governments and re-engineered corporations needing
re-educated managers 1 with changed visions and goals.
This has caused resentment and many public servants in
several countries have been resistant to reform! In part
this is simply resistance to any change, probably greater
in public service than in most walks of life because of
the long-standing emphasis on procedures, rules and
bureaucracy. Part has been caused by linking reform and
retrenchment.
What might be done to explain necessary reforms better
and make them more welcome? Telling stories is a
tradition in many cultures and their value in management
training is well recognised. We adopt that pattern.
Results
In Britain under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher the
concerns driving public service reform were ‘Value For
Money’, VFM, and the three e’s of Economy, Efficiency
and Effectiveness. Economy meant cutting the costs;
efficiency getting a better ratio of output-value to input-
costs; and effectiveness not doing work better done by
others or unnecessary work. An ‘Efficiency Unit’ sent
teams to make scrutinies of carefully defined activities
within strict time limits and action taken within a year. It
was claimed that efficiency scrutinies brought big savings.
Some contest that 2, but the scrutinies changed the
attitudes of many British public servants towards work,
including me.
I had management responsibility for specialist units staffed
with professional public servants working to support
Britain’s international development programme. In 1980
they were selected for scrutiny and the scrutineers argued
that the staff of one of these units – the Directorate of
Overseas Surveys providing maps – be reduced from over
300 to about 100. I thought that absurd. The Directorate
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 25
had an excellent reputation and I knew its staff worked
hard, often in difficult conditions – and I did not want to
make them redundant!
After an agonising week-end reading and re-reading the
report I was convinced. The Directorate’s budget covered
its salaries and expenses. Its services were offered free
of charge. Here is one example of the consequences.
The Directorate agreed with one government to map
some remote areas. Frequent cloud cover made the
essential aerial survey very costly. The staff met the
challenge and produced better maps of these remote
areas than the best maps available then for much of the
United States. The staff saw it as their responsibility
to maintain the highest professional standards, but did
not see that the greater need was for adequate maps
as cheaply as possible. I told Directorate staff such
expensive high-quality maps were not a development
priority but they argued that ‘Africa deserves the best’ and
called my attitude ‘racist’. I considered their pressures as
‘professional push’, prioritising their own field of expertise
when the best might not require professional excellence.
If the professionals pushed the government had no
incentive to resist. Money saved could not be spent in
that country in other ways: it was maps or nothing. The
scrutineers recommended that surveys should be funded
from aid budgets allocated to countries and priorities
between sectors and activities agreed between recipient
and donor governments.
Funding demand rather than supply would allow
more choice of development priorities but create an
unpredictable and variable demand for mapping – and
for several other professional services. Unpredictable
demand could not guarantee work for professionals
employed as career civil servants. Supply could better
match flexible demands if work was contracted out
than by a standing in-house capacity. Later I had to
‘scrutinise’ another professional unit and reached similar
conclusions. In later years I have met other pressures
from ‘professional push’. At issue was the need to get
cost-effective results. It was not enough to ensure rules
were obeyed in providing a quality service.
In one country I helped the Civil Service Commission set
up an ethics programme. The Secretary-General was
worried and confided in me. Her staff worked hard, came
early, left late, but achieved little. Why? We checked and
found they spent their time struggling to match individual
cases to complicated rules and regulations. The rules
needed to be simplified and thinking directed from
observing rules to getting fast and fair decisions – good
results.
In another country two of us advised an international
organisation on aid to strengthen public service reform.
Representatives of other donors said the Government was
not serious about reform, and we found little evidence of
customary reforms. On the last day of our visit a Deputy
Secretary in the Prime Minister’s office told us of their
competition to help public servants want reform:
‘Individuals, small teams and departmental groups are
invited to recommend ways to improve service to the
public or improve efficiency. Teams of respected citizens
examine these each year and there is a ceremony where
small prizes are awarded to those responsible for the best
entries. It brings great publicity and prestige.’
More than that it brought motivation, getting officials to
think improvement, change, reform, bottom-up. Such
motivation and commitment to one’s work and to reform
are important in developing human resources, with the
mock-equation challenge:
Achievement = Competence X Commitment. 3
Commitment as well as competence should be a
component of training and to encourage this I use a
questionnaire that I have developed for training seminars
in RIPA International and elsewhere (see Annex A and the
web ). 4
Publicity for reforms led managers and citizens to ask
‘what results?’ leading to calls for more transparency
and accountability. There was a burst of enthusiasm
for this in Britain in the late 1980s. I hated it! It seemed
that accountability meant I should write more reports that
I thought nobody would read. Why should I waste my
time telling what we had done rather than doing more
‘real’ work and doing it better? Citizens rightly demand
better accountability in public service, but also need to
know that too much is too costly! There are self-check
questionnaires on transparency and accountability on the
web . 5
When introducing a Citizens’ Charter 6 in the 1990s British
Prime Minister John Major said ‘I want to give more power
to citizens to get the quality of service they deserve’. 7
The Charter set standards and required publication of
performance against those standards or targets. ‘Targetry’
remains controversial and counter-productive if taken to
excess. Targets set by those who do not understand the
work cause resentment, setting crazy demands and bad
priorities that encourage managers to think it fair to cheat.
26 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
But seeking results and better efficiency is an important
part of reform and promoting a mind-set for this an
important part of public servants’ development.
Trust
Citizens in many countries have lost trust in their
government and all politics, politicians and all political
process. They suspect corruption at different levels.
They experience inefficient or unfair service by public
servants. Regaining citizens’ trust is a high priority for
many governments when elections approach. Trust
requires separate parts of government to be genuinely
independent, holding each other to account. Lost trust
in government risks terrible consequences for a country
– the election results will not be trusted if an electoral
commission is thought to be influenced by the party in
power, leading easily to riot or civil war.
During research for a keynote speech I was invited to
give on behalf of RIPA International for a Symposium
at the ASEAN-EC Management Centre in 2005 8 on
public service reforms in Britain I was surprised at the
attention given to such needs. The impetus came from
an alarming report by a team in the Cabinet Office that
customer confidence in the ability of the public service
to deliver effectively declined from 54% in 2001 to 31%
in 2003. 9 That happened despite efforts at continuing
reform and improvement including ‘an unprecedented
and sustained rise in investment in public services’.
Hence the Public Service must deliver ‘better services
either directly to the public or through others in the
public, voluntary and private sectors’. This would require
officials to demonstrate skills and expertise that fitted
the needs of the job. The first ‘leadership’ skill required
of top managers was to be ‘visible leaders who inspire
trust’. Good relationships and strengthened trust are
the top priority results of good public service. ‘Spin’ –
telling people how good we are – is ineffective. See the
checklist (Annex B and the web). 10
Public servants everywhere should see ‘building trust’ as
the most important result from their work, encouraged in
this by training, job descriptions and appraisals. But how?
Transparency and accountability can help, and the mind-
set should be to avoid giving any grounds for reasonable
suspicion of corruption. As one organisation tells new
entrants, ‘our reputation is our greatest asset’.
It was argued in Britain that trust required a more diverse
workforce to ‘achieve a Civil Service better equipped to
deliver, adapt and innovate’ – and better able to win the
confidence of all sections of the population. Diversity
was sought for gender, ethnicity and disability with targets
set for the percentages of the Senior Civil Service to be
women, from ethnic minority backgrounds, and disabled.
To recruit and keep such people in the public service
required family-friendly employment and a better work-
life balance. Staff in one department confirmed this: one
had an agreement to work and be paid for an eleven
month year so that he had time with the children when his
wife went abroad on her business. Another lived some
distance away near his wife’s workplace and reckoned
he could normally leave work ‘on time’ to catch a train.
One woman worked a four day week. The culture had
changed: working late no longer won credits. One said
that if you worked late too often it may be thought you
could not do the work in a reasonable time, suggesting
incompetence or a failure to delegate responsibility to
others. The flexible working practices and reduced
pressures were confirmed in discussions early in 2009.
Further evidence of such changes was given in comments
to me by the Personnel Officers of that Department over
three decades. One said that in 1985 the priority was
dealing with the Trade Unions (retrenchment, etc). In
1995 the priority was coping with staff away sick from
stress (working late?). In 2005 his successor said her
priority was juggling career breaks, part-time and flexible
working to attract and keep a diverse staff. In my few
discussions I found those who benefit from these changes
highly motivated in their work.
Other departments have made similar changes and
they are ‘official policy’ for all, though some have found
it difficult to implement these policies. They cannot be
applied to staff with offices open to the public at set hours,
though efforts to open to the public in the evenings and on
Saturdays (when more convenient to most citizens) have
brought shift-work and other variations. Technology helps
too; many have days when they work from home. Some
remain habitual workaholics – one Permanent Secretary
who gave priority to family-friendly employment sent his
staff e-mails from home after midnight.
Some government departments in Britain (from before I
joined in 1972) worked ‘flexi-time’ for an agreed number
of hours each week. We were allowed to vary the start
and finish times provided we were at work for two core
hours each morning and each afternoon. This was
family-friendly (taking children to school) and avoided
rush-hour demands on transport. 11 Members of staff filled
in their arrival and departure times each day, needing to
score sufficient hours each month. It seemed a matter of
honour, but staff knew that security staff at the entrance
could keep a random check and target anyone thought
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 27
to have cheated. Such checks can be summarised in a
Russian proverb as ‘trust but verify’ – with random checks
a cheap and unobtrusive way of checking honesty while
maintaining basic trust in relationships with staff.
The need to build trust in government and its
administration is recognised in many countries. Other
must judge whether measures to build trust adopted in
Britain are appropriate elsewhere, but ethnic diversity to
encourage trust and a better gender balance to use of
the resource of many educated women could be relevant,
and flexi-time may be of value where managers complain
of poor punctuality and staff suffer delays and frustration
from rush-hour travel. One recent study (focused partly
on Canada) supports such approaches with evidence that
employee satisfaction and morale (and feeling trusted)
is an important ‘driver’ for securing customer (citizen)
satisfaction and trust. 12
Leaders
In several countries there has been tension between
elected leaders (Ministers or Secretaries) and appointed
officials (led by Permanent or Principal Secretaries or
Chief Directors), especially after a change of ruling
party or sometimes after any change of Minister. Good
relationships between leaders and officials are vital to a
government’s success and building citizens’ trust. In three
countries I have been asked to have meetings separately
with the cabinet and with permanent secretaries, in two
of them meeting also with both groups together. An
improved understanding and acceptance of their different
roles brought benefits. In one country both groups
drafted their job descriptions (in line with the constitution)
for the benefit of the other group. Then both groups
commented on the proposed descriptions for the other,
after which they talked together and agreed what those
job descriptions should be. The outputs were probably
less important than the process of negotiation in which
Ministers and Permanent Secretaries came to understand
and respect each other better.
In other countries I have talked with public servants about
their service to elected Ministers as well as directly to the
public. ‘What can you do to improve things?’ I ask when
told of failures in cooperation and trust. When the answer
starts ‘They must …’ I interrupt, for we should be ready to
take the first step. Three initiatives emerged that public
servants might take:
First, ‘build bridges’. Elected leaders may feel that public
servants supported previous governments and leaders
rather than themselves. Many think public servants
negative and slow to implement changes promised to the
electorate. ‘Minister, we are trying to make our work more
helpful. Are there any changes you would like made in the
ways we support you in your work?’ ‘Would it help if we
changed the pattern of recommendations or submissions
(or whatever your word for proposals for a Minister’s
consideration)?’ ‘What changes would make the briefs
and draft speeches we write more helpful to you?’ It may
help to find the patterns used for these elsewhere and ask
Ministers if they would like this or that specific change.
Second, tell the truth! Some Ministers get angry when
they are told bad news. Many officials are afraid to tell a
Minister bad news. That makes sense – research shows
those who bring bad news often suffer for it! Several
Ministers and Presidents have, in consequence, based
their decisions on inadequate or wrong information –
sometimes leading governments to fall, or the people to
protest and revolt. Ministers need to know what they do
not want to hear. It could be helpful to ask a Minister in
advance when you first start working together ‘If things
go wrong or the people get angry about some policy, do
you want us to tell you the bad news?’ Most will say ‘yes’.
Later, though they will hate being told things have gone
wrong they may feel less angry with those who bring such
news.
Third, we need to warn Ministers when there is any new
risk of ‘reasonable suspicion’ that the Department is
involved in corrupt practices. That is not easy, especially if
they may personally be at risk of causing that ‘reasonable
suspicion’. Here too it may help if we ask Ministers
beforehand and if possible when we first meet if they wish
to be told of citizens’ suspicions.
Ministers have responsibilities to hold their public servants
accountable too, but this note is intended primarily for
appointed officials.
Conclusion
My longest stories describe British practice but I have
seen their relevance in many other countries. These
miniature case-studies show four priorities for public
service reform stated here in deliberately provocative form
that may require matching priorities for human resource
development.
• First, it is more important to motivate public servants
to improve service to the public than to develop their
skills. When motivated many get the skills.
• Second, it is more important to get good results than
to obey the rules! Don’t disobey but obedience,
28 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
probity and compliance are not enough. Rules and
regulations multiply, structures ossify. Change is
needed.
• Third, in several countries there is a critical lack of
trust between citizens and Government, including the
public administration. Winning and keeping public
trust is the most important public service objective,
more important than giving better service (though
quality service helps build trust). Some countries
have a trust-deficit between political leaders and
public servants.
• Fourth, building public trust may require changes
in how we work and in our patterns of employment.
Different measures may be needed elsewhere.
The earlier change of focus in public service from rules
to results is being followed by a change from results
to relationships – to build trust between citizens and
government, staff and managers, and appointed officials
and elected leaders. This is a second phase of public
service reform. Good results and good relationships are
both needed for a truly citizen-centred public service.
Acknowledgements
I thank fellow-workers and seminar participants in more
than 30 developing or transitional-economy countries in
which I have worked, and those participating in seminars
at RIPA International, the annual Cambridge Symposium
on Economic Crime and elsewhere. You have taught me
much. I acknowledge my debt to the British Government’s
Department For International Development (then the
ODA) for supporting my research on governance,
development and aid (1990-1992), and to governments,
NGOs, private companies and international organisations
for inviting me and funding my work. References are
listed after the annexes.
Copyright
Copyright: I claim copyright to prevent others restricting
access. All who read this may use it freely but not claim
ownership. Attribution is welcome but not essential.
Annex A
Our Outputs and Outcomes: A Questionaire
Drafted for Department Managers; may be adapted for
other groups or individuals
1. What did you, your department or team produce last
week? (Give examples of one or two things written or
advice given, reports, accounts, lectures.)
2. Who used it/them (use a separate sheet for each
example if you wish...)?
3. What feedback did you get from those to whom you
supplied it and its end-users?
4. How did your product contribute to broad outcomes
(use another sheet if necessary)?
5. How could your product be improved to give better
service to clients and citizens?
6. What did each product cost the taxpayer? (include
proportion of your salary and those of support staff,
pensions, office rents, travel, items bought, work
contracted out, etc)
7. What inputs were bought? How could you help
suppliers improve them or cut costs?
8. Do you think your products worth their cost to the
users?
9. How could we give better value for money?
10. Could they be provided by the private sector or
NGOs? Who?
11. What that would be the advantages and
disadvantages of that?
12. Have you asked your staff for their suggestions about
how to improve the service the Department provides
to give better outputs and outcomes?
13. What have you and your colleagues done to build
trust in your organisation?
Annex B
Relationships: Building Trust
A questionnaire to help public servants build public trust
and confidence, and give priority to relationships with
clients, colleagues and suppliers.
You may like to scribble short answers and not show them
to anybody else. Should we put similar questions to our
staff?
Which, if any, suppliers or contractors do you mistrust?
For what? Why? (We may think they ‘charge too
much’, don’t give ‘value for money’, or have failed to
meet promised delivery dates, or we may think they act
corruptly.)
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 29
Do we trust our ‘boss’ to assess our work fairly? If not,
why not?
Do we trust our staff to work well when we are not
‘watching’ what they do?
Where trust has been lost or reduced, what can we do to
improve things?
If ‘winning trust’ of clients and public is a public service
priority, what have we done to build trust in us / our
Department / Ministry in the past 6 months?
Have we spoken about trust with our staff? Have we
asked them how we can strengthen their trust in us? How
improve trust in ‘top management’?
Have we advised those senior to us about practices that
might give ‘reasonable grounds to suspect corruption’ or
other mis-deeds?
Want to consider further? See the transparency and
accountability checklists under Checklists at www.good-
gov.info.
Osborne, Denis, Re-Educating Managers: from Training
for Competence to Training for Commitment, International
Review of Administrative Sciences, 67, no 4, 2001, pp 635
– 647; try Re-educating managers, 2001 or see version
under Papers at www.good-gov.info.
‘Efficiency Scrutinies’, London, the Cabinet Office, the
Efficiency Unit, reissued 1993, were printed as three very
short papers giving detailed instructions for ‘Ministers
and Managers’, ‘Scrutineers’ and ‘Action Managers’ –
managers appointed within a department to implement the
findings.
Notes
1 Osborne, Denis, Re-Educating Managers: from Training
for Competence to Training for Commitment, International
Review of Administrative Sciences, 67, no 4, 2001, pp 635
– 647; try Re-educating managers, 2001 or see version
under Papers at www.good-gov.info.
2 ‘Efficiency Scrutinies’, London, the Cabinet Office, the
Efficiency Unit, reissued 1993, were printed as three very
short papers giving detailed instructions for ‘Ministers
and Managers’, ‘Scrutineers’ and ‘Action Managers’ –
managers appointed within a department to implement the
findings.
3 As explained at paper in Reference 1, page 6.
4 Try Outputs or on www.good-gov.info at Checklists.

5 Transparency and Accountability or on www.good-gov.

info at Checklists.

6 Cabinet Office, ‘Citizens’ Charter: raising the standard’,

Cabinet Office, Cm 1599, London HMSO 1991, pp 51

7 Cabinet Office, ‘The Citizen’s Charter: Report Back

1994’, London, HMSO 1994, quotation from the Foreword.

8 Association of South East Asian Nations and European

Commission Management Centre. The Centre no longer
exists.

9 ‘Delivery and Reform: Progress and plans for the

future’, London, the Cabinet Office, 2003, p 3, www.
civilservice.gov.uk/reform (since revised and that report
not now found).

10 Try Relationships or on www.good-gov.info at

Checklists.

11 President Obama has claimed ‘Flextime’ boosts

employee morale and praised British efforts to improve
the ‘Work-Life Balance’ – Obama, Barack, ‘The audacity
of hope’, 2006, Edinburgh, Canongate Books 2008
Paperback edition, pp viii + 375, see pp 343, 344.

12 Heintzman, Ralph, and Brian Marson, ‘People, service

and trust: is there a public sector service value chain?’
International Review of Administrative Sciences, 71, no 4,
2005, pp 549 - 575 (the paper brings together much work
by others and includes a long list of references); on web
see Heintzman-etc_2005 or Reviews at www.good-gov.
info

30 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
Section II:
Approaches to Building the
Public Services of the Future
Recruiting for Sustainability and Success in Ontario’s Transportation Infrastructure Sector - Kelly Culver, The 32
Culver Group, Canada

Reflections on Experiences from Project HR Connect: A ley lever for successful HR Planning in the South 35
African Public Service - Geeva Pillay, Department of Public Service and Administration, Gov. of South Africa

The substrata of good governance: people, policy, organisational learning - The PPP experience in South 38
Africa, 1999-2008 - Adrian Crewe & Dr. Ralph Lawrence, Public Policy Partnership, South Africa

How Brazil metamorphosed from a developing nation to a powerful economy, through staff development - 50
Tilda Mmegwa, (Governance, Leadership and Management), Royal TDI Global Inc., Canada

C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 31
Recruiting for Sustainability and Success in
Ontario’s Transportation Infrastructure Sector
Kelly Culver, The Culver Group, Canada
Context
The Ontario Ministry of Transportation established and
chaired a Construction Technician Sustainability Steering
Committee in 2007 with representatives from the Ontario
Road Builders Association, the Consulting Engineers of
Ontario, the Ontario Association of Certified Engineering
Technicians and Technologists, the Ontario Good Roads
Association and the Ministry of Training, Colleges and
Universities. The Committee issued its final report in
April 2008, which serves as the basis for this article. For
years people have been complaining about a shortage
of funding to build and maintain Ontario’s transportation
infrastructure. Now there is another shortage looming that
may be just as difficult to solve. Where do you find the
people to do the work?
The Challenge: Are We Sustainable?
Demographics in Canada have pointed to an aging
workforce with fewer replacement workers for a number
of years, and the skills shortage crisis is not unique to
Ontario. But the transportation construction and road
building industry has a unique problem. Not only is there
a shrinking talent pipeline to replace the baby boomer
retirees, but those who are available are not particularly
inclined to enter the transportation infrastructure and
construction trade.
According to a Conference Board of Canada report
commissioned by Ontario’s Workforce Shortage Coalition
there will be a shortage of 190,000 skilled workers in
Ontario in 13 years time. The report’s conclusion is that
“Canada is facing a technical skills shortage, a shortage
of unprecedented proportions, with serious implications for
our long-term productivity and competitiveness”.
The statistics are not comforting:
• Ontario Labour Market Statistics indicate that the pool
of civil engineering technologists is shrinking annually.
• Almost half of the registered civil engineering
technologists are over the age of 50.
• 57% of Ontario municipalities (lower tier government)
have difficulties attracting and retaining civil
engineering technologists.
• Almost 50% of the technical staff at the Ontario
Ministry of Transportation can retire within the next 8
years.
32 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
• Transport Canada’s Study of Professional and
Technical Transportation Training in Canada (2004)
indicates enrolment in transportation education at the
university level is significantly under-represented and
enrolments have declined in the five years since the
previous study and that half the professors teaching
courses in related subjects are also approaching
retirement age.
• Enrolment forecasts for Ontario colleges indicate
an overall decline starting in 2012 due to lower birth
rates.
The Solution: What We Can Do
Ontario’s transportation system is undergoing dramatic
transformation. We are seeing unprecedented levels of
road engineering, construction and maintenance projects
for local and provincial roadway systems, and we face a
shortage of workers over the next 10 years.
But, there are some strategic steps we can take:
1. Develop a Unified Approach
We can be leaders in creating the next generation of
knowledgeable, innovative and sustainable workers to
support our transportation infrastructure sector, but only
if we work together by developing a unified approach
between government agencies and private industry to:
• Develop new recruitment streams by looking to non-
traditional sources of workers (military personnel,
manufacturing employees looking for retraining,
older workers looking for a second career, and at-risk
youth).
• Integrate workforce development and retention into
business management processes.
• Create a virtual organization for industry information
and best practices.
• Develop innovative outreach practices by
supplementing academic training with apprenticeship
programs, internships and summer employment.
• Find the funds.
2. Develop New Recruitment Streams
The current generation of high school students, the
traditional pool from which skilled workers are drawn, are
not particularly interested in working in the transportation
construction industry even though it offers competitive
wages. For students looking for a trade, construction is
seen as a blue collar, low-tech industry with less than
ideal working conditions, seasonal work and volatile
employment opportunities. Students in technology and
engineering seem to prefer the more exciting field of
information technology.
There are a wide variety of recruitment streams, outside
of younger workers, which can be developed to support a
sustainable industry:
• military veterans who have received extensive training
in science, math and engineering
• mature workers looking for a second career or a
career change
• manufacturing sector employees in transition who
have the advantage of work experience, maturity and
many of the skills that this industry needs
• skilled foreign-trained workers
• our aboriginal community
• at-risk youth who could benefit from the direction that
a career in the construction industry would provide
apprenticeships
3. Integrate Workforce Development
Individual companies handle succession planning and
worker recruitment in a variety of ways and with varying
degrees of success. Some have sophisticated recruitment
and training programs, while others utilise a more ad-hoc
approach.
However, there is recognition across the sector that
integrated workforce development and employee retention
plays an important role in key business management
processes of any organization. Government agencies
and industry are well represented by a number of strong
associations including the Ministry of Transportation,
the Ontario Road Builders Association, the Ontario
Good Roads Association, the Consulting Engineers of
Ontario, the Ontario Association of Certified Engineering
Technicians and Technologists. These groups can play
a key role in coordinating programs and hosting forums
to develop new relationships, new institutions and new
funding sources to ensure sector-wide sustainability and
skills within the transportation construction and road
building industry.
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 33
4. Create a Virtual Organization for Industry Best
Practices
Another way to provide key information for effective
workforce development is through creating a virtual
organization that collects and disseminates information
for industry best practices. Member participants can have
access to the latest resources, information and innovation
within the industry.
5. Develop Innovative Outreach Practices
In conjunction with all of these other approaches, industry
needs to develop programs to spark the interest of
younger students in transportation careers through active
participation at local career fairs and other innovative
youth outreach initiatives. For example, the local training
board in London, Ontario recently brought together 4,000
students in Grades 5 through 12 to talk about careers in
construction.
As well, government agencies and industry can:
• Encourage community colleges to create fast-track
programs for skilled workers who need retraining.
• Partner with other government ministries as well as
education stakeholders to encourage students to
consider math and science as a career choice. This
could include programs introducing grade school
and high school teachers to transportation issues
and more specifically establishing a Transportation
Education Academy for teachers to learn about
transportation while earning continuing education and
professional development credits.
• Supplement academic training with apprenticeship
programs, internships and summer employment.
6. Find the Funds
Many would argue that spending money today to
avoid a skills shortage in the future is not a cost but an
investment.
Public sector funding is available through a variety of
sector economic development and retraining funds
designed to increase the Province of Ontario’s competitive
advantage in the global marketplace as identified in the
2008 Ontario Budget.
As well, private sector funding through individual
association programs is available.
Results
Industry and government are working together to
strategically address organizational sustainability, capacity
and development.
Industry has created an Ontario Civil Construction Careers
Institute, a volunteer-based organization established to
promote civil construction careers to high school, college
and university students. The Ministry of Transportation is
a member of its Board of Directors.

References cited in this article:

2008 Ontario Budget

Conference Board of Canada Report: Ontario’s Looming

Labour Shortage Challenges – Projections of Labour
Shortages in Ontario, and Possible Strategies to Engage
Unused and Underutilized Human Resources (September
25, 2007)

Ontario Workforce Shortage Coalition: The Challenge

Ahead – Averting a Skills Crisis in Ontario (September
2007)

Construction Looking Forward: Labour Requirements

from 2007 to 2015 for Ontario, Construction Sector
Council of Canada (2007)

SLOME (Skills London Oxford Middlesex Elgin) Career

Day 2006

Transport Canada Study of Professional and Technical

Transportation Training in Canada (2004)

Kelly Culver is the President of The Culver Group Inc,

a consulting company working with public sector and
non-profit agencies on organizational issues. Kelly
was retained by the Ministry of Transportation to work
with the Construction Technician Sustainability Steering
Committee.

34 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
Reflections on Experiences from Project HR
Connect: A ley lever for successful HR Planning in
the South African Public Service
Geeva Pillay, Department of Public Service and Administration, Gov. of South Africa
Case Overview
Since 1994, a plethora of government policy and
legislation has been developed to guide human resource
management and development practices in the Public
Service. The DPSA has put credible frameworks in place
to inform the implementation of the strategic aspect of the
human resource management value chain. HR Connect
is different in that it is a “systems approach” to dealing
with the process of collecting skills information by utilising
a common reference framework for skills audits that
map out employer/organisational skills requirements and
employee skills sets for improved management of the
supply/demand equilibrium.
Furthermore it is the first time Government departments
have worked together on a cross-government skills
agenda; displaying:
• a significant move towards a Government demand-led
approach;
• Strong framework for delivery in which the
Government and its agencies work together ;
• Determination underpinned by political and legal
mandates to deliver on a demanding change agenda
The Challenge
The Public Service continues to face substantial
challenges around strategic planning, developing
organisational structures, human resource management
and development, and career pathing. The major
challenge was to establish effective HR management
information systems.
Cabinet requested that the Department of Public Service
and Administration develop a skills database that would
produce the type of capacity reports based on information
gleaned through skills audits. The development,
implementation and maintenance of the HRMIS and
subsequent institutionalization of the skills management
system, would ensure that the Public Service is able to
effectively plan, forecast and report on its skills levels and
direct training initiatives. This process would ensure the
establishment of a clear link between the current position,
the gaps in skills per employee and per occupational
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 35
category, and to track and monitor ongoing training of
employees. This process evolved into HR Connect, which
would:
• Build Capacity in Departments
• Devise and implement process for HR Management
and Development
• Compile competence profile for Departments
• Indicate: Capacity of organs of State to deliver on
policy
Context
Implementation proved problematic due to the concerns
about the availability and reliability of information.
Preliminary experiences revealed:
• Multiple HR Models: there was no common approach
to HR service delivery across / within the locations.
The level of decentralization increases cost,
complexity, and risk
• Data Management: Data definitions were not
consistent, and data entry/management is diffused
leading to errors and a lack of integrity
• Compliance/Reporting: Process and data issues
limited compliance and reporting for key policies and
procedures. It was difficult from both a business and
technology perspective to obtain accurate reports
across the system.
• Service Quality: Service quality was inconsistent,
redundant, costly and complex.
• Scalability: Some locations were better prepared for
adopting standard services than others
Additionally, in nearly every instance skills audits were:
• Outsourced
• reliant on service provider dependency models
• Driven by service provider methodologies
• Based on diverse and inconsistent criteria and
parameters
• Static and rarely have real-time relevance
• Configured in terms of pre-designed COTS database
design and functionality
• Based on insular and silo assumptions of posts, job
profiles, qualifications, experience and competencies
with almost no thought to the Macro perspective of the
State or inter-provincial, inter-departmental and inter-
 spherical movement of human capital.
As a whole differentiated audit methodologies and
systems presented a number of problems:
• Silo functioning, functional duplication and
technological proliferation impacts negatively on the
cost-effective spending of public funds
• Difficulties in the implementation of uniform norms and
standards across specification criteria, methodologies,
systems and operations
• Poor inherent methodological and systems
interoperability and data non-aggregatability seriously
compromises operational integrity and the generation
of management information
• Diverse capabilities ranging from inadequate to
functional multiple systems each on its independent
evolutionary path.
Strategy
The implementation of the database commenced in March
2007. The database (HRMIS) was seen as the first step
towards ensuring that there was accurate and consistent
information, derived through skills audits, from which
departments could analyse, evaluate, report, forecast,
model and plan in advance for skills needs within their
own areas and for government in general, thus addressing
the challenge related to strategic planning.
The Organising Framework for Occupations (OFO) which
is based on the Standard Classification of Occupations
and represents a significant enhancement in respect
of providing a skills-based coded classification system,
which encompasses all occupations in the South African
context was incorporated into the HRMIS to ensure
the information on the skills supply and shortages in
the private and Public Service could be meaningfully
aggregated and disaggregated for data mining purposes.
Informed by the above, the need to accelerate and
increase the scope and scale of the skills audit process
in the public service meant revisiting all our assumptions
about traditional skills audit processes.
A phased approach of introducing the project was
implemented that would ultimately define a model that
could then be used in all departments. The approach
was to have 3 phases over two years. In addition it would
also allow for change management, gradual acclimatising
of employees to the process whilst not interrupting
operations. Such a phased approach also ensured that
implementation was able to deal with ongoing changes
in employee information in a sustainable manner over
36 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
time, rather than taking a “snapshot” of the employees in
an organisation and then providing a report, which would
in effect be outdated since the organisation had since
moved on. The other perceived advantage of the phased
approach was the substantial shift away from lengthy
forms, employee frustration and irritation, and survey and
audit fatigue since some departments had already done
Human Resources audits prior to HR Connect.
Target Group
Twenty-two departments were targeted fitting the following
profiles, national policy departments, (e.g. DPSA),
Departments that had a national and regional footprint
(e.g. Labour, Health and Justice) provincial departments
and a Government trading Entity. The total number of
employees involved was 34800 .
HR Connect Principles are:
• Mutual Respect
• Clear Communication
• Transparency
• Guidance
• Willingness to learn
• Acknowledge constraints
• Strict Project Management
• Skills transfer and sustainability
Approach
The approach was to conduct information and
communication sessions, define roles and clarify
responsibilities and to initiate the individual data collection
process for each department. There was also a need to
brand and communicate the project.
The challenge was to synchronise concurrent processes
during which three different but interrelated sets of data
had to be generated and collected. The processes
entailed (1) identification of information required by
the employer, (2) the development of the HR Connect
System, (3) Capacitation of the departments to provide
the information and (4) the most appropriate methods
for distribution, collection and validation of employer and
employee information.
This entailed the completion of a Personal Survey
Form by every staff member of a department; (2) the
development of job profiles by Task Groups; and (3) the
development and submission of department organograms
in electronic format, (4) the population of the database
and the generation of reports.
Findings or implementation challenges
The process of mapping Job Titles and Payroll (PERSAL)
titles to Occupations on the Organising Framework of
Occupations proved much more difficult than initially
anticipated. This can be ascribed to the indiscriminate
proliferation of combinations of Job Titles and Payroll
titles. A lack of consistency in the use and application of
titles in departments became evident as the workshops
progressed.
This adversely affected the compilation and benchmarking
Task Group agreement of “generic” Job Profiles for
the Public Service. However, the job profiling exercise
has enabled HR Connect to map and rationalise 2,879
combinations of Occupation Titles, PERSAL CORE Titles
and Job Titles, to 170 occupations on the Organising
Framework of Occupations.
The Workshops also focussed on assisting departments
with defining their organograms. The majority of
departments found it difficult to define their structure.
Furthermore, the structure that was identified as the
organogram did not relate to PERSAL data. On-site
meetings and workshops were held with almost all the
participating departments to render support. Although
these meetings have benefited the process and have
enhanced the participants’ understanding of the Human
Capital Development process, it did not yield the required
information. Departments were in the majority of cases
only able to depict the top three tiers of their structure
in diagrammatic format, some displayed “floating” or
“hanging” structures (i.e. not linked to the reporting
structure), some had circular relationships while others
could not do the mapping at all.
The extent of the inability of departments to define
their organisational structures was so significant that it
forced the project team to reconsider the alignment of
organograms with PERSAL as an outcome of Phase 1 of
the HR Connect process. Instead, it was decided to make
it a deliverable in Phase 2 of the HR Connect process,
which has been completed.
Other implementation Challenges were:
• Project Management paradigm shifts
• Timely submission of information
• Management of 100% return of survey forms
• Data Quality and integrity
• Routines and Patterns - fixedness
• Buy-in from senior management in Departments still
seems to be a major stumbling block in ensuring the
success of HR CONNECT. Senior officials’ lack of
support and understanding of the process seem to
have a direct influence on the submissions of their
respective Departments.
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 37
• Ongoing independent skills audits by departments
Interaction with processes focussing on: Competence
Assessment, Occupational specific dispensation (OSD),
Performance Assessment, Job Evaluation, updating
of PERSAL, etc. monitored to ensure the successful
inculcation of the principles underpinning HR Connect.
An example was the profiles that were developed for
the Middle and Senior Managers and links to both
the Competency Framework and the Performance
Management Framework.
Results achieved
During Phase, 1 - 34,800 Personal Survey Forms
were printed and distributed for completion among
the participating departments. By the end of February
2008, about 28,400 completed Personal Survey Forms
were received and captured, bringing the return rate to
approximately 82%. Based on this information the DPSA
was able to generate a report on the ICT capacity of the
participating departments. In addition, departments began
to see the value of accurate HR employee information and
had begun a process of clean up. New occupational titles
were identified and captured
During Phase 2, the job and post titles as well as
occupational profiles were completed and Personal
survey forms linking an employee to a post and job with
a profile linked to an occupational category has been
completed. The organisational structures and Personal
information has been aligned and maintained. Anomalies
are addressed as they are discovered. Phase 3 has
been initiated and the only processes remaining are the
submission, collection and capturing of forms.
The capacity that was built over the last three months
became evident with Departments adamant about
correcting their HR information. E.g., a department with
17 000 employees rebuilt their complete organisational
structure and corrected payroll information before printing
their survey forms.
Conclusion
HR Connect has allowed the DPSA to develop a
consistent and replicable model for defining and collecting
skills information across the public service in a sustainable
manner. HR Connect has become a defining method for
the clean up and purifying of HR data and a key conduit of
information for better Human Resource planning.
The substrata of good governance: people, policy,
organisational learning - The PPP experience in
South Africa, 1999-2008
Adrian Crewe & Dr. Ralph Lawrence, Public Policy Partnership, South Africa
This paper is the fruit of a nine-year experiment in ‘social
and educational engineering’ carried out by the Public
Policy Partnership in South Africa. PPP is a donor-
funded, non-profit, public policy education and training
organisation. It is uniquely positioned in the South African
public sphere by virtue of the linking and facilitating role it
plays between government, the tertiary education sector
and a select group of research and advocacy-oriented
NGOs. As the fulcrum of this partnership network, PPP’s
core objective has been to identify, nurture and shape
some of the best young human talent available for
effective public sector service.
PPP was founded on the understanding that good
governance in the fullest sense consists in more than
adherence to a set of technical, rule-governed desiderata,
important though such adherence undoubtedly is. The
reality is that the possibility of good governance is
profoundly conditioned by historical circumstances –
legacies, constraints and opportunities – and resides
critically in the quality and dedication of the people
charged with realising it. Especially in the postcolonial
and developing world, this needs to be built - slowly and
painstakingly, often against the grain of history, through
years of carefully focused and protected investment in
human capital. There is of course no fixed end-point to
this process; but the goal must be to achieve, at some
realistically foreseeable future date, a sufficient ‘critical
mass’ of skill, experience and ethical solidity (at top
leadership, senior and middle management levels) to
guarantee the stability and relative autonomy of the
state apparatus from the volatility of party politics and
patronage.
In the context of the difficult transition from apartheid,
South Africa provided an exciting and challenging
laboratory for such an experiment. The new ‘Government
of National Unity’ (GNU) installed in 1994 inherited a
repressive, secretive, hierarchical, profoundly closed and
substantially criminalised state apparatus, habituated
to sanctions-busting and collusive front-company
arrangements with important sections of business.
Ethical nihilism had been woven into the fabric of the
apartheid state and wide swathes of civil society. Turning
this situation round and creating a renewed - ‘open,
38 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
transparent, accountable, ethical’ - public sphere would
be a gargantuan task, especially as the new incumbents
of the state began to be exposed to the inevitable
temptations of office and the pull of the past.
Further complicating the task were the multiple tensions
inherent in trying to maintain institutional continuity and
operational know-how (largely resident in a politicised
senior cadre of older, white, male apartheid public
servants), while at the same time driving through
legislative reform and institutional transformation and
developing the required new cadre of skilled, creative,
professional and independent-minded public servants.
In the highly stressed, politically charged environment of
a state in transition from apartheid, they would need to
show commitment, confidence, openness and humility,
and be able to hold their nerve and work to the long
term time horizon of a gradually ‘normalizing’ democratic
politics.
The idea of the PPP intervention emerged out of two
years of informal conversations (1997-1999) between
senior South African politicians, government officials
and academics, brokered by the Princeton-based
Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and
the programme’s putative anchor funder, the Andrew W
Mellon Foundation. Since many in the post-1994 ANC
political leadership were acutely aware of the need to
underpin the necessarily destabilising work of state
transformation with a parallel drive to ensure effective
governance and management stability, there was
considerable enthusiasm for the idea of a collaborative
project specifically designed to locate and prepare
the ‘new type of public servant’ whose dedication and
professionalism would appropriately match the demands
of the new conjuncture. 1 The paradox was that while this
was now coming to be seen as an ‘emergency project’, it
could not, by definition, be completed overnight. It had to
be a long term endeavour - one which would, hopefully,
begin to deliver appreciable results quite early on, but
would necessarily take a number of years to mature and
consolidate.
Since the traditional tertiary schools of public
administration were not oriented towards, nor flexibly
enough equipped to take on, such a concerted project,
the PPP programme would instead serve as a pilot for an
entirely new, cross-sectoral, partnership-based approach
to cadre-building. It would not address the question of
mass recruitment of public servants at all levels, but
would instead focus specifically on the formation of
policy practitioners (managers and specialists) capable
of acting effectively as change agents over the long
haul. Its aim would be to produce individuals possessed
of a broad overview of the ‘web of governance’ and a
sophisticated grasp of the interplay of systems, structures,
constituencies and community dynamics in the formulation
of policy and the technicalities and politics of delivery.
To achieve this, the programme would have to develop
an education and training model based first of all on
intelligent recruiting and selection – to minimise human
resource wastage – and then invest intensively in the
people selected, over an extended period of time. For
practical purposes it was decided that a minimum of five
years would be necessary to educate and train each
successive group of recruits (‘PPP fellows’) to the required
levels of rigor in policy and management competencies
and – just as importantly – to ensure that such
competencies be grounded in a durable ethic of delivery.
PPP’s founding mission statement was relatively easily
agreed: To develop, as fast as is consistent with a serious
commitment to quality education and training, a new cadre
of highly-qualified, creative, dedicated and ethical public
policy practitioners who will make a decisive contribution
to public sector capacity-building and good governance in
South Africa over the next ten to twenty years and beyond.
PPP’s strategic approach was based on three central
principles:
1. Selecting the brightest and most committed students
available, with a strong emphasis on extracting
the nuggets of gold from the ore of ‘historical
disadvantage’;
2. Building a set of long term partnerships with the
contributing universities and with our government and
non-government employer partners; and
3. Developing a strong, workplace-based experiential
learning framework, tightly linked with students’
academic studies, both at undergraduate and
postgraduate levels.
But how would such a programme be structured?
It would begin at undergraduate level. Drawing from an
initial grouping of four major universities in two provinces
(Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal), applications were
solicited from second-year students in a wide range of
academic disciplines: economics, law, social sciences,
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 39
natural and environmental sciences, health sciences,
humanities, media studies, social work etc. Final selection
of each year’s (two) regional cohorts was achieved via
a tough sifting and interview process designed to test
prior academic performance, writing, life skills, personal
orientation and demonstrated community commitment.
Once selected, PPP fellows had to understand very
clearly that they were submitting themselves to an
intensive five-year education and training process. The
first two years would run in parallel with their mainstream
undergraduate studies, while the following three years
would be a combination of postgraduate study and full-
time work experience (internship) placements.
The learning process would begin with two demanding
3-week residential “Winter Institutes”- one in the second
year and one in the final undergraduate year. The working
day would be from 8 am to midnight, 6 days a week;
Sundays being reserved for ‘catch-up’ work and minor
R&R. With intensive mentoring by the PPP leadership,
contributing senior academics and professional career
guidance counsellors from the partner universities, the
students would be put through modules in public policy,
economics, statistics for social science, public sector
ethics, professional writing, oral presentation skills and
internet-based research. Classroom learning would
be supplemented by workshops conducted by invited
academics, research consultants, social activists and
senior public servants, and by work-shadowing visits to
provincial and local government departments, NGOs and
developmental projects.
Each Institute would end with a set of group presentations
based on “real-life” policy-related case studies. All class
learning was groupwork-based and students were
assessed both individually and as team members –
thereby putting a premium on negotiation, understanding
and respect for diversity and the development of
leadership skills, mutual responsibility and group morale.
Upon admission to postgraduate study, PPP undertook
to provide a fully supportive scholarship for the Honours
and Masters years, and to find students appropriate,
adequately paid 12-month internships with a range of
public sector partners. Postgraduate programmes (later
extended to include the universities of Pretoria and
Witwatersrand) were designed so as to “sandwich” the
internship year between Honours and Masters, with
project work in the host organisation linked as closely as
possible to the fellow’s upcoming Masters coursework and
dissertation.
The internship year was tightly structured, with
written contracts of employment, job descriptions and
Exhibit 1: The PPP Linear Track
graduation 1
[with final year
Eligible students :
- any relevant discipline course marks >= 65%]
- in 2nd year of 3-year degree or
- 3rd year of 4-year degree
YEAR 1 YEAR 2
[Penultimate undergraduate year] [final undergraduate year]
recruitment
winter institute 1 winter institute 2
and
June - July June - July
selection
satisfactory completion satisfactory completion
required required
performance agreements, structured mentoring by
appointed host organisation managers and formal mid-
term and end of-year assessment exercises.
Finally – and as “payback” for the resources invested
in them – PPP fellows would be expected to complete
a minimum of four years in public sector employment.
(In other words, PPP fellows were taking on an overall
commitment to the programme of nine years).
The trajectory of the PPP fellow can be represented, in
linear form, as in the graphic below. This is useful as a
means of depicting the successive ‘hurdles’ which PPP
fellows were required to jump in order to continue from
one stage of the programme to the next. (see Exhibit 1
above.)
Alternatively, the PPP fellow’s experience with the
programme can be represented as a cycle. This – as can
be seen from the following graphic - allows for a better
representation of the key formative elements coming into
play at the various critical stages of the PPP learning
experience. (see Exhibit 2 on page 41)
Out of the whole process described above, the hope
was not only to develop the theoretical, practical and
organisational skills required for the creation of potential
leaders, but to ensure that those skills were as fully
grounded as possible in the programme’s core values of
passion, integrity and commitment, as explicitly defined
below.
• Passion: A genuine resolve to drive and sustain
transformation in South Africa, based on justice, equity
and active public participation.
• Integrity: Efficiency, honesty, humility and accessibility
in public service, with zero tolerance for corruption.
• Commitment: A determination to work for the
realisation of these values over the long term, building
40 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
full-time public service
first entry to world of work employment
return to study
YEAR 3 YEAR 4 YEAR 5 YEAR 6 - 9
honours in Public worK masters in Public
PubliC seCtor
Policy or allied eXPerienCe Policy or allied
worK obligation
discipline Year discipline
graduation 2
[masters degree
satisfactory completion
required in Public Policy]
with care, patience and a mature understanding of
complexity.
Easily enough said; but how to find people with ‘the right
stuff’ – and then create the kind of challenging learning
environment that would transform these values from
mere slogans into solidly internalised, lived identities?
We have discussed the educational, character-formative
and experiential dimensions of the PPP programme
above. But a good deal more needs to be said about the
challenge of finding the right kind of human ‘raw material’
for the long haul.
1. Recruitment: talent, potential and commitment
PPP has always spoken of ‘extracting the nuggets
of gold from the ore of historical disadvantage’. This
foregrounded a central hypothesis of the recruitment
and selection process: that, academic talent aside, if we
were able to identify a core of students who had already
overcome significant or extreme hardship on the road
to university they might be both more likely to identify
fully with PPP’s transformative ethic and better able to
cope with the intense demands that would be made of
them over the five years of their association with the
programme. They would be committing themselves to
meeting a set of intellectual and personal development
challenges that most of their parents could only have
dreamed of; and they would be more likely to be driven by
a vivid awareness of where they had come from and how
they had got to be where they now found themselves.
We were, we reckoned, engaged in a process of
experimental revaluation of received notions of
‘disadvantage as deficit’. Could this notion not, to
an extent, be turned on its head to reveal, in the
‘disadvantaged’, layers of toughness, resourcefulness and
ability to adapt and think on one’s feet that might not be
part of the personal arsenal of the ‘advantaged’? Our job
 Exhibit 2: The Shape of the 5-year PPP Cycle

PPP Winter
Schools Research methodology,
case studies, weekly
Policy, public service assignments, mini-thesis
ethics, economics,
statistics, professional Men
ng tor
writing, internet
tori in g
research. n 3rd year
1-year contract,

e
• Exposure to social / Policy

M
2nd year monthly stipend; full-
racial diversity time manager/mentor;
Honours
• Interaction with Undergraduate exposure to
policy professionals organisational practice,
studies culture, multi-tasking
• Team-based

Mentoring
1st year
learning/outputs
• Work shadowing Employability Internship
• Specialist one-on-
one career guidance Alignment of project
and counselling work to Masters year
World of work 40% of students thesis topic
Policy
Masters
Coursework,
Management supervised thesis
progression, (full-time/part-
leadership… time)

would be to find out the extent to which these attributes
were indeed coming to the surface in the challenging
environment created for PPP fellows – and then to
build on them and deepen their intellectual and ethical
substance, rather than allowing them to dissipate or derail.
In essence, we were laying a wager on the extent to which
the experience of disadvantage could be valorised. It
would need to be proven in practice.
But at the same time, we were equally committed to the
idea of balance within each cohort group. By ‘balance’
we meant, in the first instance, demographic and gender
representivity – a ‘no-brainer’ requirement in the context of
South Africa’s post-apartheid transition.
But we were also interested in introducing a significant
degree of socio-economic (class) differentiation into
the mix of every cohort, specifically and intentionally to
deny PPP fellows the luxury of operating from within
any kind of safe ‘comfort zone.’ They would have to live
and personally negotiate the challenges of South African
diversity, increasingly coming to understand the validity of
‘other lives’ and ‘other experiences’ that they had never
previously encountered in any real depth.
In summary, we can say that, while we wanted to get
to our ‘deep core’ of achievers from disadvantaged
backgrounds (not all of whom were African) we were
also putting a high premium on diversity - in gender,
race, ethnic and class terms. The negotiation of sharply
differentiated backgrounds and the sharing of experiences
was seen by PPP as a critical component of the collective
learning process.
As it turned out – and without introducing any bias into
the uniform selection and interview process – the gender
target was easily achieved. In fact, we ended up with a
female v. male split of 52% to 48%. In terms of racial
demographics, the picture that emerged was rather more
nuanced, as can be seen from the numbers below (PPP
cohort profile v. national population distribution for 2008).
(see Exhibit 3: Racial demographics on page 42.)
The numbers indicate an almost ‘spot-on’ representation
of Africans and individuals of colour across the PPP
cohorts; but an over-representation of Indians and
an under-representation of whites. This tells a story
unsurprising in one respect and perhaps rather surprising
in another respect. It is well-known that White South
Africans, in general, seem to anticipate that a career in
the public service is not available – or desirable – for
them. 2
But what is not necessarily so well known is that the
same seems to apply to Indian and male individuals of
colour. Concealed within the ‘representative’ figure for
individuals of colour and the ‘over-representative’ figure
for Indians is the bald fact that over 90% of the intake
for these two groups was female. There is a good deal
of extended debate to be had about this phenomenon,

C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 41
 touching, on the one hand, on similarities of attitude
Exhibit 3: Racial demographics towards state employment amongst white, Indian and
male individuals of colour – and, on the other hand, on
the emergence of a strong perception amongst young
South African Population Estimate 2008 women of colour that new, emancipatory opportunities for
public service-orientated employment (beyond traditional
nursing/teaching etc. careers) are now there for the
white (9%)
taking. (A related phenomenon often noted has been
individuals of Colour (9%)
the much lower rate of post-1994 exodus from the public
indian (2%)
african (80%)
service of middle-ranking white females – as opposed to
their male counterparts – and the extent to which they
have been able to advance their careers under the new
dispensation).
PPP Demographic Profile - 2000 - 2005
Looking back over the full spectrum of six PPP cohorts,
we have been able to extract some instructive data on our
white (2%)
relative success in reaching the deep core. We illustrate
individuals of Colour (8%) this very briefly in terms of a) rural/urban geographical
indian (8%) distribution (see left); b) parental socio-economic
african (82%) differentiation (page 43); c) type of schooling received
(page 43); and finally, as a kind of socio-anthropological
‘teaser’ which would reward a full study in its own right,
d) the sources of financing of PPP students’ secondary
schooling. (page 43)
Exhibit 4: Socio-geographical distribution
So much, then, for recruitment targeting and the
Rural / urban distribution of students demographic and socio-economic patterns revealed
(at secondary school level) in the process. But wherever PPP fellows came from
Other, 6%
and however they got to university, the overriding
goal had to be their success in the programme and in
A: Rural
settlement/
their subsequent careers. So there would have to be
City suburb, 19%
village, 28% ‘quality assurance’ safeguards – as stringent as we
could realistically make them. First of all, demonstrated
Small town, 14%
academic ability/potential. Recruiting students in the
C: City township,
22% second year of a three-year degree (or the third year of a
B: Small-town
township, 11% four-year degree) allowed us to pay close attention to the
record of their academic results over the one or two years
of undergraduate study already completed. We were
looking for aggregate marks above 60%; but, perhaps
more importantly, for signs of a steady upward trajectory
of achievement.
Notes to Exhibit 4:
1. We were delighted to discover that we achieved very
Beyond this, we would want evidence that they could
significant poor rural representivity (A + B =39%); and
write reasonably well, think on their feet and communicate
that, overall, some 67% of the fellows recruited came from
demonstrably ‘disadvantaged’ urban and rural backgrounds
a convincing sense of personal integrity. We would
(A + B + C). interrogate their written statements of intent and
2. In terms of living conditions – social infrastructure - both professions of desire to serve the public good against
the ‘township’ and ‘other’ categories conceal within them fluid their CVs, and would test their personal accounts of
patterns of movement between formal dwellings, mud-brick achievement and community involvement in gruelling half-
houses and shack settlements). hour individual interviews.
3. In-house electricity supply was reported as present in
only some 40% of students’ family dwellings. The final built-in safeguard was that, after selection, all
PPP fellows knew that they would have to sweat through

42 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
Exhibit 5: Parental Employment Exhibit 6: Schooling
Father's main employment PPP fellows' primary schooling
Absent/ Mainly
Formal business deceased, 16% unemployed, 7% Informal sector
owner/employer worker, 4% Private school
5% 5% Other Farm school
Farm
worker, 3% 14% 16%
Professional / Model C-type
manager Industrial
15% school
worker, 16%
10%

Teacher DET-type school

5% 55%

Police officer State/service

Technician Self-employed sector worker,
3%
4% (formal sector) 14%
8%

Mother's main employment PPP fellows' secondary schooling

Professional/ Absent /
deceased, 2%
Farm school
manager, 7% Private school
5%
Nurse, 7%
6% Other
Housewife 11%
24%
DET-type school
Teacher
20%
Mainly 33%
unemployed
(but seeking Model C-type
work), 10%
school
Domestic
worker, 9% 45%
Informal sector
State/service worker, 10%
sector worker Rural
9% producer/farm
worker, 2%

Notes to Exhibit 5: Notes to Exhibit 6: The category ‘DET-type school’ here

includes not only schools reserved for Africans, but also, in
1. Category of ‘absent/deceased’ much greater for males the bizarre nomenclature of apartheid, the ‘Department of
(16%) than females (2%). Coloured Affairs’ and ‘Department of Indian Affairs’ schools
2. The (somewhat ambiguous) category of ‘housewife’ which completed the state educational jigsaw puzzle.
significant in female profile.
3. Combined percentages for ‘unemployed’ and all categories Exhibit 7: Financial source of secondary
of ‘worker’ are similar for male and female parents (44% for
education
males, 40% for females).
4. ‘White collar’ categories higher for females (34%) than for
males (27%). Main financial source of secondary education
5. ‘Formal business owner’ features for males, but not for
females. Grandfather's Income of both
pension, 6% Other parents, 19%
12%
When we turn to the types of primary and secondary
Grandmother's
schooling received by PPP applicants, the feature to which pension, 18%
we would wish to draw primary attention is the indication Income of one
of increased financial sacrifice implicit in the migration of parent
45%
significant numbers of students from primary ‘DET’ schools
(the generally under-resourced legatees of ‘Bantu education’)
to secondary ‘Model-C’ schools (the relatively much better-
endowed state schools formerly reserved for white learners).

C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 43
 the two Winter Institutes (and graduate well) before
there would be any prospect of scholarship money for
Exhibit 8 postgraduate study on the table.
Distribution of PPP academic outcomes 2002-2009
[ n = 228 ] Well, did the wager succeed?
Masters Current Masters
coursework 19 Left before
incomplete 8% postgrad The record shows that we mostly got it right: firstly, in
45
Masters
coursework
7
3% 20%
terms of adherence to the PPP programme; secondly, in
complete, finishing terms of overall academic outcomes; thirdly in terms of
thesis
60
employment and professional progression.
Ended with diploma
26% 5
2%
Adherence to the Programme
Ended with
Honours
31
In terms of sustaining the rigors of the PPP cycle, only
Honours 14% a tiny minority (5 out of 228 students) dropped out of
incomplete
Masters Completed 11 the Programme during the Winter Institutes. This did
45
20%
Current Honours 5% not necessarily mean that they did not graduate or
5
2% did not later go on to Honours and/or Masters studies
independently. But they ceased to participate in the PPP
programme and we have not tracked their continuing
progress. No PPP students failed undergraduate studies
outright, although 6 withdrew before final examinations
Exhibit 9 for a variety of personal reasons. A further 40 students
(17.5%) successfully completed undergraduate studies
Current employment distribution of PPP fellows
but did not go on to postgraduate study, either because
CONSULTANCY 9
6% NGO, CBO FBO 26
NATIONAL their final year undergraduate results were not good
GOVERNMENT 30
18%
21% enough to secure admission to the Honours year or
PRIVATE PROVINCIAL because they, too, encountered serious personal and/
SECTOR 14
10%
GOVERNMENT 27
19% or familial problems that threw them off- course. The
STATUTORY BODY
26
distribution of PPP academic outcomes, as at the time of
18% writing, is as indicated in Exhibit 8 (left).
ACADEMIC 2
LOCAL
1%

PARASTATAL 2
GOVERNMENT 7
5%
Securing full-time employment
2%

Finally, at the end of the PPP education/training cycle,

comes the moment of truth: the ability of our students
to secure significant full-time employment in the real
world. At the time of writing, the record already speaks
Exhibit 10 for itself: 143 fellows employed across a wide range of
PPP rankings/roles in public service employment organisations as shown in Exhibit 9 (left.)
DIRECTOR 6
7%
DEPUTY
Professional progression
OTHER DIRECTOR 14
15%
27
29% Two basic points need to be made here. First: it is of
ASSISTANT course early days yet for employed PPP alumni (and most
RESEARCH
DIRECTOR
17 are still young - aged between 22 and 30). Second: ‘rank’
is difficult to pinpoint in any meaningful way in the NGO/
SPECIALIST 19%
28
30%
consultancy sector. In the state sector, however, where
rank is much more clearly defined, PPP graduate fellows
have been achieving managerial positions and promotions
far more rapidly than mainstream entrants to the public
service. The current picture for those employed by the
state is illustrated in exhibit 10 (left.)

44 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
Wider systemic reflections
The principal difficulty in mounting formal education
in public policy at only the postgraduate level is that it
assumes that the requisite background, knowledge,
skills and public sector orientation will automatically
emerge in the course of undergraduate studies. This
simply is not happening. In our experience, it was only
through responding to PPP’s on-campus recruitment
drives - and after in-depth one-on-one discussions with
the PPP leadership – that the great majority of applicants
(irrespective of background and undergraduate field
of study) – began to grasp the objectives of the PPP
programme and to ‘see themselves’ as potential public
sector professionals/policy practitioners. There was
nothing in their subject-based academic learning that
orientated them towards public service; and indeed,
irrespective of undergraduate field of study, no preparation
available in mainstream curricula that would provide them
with the experiential learning base – in communication,
groupwork, self-directed research, multi-tasking, diversity
management and leadership skills – required to convert
them into employable, work-ready entrants to the public
sector with clear leadership potential.
Thus there is an urgent need to address this glaring deficit
in policy education. The intensive supplementary support
and mentoring invested by the PPP programme in its
undergraduate recruits represents an explicit recognition
of such shortcomings in mainstream undergraduate
learning. But the necessarily circumscribed nature of the
Winter Institutes – two three week doses of intensive
learning crammed into successive winter vacations –
created a clear need for further interventions to reinforce
the initial foundation, maintain the momentum and
consolidate the learning throughout the internship and
postgraduate phases of the programme.
This meant continuous follow-up support in terms
of ongoing cohort maintenance, academic progress
monitoring, individual coaching and institutional liaison
(both with university postgraduate schools and internship
host organisations). The extent of the investment required
of PPP as the intermediary organisation, both in time and
resources, serves to highlight the underlying structural
and pedagogical problems that need to be addressed by
the state and by educators for the public sector.
Finally – and very significantly – the issue of state support
for innovative partnership-based ventures like PPP arises.
When the framework for the PPP intervention was agreed,
it was on the clear understanding that, having proved its
viability over an initial period of about 3 years, national
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 45
government (as the overwhelming beneficiary of the
programme’s outputs) would begin to allocate substantial
resources to its maintenance – essentially to match-fund it
on a 50/50 basis with international and local donors.
However, despite excellent working relations between
PPP and its government partners on internship,
programme development and mentoring and monitoring
issues, the various national ‘lead departments’ on funding
3 have, after more than five years of discussion and
negotiation, been unable to identify any viable mechanism
for disbursing the required financial support. This has
finally caused anchor donors to withdraw from their
current 100% funding role, thereby seriously threatening
the viability of the programme – certainly in its current
format.
There are a number of identifiable reasons for the state of
continuous flux and uncertainty, both within and between
government departments, that continues to give rise to
impasses of the type experienced by PPP.
Firstly, inherited state hierarchies and bureaucratic
silos have in practice proved significantly resistant to
the thoroughgoing qualitative transformation project
envisaged in the mid- to late 1990s. Instead they have in
many areas – and particularly in the spheres of provincial
and municipal government - merely been repopulated,
since the inherited structures have turned out to be well
suited to the narrow political control considerations of all
the post-1994 ruling parties at national or provincial level -
whether ANC, IFP, NNP or DA . 4
Secondly, the very broad powers of patronage that South
Africa’s list system of proportional representation gives
to the executive and the party political leadership has
tended to entrench the continuing subordination of MPs
and the domination of party over state, with the former
increasingly tending to absorb the latter via the politics of
“deployment” of party loyalists to senior state functions,
often regardless of appropriate professional competency.
Inner-party competition, conflict and factionalism therefore
immediately translate into shaky governance. This often
plays out in the form of a pathology of second-guessing
on core policy and implementation directions, resulting in
operational discontinuity, hemorrhage of senior managers
to the private sector, weakening of institutional memory,
low morale and decision-making paralysis. Our view
is that the failure of national government to deliver on
the compact with PPP derived in the main from inter-
departmental tension (competition over resources and
buck-passing) exacerbated by factionalism and decision-
making paralysis in the tense run-up to the ANC’s
Polokwane Conference of December 2007. PPP was one
of the accidental victims of these processes.
2. Comparing skills: public sector/private sector and
beyond
Despite the tale related above, the PPP experience has
been one of rich learning, not least with regard to some of
the broader reflections it has given rise to on core issues
of education and skills development across the public/
private sector divide.
There are, inevitably, significant differences between
qualifications aimed at equipping people for private
enterprise, based on the pursuit of profit rooted in desire,
as opposed to those underpinning public governance,
which are - at least theoretically - inclined more towards
common welfare, based on considerations of need.
Yet the parallels and trends towards convergence have
proved strong over the past thirty years. On the one
hand, there has been the increasing dominance of the
`new public management’ paradigm, with its emphasis on
decentralisation, outsourcing and private sector metrics
for public governance.
On the other hand, pressures for probity, accountability
and transparency originating in the sphere of
corporate governance - see, in South Africa, the King
Commission(s) 5 – have begun to put a significant degree
of external pressure on the traditional opacity and self-
protectiveness of the state sphere. 6 Clearly, malfeasance
knows no ‘natural’ boundaries between private and public
organisations; and remedies have to be urgently sought
across both spheres.
We may therefore say that the increasing interpenetration
of public and private spheres - which is unfolding on
a global scale and inevitably giving rise to new, hybrid
organisational forms - calls for more appropriately
construed and designed forms of education and learning
that transcend outdated dichotomies between the private
and the public. There is a pressing need to define and
articulate a substantive set of skills, competencies,
attitudes and ethical orientations that should be common
to managers in all organisations, whether nominally
‘public’ or ‘private’ – and to embed them within the area-
specific conceptions of professionalism particular to
different spheres of economic, social and governmental
activity. 7 If, indeed, ‘professional education’ extended
more seamlessly across public and private spheres alike,
it would become easier, more ‘normal’ and more attractive
to move periodically from the one realm to the other.
It would of course be naïve to suggest that there could,
in the nature of things, be some endpoint of final
46 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
convergence, since it is difficult to imagine a final evening-
out of the balance of reward, risk and responsibility
between the two spheres. But it is already clear – and
clearer still in the wake of the 2008-09 financial sector
meltdown – that it is no longer appropriate to view the
private sector as the domain of high risk and unfettered/
inflated compensation, whereas its public counterpart
is seen as the preserve of security and comfortably
tenured occupation. If creativity and risk-taking, ethics
and regulation no longer look like ‘belonging’ solely to
one sphere or the other, it becomes that much more
important to bring conceptions of education and skilling
closer together and to explore more rigorously what might
be termed the seed-beds of good governance, effective
management and ethical leadership, across all sectors.
The PPP experience may offer some useful pointers in
this regard. As noted earlier, PPP selected its students
from a broad spread of undergraduate disciplinary bases
and a wide range of social and educational backgrounds.
Learning one other’s different disciplinary languages,
methodologies and procedures would later on come to
provide them with much greater possibilities of alignment
with the core intellectual business of a range of public
sector organisations – both governmental and non-
governmental – and to identify many of the challenges of
theory and practice common to both public and private
sectors. But perhaps even more important – and in
some ways, more difficult - was the task of collectively
‘unbundling’ and ‘re-assembling’ the diversity we had
marshalled in terms of racial, socio-economic and
educational background. For of course diversity is not
an unambiguously positive value in its own right. Since
it comes freighted with the weight of history, it can just
as well trigger off negative processes and outcomes. It
was therefore necessary, as a matter of principle and
pedagogic practice, to let it find its many voices and –
carefully but firmly – work to manage the outcomes. This
meant confronting the tensions and frictions that inevitably
surfaced from the heat of debate and the pressure of
group assignments. It required exploration of cultural
misreadings, deconstruction of stereotypes, modification
and revision of positions and values; in short, a great deal
of hard work to find common ground that could be shared,
owned and collectively carried forward.
The enduring long term effects of this strenuous and
often painful effort to valorise diversity are frequently
remarked upon by PPP fellows, who feel that the
experience marked them out very distinctly from their
peers in mainstream classes, as well as from those whose
experience of policy education was confined to more
traditional public administration curricula. Typically, PPP
fellows speak of the Winter Institute learning experience
as a ‘transformative process.’ Not only were they able
to learn from one another and gain a more disciplined
and grounded sense of self-awareness and mutual
responsibility; they were able to do so via a process that
constantly foregrounded the ethical dimensions of analysis
and decision-making.
As one contemplates the field of policy-making,
implementation and management, one is inexorably drawn
towards the baseline educational imperatives that should
inform the production of individuals capable of embodying
‘good governance.’
Our view is that the educational process cannot rest
content with curriculum delivery supplemented by
technically-conceived skills accumulation. It must
dig deeper, deliberately creating experiential group-
learning situations that model the challenges that will
later confront the engaged citizen-professional in the
institutional environment, while at the same time testing
and entrenching individual responsibility and integrity.
3. Towards an education in public policy
Most importantly, as we have seen, policy education
has to be rooted in its context. And this means not
just the content, the subject matter of cases and
illustrative material. The quest for relevance goes further
than this: policy learning has to be enmeshed in an
appropriate, explicitly articulated intellectual paradigm,
with characteristic frameworks of meaning, modes of
explanation, and styles of exposition. And the construction
of such paradigms has to be consciously appropriate to
institutional and cultural setting and task.
While there are no doubt universal features of policy
analysis, like decision-making, the elements that are
admitted into the ‘field’ wherein the decisions are made
(and their impacts transmitted and felt) are never
simply ‘there’, neutrally given, merely awaiting objective
evaluation. To pretend to technical neutrality in decision-
making is to abrogate responsibility for prior social,
institutional and discursive acts of construction of the
force field of relevance, with all its attendant historical,
cultural and, indeed, political underpinnings. A set of
methodological and cultural layers is always already
actively in place, producing effects. It is the deepest layer,
reflecting what could be called `meta-relevance’, that often
needs to be unearthed and interrogated. Yet it rarely is,
especially in South Africa, although there are rhetorical
flourishes suggesting the contrary. Let us try to tunnel
through the layers in order to expose instances of this
meta-relevance.
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 47
In South Africa, the dearth of skill in mathematics
and physical science among school-leavers is widely
recognised and lamented. Many postgraduate students
in public policy remain ill-equipped in broad quantitative
skills. But, far more crucially, what they really lack is an
appreciation of how to pursue issues and problems in
a scholarly manner, where technique is deployed as a
means of discovery, as a tool of evidence and a way of
arriving at potential solutions.
Typically, therefore, students are exposed to rudimentary
skill sets in economics and statistics, without these being
underpinned properly by an epistemology appropriate to
the policy environment in question. It will require a long-
term endeavour to address this lacuna in policy education;
but it needs to be prioritised as an indispensable core
of the learning process, not just in universities - which
are often ill-equipped to articulate the professional with
the academic/theoretical dimensions of reflection and
knowledge production - but also within places of work in
the public and corporate sectors.
But one cannot rest here. Even if policy graduates in
Africa became as sophisticated and confident as their
counterparts in schools of public policy in, say, the United
States, this would by no means be the kind of outcome
we would necessarily be looking for. Why? Well, firstly,
wholesale emulation always implies that one is involved in
a demeaning kind of ‘catch-up’ game. But, secondly, and
more importantly, most of the model curricula in question
are steeped in a particular conception of social science
where evidence is typically explored in quite rigidly causal
terms - and the (typically quantitative) skills of students
are developed (over-developed) accordingly. This is far
from saying that there is no merit in empirical causality
and statistical literacy. There is however at least another
possible - though comparatively seldom travelled - avenue
of policy scholarship that is oriented towards more
discursive and self-reflexive modes of argument. This
is narrative policy analysis – which counts amongst its
various strengths an intrinsic affinity with meta-analysis:
the ability to explicitly articulate the informing framework
and implications of your methodology and situate them in
the context of their application.
Four factors reveal the worth of narrative policy analysis in
South African circumstances:
First, the prevailing style of policy-framing in governance
in South Africa is discursive, where argument takes the
form of stories – exemplary historical myths of sacrifice,
heroism and authenticity - competing for popular acclaim
by means of persuasion.

More interesting still is the fact that this discursive style
spills over into government discussion documents and
supporting briefing papers, where analyses tend to
be overwhelming descriptive. The challenge here is
to convert description into explanation - in a manner
that can, amongst other things, accommodate post-
colonial political sensitivities by allowing them to be
aired rather than disguised or displaced. This requires a
style of discourse that is structured and disciplined, but
interrogative rather than pre-emptively normative; and
which most respondents will find comfortable, rather
than alienating or disempowering. It is a task to which
narrative policy analysis is well suited, since one of its
key strategies is to impart critical rigor to the exposition of
passionately felt experiences, perceptions and ‘positions’;
but to do so by guaranteeing a foundational respect for
the rich seam of intellectual capital that is already shared
among a significant proportion of the citizenry.
Secondly, the academic world remains largely ignorant
about how government organisations actually operate in
practice: their inner workings, their processes, as opposed
to their taxonomy and formal procedures. To some extent,
recent initiatives in knowledge management have sought
to fill this void, but the thrust is more informational and
less on cultures of exposition and sharing.
Two major issues are easily identifiable, yet they remain
downplayed in discussions about governance. How can
and should a policy official, newly hired to a public body,
become accustomed to – and then, indeed, critically
engaged with - the professional requirements of the job
and the organisation? And since there tends to be a rapid
turnover of personnel in South Africa’s governmental
structures – particularly in the higher management
echelon - how can public organisations survive and thrive
in the face of such constant, disruptive change while at the
same time re-creating the necessary bases of the learning
organisation - institutional stability, continuity, knowledge
transfer. In order to probe these questions we need
to gain a full understanding of the working life of these
organisations. Narrative policy analysis can best be used
to do so by amassing the wealth of experience available
from the ‘latent’ stories of the officials themselves. This
can allow us to compose thick descriptions of the historical
trajectory of policies, and the underlying political/ cultural
stories of the institutions in which those policies have
taken shape, for good or ill.
Thirdly – and very importantly – one under-acknowledged
benefit of narrative policy analysis is that its use can help
foster the values that underwrite democratic systems. The
48 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
narrative method, with its focus on the structure of stories,
requires listening – really listening - to interlocutors;
treating them and their views with respect. Such due
consideration empowers storytellers, giving them a voice
in tales of public governance.
A sense of belonging, or inclusion, coupled with a
guarantee of basic security and equality – of all being
granted equal respect by virtue of their membership of the
over-arching constitutional polity – theoretically undergirds
political democracy in South Africa. It needs, however,
to be made real. Recourse to narrative policy analysis
reinforces the value of these rights, revealing another
layer of meta-relevance in policy education.
Fourthly, while narrative policy analysis is important for
the reasons sketched above, it has a certain prosaic
merit, too, from an educational point of view. In short,
it is a method that South African students can come to
master. This form of investigation is in keeping with their
own lives, where telling stories to one another is widely
and fluently practiced. Admittedly, the formalised narrative
analysis technique demands a good deal more than this;
but students have an intuitive grasp of the rudiments.
This gives them a foundation for learning; although their
ability to move from the oral to the written – to write
stories accurately, with verve and with growing critical
self-consciousness - demands a further set of skills that
many underestimate. These, too, need to be honed and
practised.
A significant investment in the use of narrative policy
analysis has one further important virtue: it impels a
strong recognition and acknowledgement of the realm of
professional experience. Hence there is a clear symbiosis
in policy education between narrative analysis and
experiential learning. This has two aspects: the relation
and recording of professional, on-the-job experience - with
its own proper weight and value accorded to it – and,
at a more systemic level, documenting the shifting and
mutating trajectories of public organisations and turning
the learning derived from this exercise into transferable,
accessible, usable institutional knowledge.
Final remarks: the two-way virtues of internship
One obvious ‘experimental’ setting for using stories of
professional engagement as a means of furthering policy
education is the terrain of internship. The virtues of
internship, for the intern - in both the public and private
sectors - are well rehearsed. But what is perhaps too
little stressed is the learning process through which host
organisation managers pass in fulfilling the mentoring
role.
Turning that exposure and experience into serious policy
learning through the medium of narrative analysis is
comparatively rare, certainly in South Africa. Giving more
regard to this would not only enhance the policy education
of students as interns, but also add to our knowledge of
the public organisations themselves.
In order for such an endeavour to prove successful,
mutually beneficial ties would have to bind students,
academics, universities and the public organisations.
Possibly a mechanism or a broker would have to be
identified to realise the value of these ties for policy
education, continuing professional development, and
ongoing research. This is territory with which PPP is very
familiar – and which it is currently preparing to enter, in a
new, leaner, consultative and facilitatory role. 8
Notes:
1 This, of course, was one line of thought in government
circles. But, inevitably, in the context of ongoing struggles
for power, control and influence, other perspectives
would make themselves felt; perspectives much less
sympathetic to the project of strengthening the relative
independence and autonomy of the professionalised
state.
2 Apart from this schism being unfortunate in its own
right – reflecting both the continuing salience of ‘racial’
assumptions in opposition political culture and a naïve
misunderstanding of ‘affirmative action’ policy – it has two
further negative consequences. It weighs against the more
inclusive culture that should be a defining characteristic
of a ‘normalising’ public service; and it exacerbates a
divide that already exists in higher education, between an
MBA, which is oriented solely towards private endeavour,
and the ‘alternative’ raft of qualifications offered by public
administration and policy programmes.
6 In fairness, it should be noted that the state has
responded with significant pieces of legislation aimed
at increasing the transparency and accountability of
public officials; namely, The Promotion of Access to
Information Act (No.2 of 2000) and The Promotion of
Administrative Justice Act (No. 3 of 2000). Neither of
these Acts, however, enters into the field of corporate
governance safeguards for the state sector. This arena
is largely governed by The Public Finance Management
Act (No. 1 of 1999) over whose effectiveness in reining-in
malpractice opinions differ.
7 It was, we believe, precisely because PPP placed
such a strong emphasis this kind of qualitative personal
development (from within its admittedly limited means)
that its fellows were always in demand as interns and
have proved to be so readily employable and promotable.
8 Very few organisations, whether public or private,
are particularly good at articulating the combination of
personal qualities, attributes and attitudes and skills that
‘really make the difference’ in an intern or new graduate
employee. Instead, individual managers tend to discover
the answers piecemeal, by trial and error, and tend not
think that this learning should be written up, formalised,
made generally available - and, more importantly, debated
at corporate level.

3 Principally, the Department of Public Service &

Administration (which bears overall responsibility for state
capacity-development) and the Department of Labour
(which acts as custodian of the National Skills Fund).

4 IFP=Inkatha Freedom Party; NNP=New National

Party (now defunct); DA=Democratic Alliance (the NNP’s
successor formation)

5 Two ground-breaking Reports on Corporate

Governance by Judge E.L. King, issued in August 2000
and March 2002 respectively, by the Institute of Directors,
South Africa. (http://www.iodsa.co.za/king.asp).

C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 49
How Brazil metamorphosed from a developing
nation to a powerful economy, through staff
development
Tilda Mmegwa, (Governance, Leadership and Management), Royal TDI Global Inc., Canada
Introduction
A 2008 “Expert Workshop on Science and Technology,
Innovation and Development” organized in Manchester by
UNESCO, noted that developing countries such as Brazil,
India and China have emerged as powerful economies
with firms that help define the frontiers of technology
in their sectors. (Technology refers to approaches or
models which incorporate unique know-how or expertise.)
These firms, UNESCO says did not just play catch up but
acquired capabilities that put them on the global frontier of
technology. Brazil, for example, was one of the countries
recognized as having successfully pursued resource-
based industrialization. This country holds important
lessons for developing nations.
The Brazilian government identified information and
knowledge as its sustainability basis in building its future
development. Consequently, its follow-up program
focused on Science, Technology and Innovation, with
a goal of spreading a science and technology culture
in society, through means such as encouraging media
coverage of science and technology information.
According to the Economic Intelligent Unit, by final
quarter of 2005, these measures reflected in increased
foreign trade and payment figures and export earnings
also remained strong.
In 2007, the presidents of Brazil and Chile signed a new
co-operation agreement over integration initiatives. This
agreement was composed of nine memoranda with
particular emphasis on energy, tourism and education.
A strategic accord between the Chilean National Oil
Company, ENAP, and Brazil’s Petroleo further aimed
to encourage joint projects for development of liquefied
natural-gas imports to Chile and development of Biofuels,
of which Brazil is a leading world producer. Finally, Brazil
struck other agreements that covered a series of initiatives
on infrastructure connectivity and social projects.
The result of these efforts is that Brazil has become a
free market and export-oriented economy. Measured
nominally, its gross domestic product surpasses a trillion
dollars, 10th in the world and the second in the Americas;
and, measured by purchasing power parity, $1.9 trillion,
50 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
making it the eighth largest economy in the world and the
second largest in the Americas, after the United States. In
Reais (Brazilian currency), its GDP is estimated at R$2.6
trillion in 2007.
Case Overview
In this case, I examine programs deployed by Brazil in
navigating its path to a powerful economy through the
lens of one of the most critical tools the country used—
mentoring, coaching and enhanced educational capacity.
Much like other emerging countries, as Brazil became
increasingly embedded into the world economy, pressures
began to build for the adoption of more advanced
managerial practices. These practices would be critical
to the ability of local organizations to compete in a
global environment. Over the last decade, motivated
by pressures to increase competitiveness, Brazilian
companies have made considerable efforts to update
their management practices, implementing programs
and projects based on ISO 9000, reengineering, and
enterprise resource planning (ERP), among other
managerial techniques.
The intention of these initiatives was to equip companies
to compete in a global environment. The process,
however, was not without challenges. It was often
frustrating and, in some cases, even disastrous. For
example:
When preparing for the ISO 9000 certification during
the 1990s and early 2000s, many firms in Brazil faced
unfavorable organizational conditions: a poorly skilled
labor force, high power distance, and a highly centralized
decision-making process. In many cases, the ISO quality
system increased costs and contributed to organizational
rigidity.
When pushing re-engineering programs many companies
adopted an approach that focused exclusively on the re-
design of the processes rather than on mere addition of
modular units.
Companies were confronted with crucial organizational
dimensions such as culture, competencies, and strategy.
Companies faced unexpected outcomes including loss
of leadership, deterioration of organizational climate,
decrease of organizational memory, reduction of
productivity and efficiency, decline of perceived product
and/or service quality, and damage to organizational
reputation.
With the ERP implementation, many firms battled with
scope and planning mistakes, even with the allocation of
their most skilled personnel. In many cases, the enterprise
systems were too standardized and hence failed to tailor
itself to the specific needs of the organizations. As a
consequence, key organizational functions were lost.
Implementation Strategies
Despite the impediments, however, companies were
tenacious - and resilient. Corporations received
government support by way of laws, policies, and fiscal
incentives. Since the early 90s, the Brazilian government
has also begun to facilitate subsidized public financing
for companies that are ISO 9000-certified. In addition,
several public bids to contract services for government
rewarded ISO certifications. The Brazilian Government
further encouraged development by reducing the logistics
costs to improving the price competitiveness for the
Brazilian products. It set a target of 40% reduction in
custom release time, 5% in road transportation cost,
10% in container handling costs and increase of 10% in
non-transportation cost. Government also implemented
reforms in the financial sector to minimize credit risk and
bank overheads and to improve financial access. The
reforms were also designed to provide a momentum for
the growth of the insurance industry.
A key strategy companies used, however, revolved
around building local capacity through mentoring,
coaching and education. Some did this through adopting
a team approach that brought foreign experts and locally
trained professionals together to carry out particular
tasks. This way, the local professionals learned from
the expertise of foreign experts and the foreign experts
gained local institutional, organizational, and cultural
knowledge that were very vital to the success of project.
For example, Fiat, the auto company, became successful
with manufacturing and distributing its Palio model in
Brazil because of its cross-national cooperation. The
car was conceived by a multinational team composed
of engineers, designers, and workers from Brazil, Italy,
Argentina, and Poland. The Palio project comprised
several principles of adaptability and respect for local
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 51
conditions, from product characteristics (style, size, and
accessories), to the organization of the manufacturing
process.
As part of its public sector reform programs, the Brazilian
government itself embarked on an initiative to modernize
its National School of Public Administration in order to
develop new types of future leaders for the Brazilian
public service. Brazil approached Canada in 2000 to
provide technical assistance from the then Canadian
Centre for Management Development, its counterpart
organization. After several successful pilot exchange
visits, Canadian International Development Agency
(CIDA) agreed to finance a four-year project, with the
Canada School of Public Service (CSPS) as the executing
agency. The main areas of cooperation in the project
were:
a) Curriculum and process design for executive education.
During a series of exchange visits, the CSPS shared its
models and its curriculum development processes. Brazil
gradually internalized these models and adapted them to
Brazilian conditions.
b) Public sector research. The CSPS shared its research
model, involving action research roundtables made up of
academics and practitioners. It also coached its Brazilian
counterpart in the use of a consultative research approach
in working with other departments.
In June 2006 , a joint conference on public service reform,
the Brazil-Canada International Open Forum, was held in
Brazil. This event was a huge success, bringing together
leading thinkers and representatives from 15 countries -
Argentina, Canada, China, Dominican Republic, France,
Germany, Guatemala, Kenya, Portugal, Russia, South
Africa, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United States -
with senior Brazilian officials from the federal, state and
local levels.
Another significant program was Canada’s Cooperation
Strategy in Brazil 2005–2010 (also known as CIDA’s
2005–2010 Country Strategy for Brazil) , which focuses
on knowledge exchange, in which both Canadian
and Brazilian partners learn through an exchange
of knowledge, models and experiences. Here CIDA
concentrated programming in the areas of governance,
health and the labour, with gender and ethnic equality
and environmental management constituting crosscutting
themes. Governance was a critical issue given that
Brazil is still a young democracy, having emerged from
military dictatorship in 1986, with significant public and
private sector challenges. Through this program CIDA
is supporting Brazilian efforts to reform the social and
public sectors and achieve greater equity in Brazil.
The program is intended to deliver knowledge on how
Canada has achieved its equity principles in such areas
as power sharing and participation, fairness and justice,
transparency and accountability, equitable distribution of
resources, equal access, ownership rights and equality
between women and men. The Brazilian public sector,
civil society, and private sector are coached on how to act
in a more ethical, transparent, participatory, decentralized,
citizen-oriented, and inclusive way. The collaboration has
enabled Brazilian public sector, civil society, and private
sector adopt more effective, efficient, and equitable
policies, programs, and practices.
Brazilian government also collaborated with UNDP in
promoting people-centred development and building
partnerships with civil society to fight poverty. UNDP
implements its programs within the framework of the
Standard Agreement on Technical Assistance between
the Government of Brazil and the United Nations. UNDP
works closely with the Brazilian Cooperation Agency
(ABC) of the Ministry of External Relations. Brazilians
themselves implement programs supported by UNDP,
whenever local expertise is available. This approach
to multilateral cooperation recognizes that Brazil has
much of the expertise and human resources needed for
development initiatives. Brazil, thus, placed reliance on
the competence of its citizens. UNDP Brazil is carrying out
one of the largest UNDP programs in the world, covering
the following focus areas: democratic governance, pro-
poor policies, information and communications technology,
energy and environmental policies, and HIV/AIDS.
Furthermore, with the drastic reduction of international
donor funding for development programs in Latin
America, the Government of Brazil has embarked on
an innovative initiative to finance and manage its own
national development programs in partnership with UNDP.
Government cost-sharing has been almost totally replaced
conventional donor funding.
Lessons Learned
It has been observed that to achieve meaningful impact, a
“practitioner helping practitioner” approach in the context
of a long-term relationship with a counterpart institution, is
a prerequisite for success. The Brazil-Canada cooperation
introduced a model that had an observable impact on the
design of the human resource management systems in
Brazil.
There has been a clear impact on the Brazilian National
School of Public Administration through the sharing of
52 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
Canadian models and knowledge and high level networks
between Canada and Brazil are being created.
The cumulative efforts have resulted in positive outcomes
that include improvements in terms of integration and
quality of information. And Brazil has become an export-
oriented economy.
Developed nations, like Canada, are excited to participate
in human resource management reforms in emerging
economies, especially as a relatively small investment
commitment could yield tremendous results. In Brazil (as
well as countries like South Africa, China) , it was noted
that a relatively small investment in time and resources
on Canada’s part provided access to the highest levels of
governments, and high visibility for Canada, well beyond
the scale of the small projects, as senior political leaders
and government officials are prepared to participate
personally in these “small” projects.
For developed countries the benefit of these types
of mentoring and coaching relationships is that their
people gain global perspective in their respective areas,
honing skills in cross-cultural communication and in
understanding diversity. International experience through
international projects has also become an important tool
in recruitment and retention of high flyers.
Conclusion
The drivers of Brazil’s developmental efforts were vision
(vivid mental image of where a nation should be going)
and motivation (ability to do something and to keep going
even when things get difficult). Perhaps the most critical
component of the country’s success, however, was the
building of local expertise. Every emerging economy
has opportunity to take advantage of a growing supply of
foreign expertise. What makes the difference is how these
opportunities are converted or utilized. In Brazil’s case,
the experts came to train, coach and mentor the citizens,
on best practices and on resolving implementation
bottlenecks. To fully enjoy/derive the benefits of foreign
expertise, however, a nation should be open and
permeable, allowing itself to learn from the foreign
experts. Secondly, experts from developed nations should
have the view of “practitioner helping practitioner” in their
approach to work and projects in developing nations.
Web References

http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/
files/56229/12069750485Final_Report_Manchester.pdf/
Final_Report_ Manchester.pdf

http://web.ebscohost.com/bsi/
pdf?vid=14&hid=101&sid=2526444e-501c-441f-bbd9-
789b5bc2c0be%40 sessionmgr102

http://web.ebscohost.com/bsi/
pdf?vid=12&hid=101&sid=2526444e-501c-441f-bbd9-
789b5bc2c0be%40 sessionmgr102

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Brazil
“Adopting imported managerial expertise in developing
countries: The Brazilian experience” Thomaz Wood }i. and
Miguel P. Caldas, Academy of Management Executive,
2QD2, Vol. 16. No. 2.

http://www.mapsofworld.com/brazil/economy/growth.html

http://www.psc-cfp.gc.ca/abt-aps/rprt/holdsworth/index-
eng.htm

http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/CIDAWEB/acdicida.nsf/En/NIC-
22312535-N32

http://www.br.undp.org/

http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/CIDAWEB/acdicida.nsf/En/NIC-
22312535-N32

http://www.psc-cfp.gc.ca/abt-aps/rprt/holdsworth/index-
eng.htm

C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 53
Section III:
Performance Management
Approaches
A Study of the Contract Systems of Employment of Permanent Secretaries in Botswana, Ghana, Uganda 55
and Zambia - Philip Duku Osei, Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social & Economic Studies, University of the
West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica & Joan Nwasike, Governance and Institutional Development Division,
Commonwealth Secretariat, United Kingdom

Performance Management in the Tanzanian Public Service - Dr. Benson Bana, Department of Political 65
Science and Public Administration, University of Dar es Salaam & Eric Shitindi, Deputy Permanent Secretary,
President’s Office, Public Service Managment, Tanzania

Performance Management in the Australian Public Service - Lynelle Briggs, Australian Public Service 73
Commissioner, Australian Public Service Commission

54 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
A Study of the Contract Systems of Employment
of Permanent Secretaries in Botswana, Ghana,
Uganda and Zambia
Philip Duku Osei, Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social & Economic Studies, University of the
West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica
Joan Nwasike, Governance and Institutional Development Division, Commonwealth
Secretariat, United Kingdom
Introduction
This study allowed an inquiry into the role and conditions
of service of permanent secretaries as part of the
public service reform process in four Commonwealth
African Countries namely: Botswana, Ghana, Uganda
and Zambia. The reforms that took place in these four
countries were similar to those that occurred in other
African and Caribbean countries in the same era.
In conceptualising some of these reforms, African
countries, (sharing in the common administrative
traditions and common law culture bequeathed by British
colonial experience), drew inspiration and ideas from
Commonwealth developed countries including New
Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and at
times from the United States of America’s governmental
systems, Multilateral Development Banks and Agencies
(the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and
the United Nations system). The field work for this
study also revealed that there was also South-South
learning promoted through sharing of information and
good practices by the Commonwealth Secretariat, the
Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and
Management (CAPAM) and other Professional Bodies and
Schools of Administration.
The New Zealand experience, in particular, offered a
lot of food for thought and lesson drawing. What is now
called the New Zealand model had at its foundations a
corporatisation of the public service (that is, reform to run
along business lines), the transformation of government
departments into agencies and headed by chief executive
officers who were paid competitive salaries. In fulfilling
this corporate philosophy, New Zealand chose strategic
management as an operational model. A broad consensus
was reached which allowed government officials to
reduce red tape, minimise impositions and let improved
information determine how efficiently the new system
will run. Thus, there was recognition of the need to
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 55
promote an environment, including facilitative budgeting
approaches, where chief executives were ‘free-to-
manage’. The key elements of the design were:
• “A selective set of generalised, cross-portfolio policy
objectives set by Cabinet (known as Strategic Result
Areas- SRAs);
• A process for coordinating departmental contributions
to those objectives and making related resourcing
decisions (strategic dialogue);
• A set of critical medium-term commitments (Key
Result Areas- KRAs), which anchor departments’
strategic contributions to the policy objectives, through
incorporation in the chief executive’s performance
agreement;
• A requirement that chief executives regularly report on
progress being made on those commitments to their
Minister and to the State Service Commission; and,
• An expectation that chief executives will take
responsibility for making and taking care of the
connections between their commitments and those
of other chief executives, while also ensuring that
their own commitments flow down through their
departments’ management chain” (IMCS 2004: 43).
The SRAs and KRAs were not seen as performance
checkpoints, but as beacons or luminous catalysts of
information which guide behaviour and focus attention in
a management situation. It is also important to note that
SRAs and KRAs were not the same, but different, as the
latter were seen more as medium term, and therefore
within influence of the public service and formed within the
assumptions of the budget policy statement. Even though
New Zealand could be regarded as relatively affluent,
resources were recognised to be limited and trade-offs
were necessary (IMCS 2004, ibid).
From the 1980s, the Chief Executives (permanent
secretaries) were made accountable to their responsible
Minister through a written performance agreement.
The State Services Commission was retained and
strengthened as part of the reform, and the State Services
Commissioner was the employer and performance
manager of chief executives. The Commissioner assessed
the performance of the chief executive on an annual
basis, taking into consideration the following parameters:
(a) “The performance agreement between the Minister
and the Chief Executive;
(b) The relevant Corporate Plan approved by the Minister;
(c) The objectives of the department approved by the
Minister and the priority accorded them by the Minister;
and,
(d) Any other arrangements between the Minister and the
Chief Executive” (IMCS 2004: 40).
It was from this international context that qualitative
change processes were sought to boost the managerial
competency and policy oversight of senior public service
officials in Botswana, Ghana, Uganda and Zambia. An
emergent trend in that endeavour was the introduction of
contract-like management and various types of contract
employment measures in the appointment and retention
of Permanent Secretaries and senior public service
managers in these countries.
The fieldwork for this study was conducted between
July and August, 2008. The study sought to answer the
following questions about the reforms. In particular, it
sought to understand more broadly, what has been the
experience of the various forms of contract systems for
Permanent Secretaries in the four African countries that
have adopted the New Zealand Model with regard to:
1. What management approaches have been used by
ministries/public officials operating under the contracts
system?
2. How is performance measured and rewarded under
the contract system?
3. What is the scope of and potential for expression of
leadership by senior public servants under contract?
4. How does the contract system impinge on the
independence and influence of senior public
servants?
5. What is the nature of conflict mediation relationships
in this new system?
6. What is the return on the high investments made by
Government in implementing the contract system?
7. What are the lessons to be learnt from these contract
systems?” (TOR)
The method of information gathering was therefore
heavily focused on elite interviews using semi-structured
56 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
questions. This was to help achieve rapid assessment
of the views of about one-hundred and twenty-five (125)
permanent secretaries. However, there were difficulties
in terms of reaching the permanent secretaries because
of their heavy schedules and pre-arranged events. As a
result, a purposive sample of key functionaries in each
country’s public service reform was targeted for elite
interviews using semi-structured questions. This sample
included the Cabinet Secretary, Head of the Civil/Public
Service, Chairman of the Public Service Commission,
Chief Personnel Officers, Chief Technical Officers
and Consultants in charge of the reform unit in each
country and as realistic a number of serving permanent
secretaries (PS)/ chief directors (CD) available for
interview, and where possible a senior representative from
the public service union.
Results of the Study
The Contract Systems in the four countries
Basic information from the field visits (c.f. table 1)
indicates that the four countries- Botswana, Ghana,
Uganda and Zambia have been engaged in various
public sector reform projects, and have through the
instrumentalities of these projects instituted employment
contracts (i.e. contract of service) and contract-like
arrangements which are associated with the new
management of senior public service officers including
the permanent secretaries. The permanent secretary in
each country is still effectively the chief executive of the
ministry/department or administrative region. This senior
public service officer is called a Chief Director (formerly
Principal Secretary) in Ghana, whereas the other three
countries have retained the name permanent secretary.
A broader look at the management of the political
economy in each country underscores the nature of the
national governance environment in which the contract
systems of permanent secretaries were established.
Every country was pursuing an economic reform
programme which required new management capacities
and new ways of bureaucratic management. Table 1
shows that Ghana was implementing a Poverty Reduction
Strategy II, a successor programme to the Heavily
Indebted Poor Country Initiative (HIPC), which was signed
in 2001. Similar HIPC continuation programmes were also
being implemented in Uganda and Zambia in the form of
Poverty Eradication Action Plan and Poverty Reduction
Strategy Paper respectively. The research also revealed
that the present systems (Table 1, column 3) show that
the four countries have transformed the state institutions
that they inherited at independence. The institution of
Governor General has been discontinued as each country
Table 1: Contract systems reform characteristics in four African countries
Country National Economic
Management Framework
Ghana Ghana Poverty Reduction
Strategy (GPRS) II, which is
donor supported
Botswana Vision 2016 and National
Development Plan, which are
locally supported
Uganda Poverty Eradication Action
Plan (PEAP), which is donor
supported
Zambia Poverty Reduction Strategy
Papers
Source: Compiled from field notes from Ghana, Botswana, Uganda and Zambia, July - August 2008
System of Appointing Authority Signatories to the
Governance OF PS Contract
Fused Executive President of the Republic Head of the Civil Service
Presidency & Head of acting on advice of Public and the Chief Director
State Service Commission and
Civil Service Council
Fused Executive President of the Republic Cabinet Secretary/Public
Presidency & Head of Service President, and
State the Permanent Secretary
Fused Executive President of the Republic Cabinet Secretary/Head
Presidency & Head of acting on advice of of Public Service, and
State the Public Service the Permanent Secretary
Commission and Cabinet
Secretary
Fused Executive President of the Republic Cabinet Secretary/Head
Presidency & Head of acting through the of the Public Service,
State Cabinet Secretary and the Permanent
Secretary

became a republic, and a fused executive presidency
and Head of State seems to be the norm presently. The
executive presidents have appointive powers which could
be delegated to Cabinet Secretaries/Head of the Public
Service or compromised by sharing this privilege with
Public Service Commissions.
Management Approaches Adopted in the Reform
The data in Table 2 (page 61) show that Uganda had
17 out of expected 21 permanent secretaries, Zambia
42, Ghana 37 and Botswana 29 permanent secretaries/
chief; 22 on open tenure (or permanent and pensionable)
and 3 on a form of employment contract called ‘limited
engagement’. A ‘limited engagement’ contract is normally
a short-term contract of between one and three years
duration. It tends to be given to chief directors who
have just retired, but whose services are still needed
by the state. All the Chief Directors in Ghana also sign
a Performance Agreement. The age of retirement in
Uganda, Botswana and Ghana is 60 years, while it has
remained at 55 years in Zambia.
Delegated Authority
None of the permanent secretaries in the four African
countries has delegated authority for the human resource
function, especially in terms of hiring and firing of
employees. The respective Public Service Commission
(PSC) still retains these functions and is also the key
agency which makes recommendations for promotions
and rewards or sanctions of public employees. However, it
was disclosed during the interview in Botswana that their
PSC has only been utilized as an appellate body.
In Zambia, however, the Cabinet Handbook of 2002 notes
that the permanent secretary can appoint one Cabinet
Liaison Officer, whose duty it is to coordinate all Cabinet
business within the Ministry and retain day-to-day contact
with the Policy and Coordination Division at the Office of
the President. However, Botswana has established in the
Office of the President, a Directorate of Public Service
Management (DPSM) which handles most of the human
resource functions of the state.
Gender analysis
A simple gender analysis as shown in Table 2 (page
61), of serving permanent secretaries/chief directors
reveals that there are 12 male and 5 female permanent
secretaries in Uganda; 37 male and 5 female permanent
secretaries in Zambia, and 31 male and 6 female chief
directors in Ghana, and 9 female and 21 male permanent
secretaries in Botswana.
An important characteristic of African public administration
(in the case study countries) is the size of government
bureaucracy. This is one area that is dynamic and is
subject to regular reviews, as governments reform their
bureaucracies in response to changing constitutional
requirements and the international environment. At
the time of the fieldwork in July 2008 Uganda had 21

C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 57
government ministries, Zambia had 22, Botswana had 15
and Ghana had 27. In each of the four countries, there
were three tiers of government – central, regional and
local government. In Zambia and Ghana, the Regional
level of administration is headed by a permanent
secretary or chief director, and this in a way explains the
high number of permanent secretaries and chief directors
recorded in those countries.
How is performance measured and rewarded under
the contract system?
Different management models for achieving efficiencies
were at different stages of implementation in each country
(as shown on Table 3, page 62-63). Uganda had begun
to institutionalise a Results Oriented Management (ROM)
across government, a model by which public management
for results will be organised and conducted. In Zambia
the thought of introducing a Performance Management
and Appraisal System was still at the embryonic stage,
whereas Ghana had instituted a similar system since
1998. Uganda, Ghana and Zambia had not devised
measurement systems for assessing the performance
of the permanent secretary and chief director, and this
constituted a serious flaw in the performance systems that
they were seeking to install.
However, the Heads of the Public Service in these
countries were aware of this shortfall and were at various
stages of finding solutions to the performance contract
question. Indeed, all the permanent secretaries who were
interviewed alluded to the need to turn their employment
contracts into performance contracts, with effective
measures to evaluate their performance. Botswana has
made the most advancement in this area of performance
management and measurement. The country had
installed a PMAS in the latter part of 2001 and introduced
a Balanced Scorecard management model by 2004. The
balance scorecard has an in-built template for measure
and evaluation of policy progress and management
performance of the permanent secretary.
The scope of and potential for expression of
leadership by the PS/Chief Director
From the interviews with permanent secretaries and chief
directors in the four countries, two main issues emerged
as important factors which impinge on the expression of
leadership by these senior public service officers. These
are the availability of revenues and the remuneration
of the permanent secretary in relation to Heads of
Department of statutory bodies whom they are senior to
administratively. The inadequacy of budgetary resources
58 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
was important to the permanent secretaries in Ghana,
Uganda, and Zambia. This issue was not particularly
acute in Botswana, where a mixture of good fortune in
terms of a small population of the country (approximately
2 million) and diamond reserves have ensured that the
public sector has remained financially stable. On the other
hand, the issue of subordinates earning more that the
permanent secretary who is the administrative head of the
Ministry and to whom the heads of statutory corporations
report was noted as a concern in Zambia. To the relevant
Zambian senior public service officers, this inequity gets
in the way of the exercise of leadership over statutory
corporations which are under their purview.
How the Contract System impinges on the
independence of the PS/Chief Director
The independence of permanent secretaries and chief
directors in the four countries seemed to be helped
tremendously by the evolvement of written rules and
constitutionalism concerning what are the roles of the
permanent secretary, deputy minister and minister. The
Cabinet Handbook 2002 of Zambia, the Civil Service
Act, Law 327 of 1993 and the constitutions of all the four
countries have determined the precise roles of public
officials. The instructions issued to permanent secretaries
and chief directors by the Ministry of Finance on their
appointment as controlling officers in terms of financial
management of their ministries are also another source of
good practice for the prevention of confusion in financial
management. Permanent secretaries and chief directors
are occasionally called upon to answer queries raised
by the Public Accounts committee of Parliament in each
country and that has acted as a source of encouragement
for the senior public service officers to manage their
ministries with integrity.
How is conflict mediated in the Contract System?
Two likely sources of conflict were isolated in the
governance structures of the public services in the
four African countries. These are the personal/political
interests of ministers which are likely to play out in the
spending of public resources and meetings of ministers
with heads of department without the permanent secretary
being present. In the first case, the financial instructions
from the Ministry of Finance to permanent secretaries
makes it expressly clear that where a minister gives
instruction for the permanent secretary to spend public
funds which is likely to compromise the integrity of the
latter, the permanent secretary should require those
instructions to be in written form. Similarly, if the Minister
is adamant and insists on the expenditure of these funds
against the rules, the permanent secretary may submit
the written instructions to the Minister of Finance and the
Auditor-General. This practice is common to all the four
countries. However, in Zambia this institution is further
emphasised in the Cabinet Handbook of 2002.
Value for Money of the Contract Systems
With regard to the question whether the contract systems
of employment of permanent secretaries were delivering
value for money, the public officials interviewed in
Ghana, Uganda and Zambia felt that even though the
present management systems are an improvement
on the previous practice, value for money was not
being fully derived for the country. This is because the
performance management models have only been
partially implemented and performance agreements and
contracts of employment have not been buttressed by
the necessary measurement instruments to enable full
accountability. The officers in Botswana were confident
that their Balanced Scorecard system was proving to
be successful because the system is practised across
government and permanent secretaries and ministers
of government were adhering to the reporting practices,
while the Cabinet Secretary and Vice President of the
country were also ensuring that the performance reports
were reviewed on a quarterly basis without fail.
Conclusions and Lessons Learned
These countries had embarked on the reform of their
public services since the latter part of the 1990’s with a
view to infusing their public administration systems with
private sector practices, which have been deemed to be
proficient in turning around malfunctioning public services
in other jurisdictions. This new way of reforming the
public service had come about a result of the sea change
in the ideology of administration called the New Public
Management.
Qualitative research methods were used including
literature review and primary research which involved
elite interviews and assessment of policy documents and
evaluation reports commissioned by the governments of
those countries. Field visits were conducted in the four
countries in July and August 2008 and that afforded a
unique opportunity for direct observation of the work of
permanent secretaries and chief directors. These methods
were appropriate to the kind of audience encountered
who were mostly from the highest level at the centre of
government. The foregoing claim is significant because
an online survey which had been designed to assist in a
simultaneous rapid assessment of permanent secretaries
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 59
in the Caribbean had to be abandoned in the African study
for reasons of non-patronage by the target group.
The research revealed that a broad range of new
management practices for managing public services
and senior public service officers have been adopted
in Botswana, Ghana, Uganda and Zambia. All four
countries had instituted contracts of employment and
contract-like arrangements in the form of performance
agreements, contracts of employment and the retention of
a good mix of the old permanent and pensionable modes
of employment, which were signed by the permanent
secretaries and chief directors with their governments. In
Botswana, Uganda and Zambia the superior or employing
authority (Government) were normally represented
by the Cabinet Secretary. The experiences of these
countries does not necessarily represent a wholesale
borrowing of the New Zealand model, but certainly the
ideas about improving public service delivery systems
using contractual re-engineering processes were
borrowed and translated. However, even though each
country’s experience is unique, reflecting the alignment
of power and forces of interest, there were also important
commonalities to be drawn.
Contract entitlements (Table 3, page 62-63) generally
included gratuities and access to official vehicles in all
countries. In the contract-like arrangements under which
permanent secretaries and chief directors operated,
state pension schemes had been retained in Ghana and
Botswana, while gratuities of 40 percent and 100 percent
of gross salary were paid to permanent secretaries in
Uganda and Zambia respectively. The basic pay of the
Zambian permanent secretary was considered to be
very low by the Independent Management Consulting
Services company in 2004. The same agency also noted
that the gratuity of 100 percent that is taxed at 35 percent
on collection at the end of the 3 year contract does not
necessarily show that the system is generous. It argued
that bringing the pay of the permanent secretary to
market levels might actually be a better option. In Zambia,
Uganda and Ghana where contracts of employment have
been issued to permanent secretaries and chief directors,
the norm for length of a term tended to be 3 years.
The most important finding of the study is that to benefit
from performance improvements associated with these
contractual arrangements, countries must fully implement
performance contracts or back up their performance
agreements with performance management and
performance measurement instruments which could be
evaluated at regular intervals, so that the performance
information fed back could be used to improve
management. In this regard, ‘Performance and Co-
ordination Units’ will be needed at the Office of Cabinet or
Office of the Head of the Civil Service (as appropriate).

(Table 2, 3 and Appendix A on following pages.)

60 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
 Table 2: Senior public service officers under contract in Africa (July-August 2008)
Country No. of No. of Expected No. Actual No. of No. on No. on No. on No. with Gender Retirement Size of
Ministries Administrative of Permanent Permanent Employment Open Limited delegated (M/F) Age the Public
Regions Secretaries/Chief Secretaries/Chief Contract (EC)/ Tenure Engagement authority for Service
Directors Directors Performance HR
Agreement (PA)
Uganda 21 4 21 17 17 EC 0 0 0 12 5 60 117000
Zambia 22 9 42 42 42 EC 0 0 0 37 5 55 102000*
Botswana 24 10 29 29 29 PA 29 0 0 21 8 60 105000
Ghana 27 10 38 37 8 EC 22 3 0 31 6 60 42000
Total: 85 33 130 125 96 51 3 0 101 24
Notes: This table was constructed using information obtained from fieldwork in the four Commonwealth African countries in July and August 2008. In Ghana and Zambia, permanent secretaries/chief
directors are also appointed at the regional level of administration; and in Zambia and Uganda some ministries have more than one permanent secretary, even though in such a situation only one of
them will be appointed by the Treasury or Finance Ministry as Controlling Officer (or accounting officer.) In Ghana, there is a category of Chief Director who is on ‘limited engagement’ service to the
government. The position in this category is normally occupied by senior public service officers who are brought back from retirement on a limited contract between 1 and 3 years. As at August 1, 2008
there were 33 bona fide Chief Directors and four were Senior Directors who had been acting as chief directors, making the total number of Chief Directors 37. Note: *This figure was sourced from the
Stevens, M. and Teggemann, S. (2003) ‘ Comparative Experience with Administrative Reform in Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia.’

C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 61
62
Table 3: Summary assessment of conditions of service and measures for assessing the
performance of the PS/Chief Director
Country Duration of Contract
Uganda Fixed-term 3 year
employment contract
in the first instance.
Contract is renewable
based on performance
and mutual consent.
Zambia Since 2003 all the PS has
been on contract. The
term is 3 years in the first
instance.
C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
Conditions of Service
Basic salary, telephone,
vehicle, car loan. Not
pensionable, but a gratuity
is paid at 40% of gross
salary.
Basic Salary, entitled
to a motor vehicle, fuel
allowance, electricity
allowance, domestic help
allowance, a car loan and
a gratuity of 100% of the
gross salary at the end of 3
years, but taxable at 35%.
Contract can be terminated
by a Presidential
announcement at a press
conference before a PS
receives the letter.
Eligibility for Management models
Permanent used for performance
Secretary evaluation in Ministry
Open to both career Results Oriented
public servants so Management (ROM) has
far, and private sector been introduced and a
managers are not performance appraisal
excluded. system has been introduced
to assess all officers except
the PS.
Open to both career A performance management
public servants and and appraisal system
academicians and (PMAS) for both PS and
private sector managers the rank and file officers
has been recommended
since 2004, but had not
been implemented at time
of this study. Constitutional
Reform process was in the
offing which will look at
performance contracts for
the PS
Performance assessment measures
for the PS/Chief Director
1. Yet to design an objective formula for
performance assessment of the PS.
2. Assessment of the PS based on
ministerial performance and Parliamentary
vetting of ministerial achievement of
statement of Policy in the annual budget.
Intuition and subjective criterion are also
part of judgement formation.
3. A Results Oriented Management and
Appraisal System has been introduced and
appraisal of rank and file is conducted by
Directors and the latter is in turn reviewed
by the PS. Directors and all ranks below
are on permanent and pensionable
tenures.
4. PS’s contract is not a performance
contract.
There is no objective formula for assessing
the PS. Assessment is based on an
unwritten subjective criterion. But there
is uncertainty about ‘who will do the
evaluation?’
 Table 3: Summary assessment of conditions of service and measures for assessing the
performance of the PS/Chief Director
Botswana Open Tenure, but the
PS signs a Performance
Agreement, by which he/
she is held for results.
Ghana A mix of approaches:
(a) A Performance
Agreement is signed by
PS since 1997;
(b) full employment
contracts issued to those
recruited from the private
sector; and
(c) ‘Limited engagement’
contracts of 1-3 years for
re-hired retired permanent
secretaries.
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 63
The PS is hired
on permanent and
pensionable terms.
Contributory Health Plan.
The PS who is on
performance agreement is
appointed at the pleasure
of the President, and
could be sacked for non-
performance.
She/he is also subject to
Public Service Regulations
and Staff Orders in addition
to the prescriptions in the
relevant sections of the
Constitution.
1. Entitled to a pension. It was open to career
2. Thirty-three (33) working public servants and
days leave. private sector managers
3. Allowances: Travel and
entertainment.
4. No general health
insurance.
5. Allocated official motor
vehicle
6. Housing and security at
residence.
Open to both career A Balanced Score Card
public servants and framework has been
managers from private installed across government,
background. and it is mandatory that all
ministries use it.
The PS uses performance
templates generated from
the Balanced Score Card
to report on programmes,
projects and service
delivery, all linked to
the Vision 2016 and the
National Development Plan.
Traditional Performance
Management system was
introduced in 1998.
A Performance Monitoring
and Appraisal System
(PMAS) is in place.
Appraisals are meant for
lower level staff and not for
the senior public service
officer.
1. Performance reviews are under the
purview of the Cabinet Secretary and the
Vice President; the Cabinet Secretary
reviews the PS and the VP reviews the
work of the Ministers. The process is
adhered to and is conducted regularly.
2. Specific assessment instruments have
been developed and are in use.
3. The PS submits his/her quarterly
reports to the Government Implementation
Coordination Office located at the Office of
the President.
4. The Public Services Commission
does not perform HR functions and is a
mere appellate body for surcharge and
dismissals.
5. All national level HR policies,
relations with unions and HR functions
of audit, pension, promotion and
monitoring of performance are planned
by the Directorate of Public Services
Management located at the Office of the
President. DPSM also assists the PS
working with them in the preparation of job
description.
6. Auditor General, Public Accounts
Committee and Ministry of Finance audits
expenditure and procedures.
6. Performance Development Plans are
developed by rank and file members and
is the basis on which staff members are
reviewed every three months.
There is no formally instituted process
for evaluating the performance of the PS.
There is uncertainty about which agency
will evaluate the work of the PS.
 Appendix A: List of People Consulted in Botswana, Ghana, Uganda & Zambia
Country Name of Officer Post Institution
& Date
Uganda
17/07/2008 Mr. John Mitala Secretary to Cabinet & Head of Public Office of the President, Uganda
Service
17/07/2008 Mrs. Christine Guwatudde Kintu Permanent Secretary Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social
Development
17/07/2008 Mr. Pius Bigirimana Permanent Secretary Yet to be assigned
17/07/2008 Mr. Kesi Nyakimwe Former Permanent Secretary Retired
18/07/2008 Mr. Edward Walugemba Assistant Commissioner, Coordination Ministry of Public Service
Monitoring & Evaluation
18/07/2008 Mrs. Jane Kyarisiima Commissioner, Human Resource Ministry of Public Service
Development
21/07/2008 Mr. Lwamafa Permanent Secretary Ministry of Public Service
21/07/2008 Mr. K. Kaliisa Permanent Secretary Ministry of Energy & Minerals
Zambia
23/07/2008 Dr. Eric Kanganja Secretary to Cabinet & Head of Public Office of the President, Zambia
Service
24/07/2008 Mr. Mataka Deputy Permanent Secretary Office of the President
24/07/2008 Dr. Buleti Nsemukila Permanent Secretary Ministry of Science Technology & Vocational
Training
25/07/2008 Mrs. Gertrude Mwae Permanent Secretary Ministry of Justice
25/07/2008 Mr. A.K. Mwenya Director, Public Service Management Office of the President
Unit
25/07/2008 Mrs. Zimba Permanent Secretary Ministry of Tourism & Environment
25/07/2008 Mrs. Msenge Permanent Secretary, Policy Analysis & Office of the President
Coordination Unit
Botswana
30/07/2008 Mr. Eric Molale Secretary to Cabinet & Head fo the Office of the President
Public Service
30/07/2008 Mr. Wayne Mlazie Coordinator of Performance Office of the President
Management
01/08/2008 Mrs. Bontsi Performance Coordinator Ministry of Trade & Industry
01/08/2008 Mrs. Pearl Matome Deputy Director Directorate of Public Service Management
Ghana
05/08/2008 Mr. Joe Issachar Head of the Civil Service Office of the Head of the Civil Service
06/08/2008 Mrs. Felicia Owusu-Bonsu Implementation Specialist Ministry of Public Sector Reform
07/08/2008 Mrs. Rebecca Aboagye Chief Director Office of the Head of the Civil Service
07/08/2008 Dr. S.K. Bemile Commissioner Public Services Commission
14/08/2008
07/08/2008 Mr. William Botchway Director Management Services Division
07/08/2008 Mrs. Brenda Osei-Kofi Deputy Director Statistical Service
11/08/2008 Mr. Yaw Okyere Nyarkoh Director Ministry of Finance
13/08/2008 Mr. Seth Addo Chief Director Ministry of Trade & Industry

64 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
Performance Management in the
Tanzanian Public Service
Dr. Benson Bana, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, University of
Dar es Salaam & Eric Shitindi, Deputy Permanent Secretary, President’s Office, Public Service
Managment, Tanzania
Introduction
Performance management is basically concerned
with performance improvement in order to achieve
the organization’s objectives and strategic goals. The
organization must get the right things done successfully.
Performance management is a means of getting better
results from the organizational teams and individuals by
understanding and measuring performance within an
agreed framework of goals, standards and competence
requirements. Performance management is also
concerned with employee development. This is because
performance improvement is not achievable unless
there are effective programmes to facilitate continuous
development. This addresses and enhances the
core competencies and the capabilities of individuals
and teams. In addition, performance management is
concerned with satisfying the needs and expectations of
all the organization’s stakeholders and indeed the public
in its entirety.
It is also imperative to note that performance management
is concerned with communication and involvement,
which entails continuous interaction and dialogue
between managers and members of their teams in order
to define expectations in the light of the organization’s
vision, values and objectives. This establishes mutual
understanding of what is to be achieved and a framework
for managing and developing people.
It is in the light of the preceding context that Tanzania’s
experience of performance management in the public
service should be understood and appraised. There
have been success stories, thought provoking questions
and challenges in the course of instituting and executing
performance management systems and processes.
This paper is on performance management experience
in the Tanzania public service. First, it highlights the
background and context within which the drive for
performance management in Tanzania should be traced.
Second, an attempt is made to illuminate the approach
which Tanzania has adopted/resorted to in order to
install and institutionalize a performance management
culture in the public service institutions. In doing so,
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 65
we focus our attention to the strategies as well as the
policy and legal frameworks which have been put in
place to facilitate effective performance management
in the Ministries, independent Departments Agencies
(MDAs) and Regional Secretariats. Third, we analyze the
processes and mechanisms which have been installed in
the public service institutions in order to facilitate effective
performance management. These are numerous but
for the purpose of this work, we are limiting our focus
on four mutually reinforcing performance management
tools, namely the Performance Improvement Fund
(PIF), Strategic and Operational Planning (SOP), Open
Performance and Review System (OPRAS), and the client
Service Charter (CSC). We delineate the implementation
or operational trends as well as transferable lessons of
experience and challenges on each of the tools in turn.
The experience of Tanzania regarding performance
management generates useful transferable lessons which
may be emulated by the public service entities in other
countries. It is to these that we now turn.
Background and Context
Tanzania attained its independence in 1961. The political
leadership committed itself to wage and win the war
against poverty, disease and ignorance in order to bring
about prosperity to all Tanzanians. The public service
being the strong arm of government as well as engine for
growth and development was expected to ensure that the
war against the three development enemies was executed
to a successful end. However, by the late 1990’s it was
realized that it would take ‘ages’ for the government to
combat and eradicate the three development enemies if
at all, deliberate measures and mechanisms were not put
in place to reinvigorate and transform the public service
into an institution of excellence capable enough to play
a pivotal role in achieving sustained national economic
growth and prosperity, and eradication of poverty in
the 21st century (World Bank, 2008:3). Consequently,
a number of reform initiatives in the public service
were initiated for the purpose of accomplishing the
government’s goals and objectives. 1
The Civil Service Reform Programme (CSRP) was
launched in July 1991, it ran up to 1999. The major thrust
of CSRP was “cost containment and the restructuring of
Government”. This was succeeded by the Public Service
Reform Programme (PSRP) which is implemented in a
series of overlapping but mutually supporting phases.
The first phase spanning the year 2000 to June 2007
adapted the theme “Instituting Performance Management
Systems”. This was specifically aimed at building
an integrated system for creating a shared vision,
understanding and agreement about the results to be
achieved, and the operational framework for continuous
performance improvement in standards and quality of
public service delivery in Tanzania. The second phase
whose implementation commenced in July 2007 is
expected to run until June 2012, and it flies under the
banner of “Enhanced performance and Accountability”.
The third phase is envisioned to operate from July 2012
to June 2017; its thrust set to be “Quality Improvement
Cycle”. The implementation process of the PSRP is
spearheaded by the President’s Office-Public Service
Management (PO-PSM)
Tanzania’s Approach to Performance Management
Performance management constitutes the kernel of
Tanzania’s Public Service Reform Programme (PSRP)
which is implemented in the Ministries, independent
Departments and Agencies (MDA) as well as the
public sector in its entirety. The PSRP is implemented
by the government of Tanzania in order to improve
the MDAs’ service delivery, policy management and
regulatory functions through a more vigorous and
rigorous Public Service. Performance Management
System (PMS) in Tanzania is geared at improving the
efficiency and effectiveness in public service delivery,
consequently ensuring value for money. PMS is one of
the reform initiatives that provide a means to improve
the effectiveness of the MDAs by linking and aligning
individual, team and the public service objectives and
results.
The approach which is used for performance management
in the public service is holistic in structure and scope.
This means that it is all-embracing, covering every aspect
in the entire public service operations and its various
constituents, the MDAs. The approach to performance
management takes a comprehensive view of the
components or various aspects of performance, focusing
on how each of the components contribute to desired
performance outcomes at organizational, departmental,
team and individual levels.
Performance management also addresses what the
66 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
employees do (their work), how they do it (their behaviour)
and what they achieve (their results). In totality and
practice, performance management in the Tanzania
embraces all formal and informal measures adopted by
the public service entities to increase organizational, team
and individual effectiveness. Performance management
process is not an isolated function. It is concerned
with continuous development of knowledge, skills and
competencies of public servants.
Strategies for Performance Management
Effective performance management requires systems,
including clear processes and procedures. Moreover, it
presupposes an enabling institutional and legal framework
as well as identification of the Key Performance Areas
(KPAs). Performance management was the theme of
Tanzania’s Public Service Reform Programme phase one
which was implemented from the year 2000 to July 2007.
The intent of the PSRP 1 was to install Performance
Management Systems (PMS) in all MDAs in an effort to
re-professionalize the public service, improve its results
orientation and make MDAs more accountable. The
current Public Service Reform Programme phase two
(2008-2012) is inter alia, geared at enhancing further
and consolidating the initiatives geared at creating a
sustainable performance management culture in the
public service institutions.
Policy and Legal Frameworks
The installation of the performance management system
in Tanzania public service institutions was in consonance
to the Public Service Management and Employment
Policy of 1999 and the Public Service Act, No. 8 of 2002.
The two instruments facilitated the institutionalization of
performance management system in the public service.2
The policy stipulated clearly the need for a performance
and results-oriented management philosophy in the public
service. The Act provides an enabling legal framework
for managing performance in the public service. These
instruments were important in order to give performance
management initiative in the public service a legal status.
The policy and legislation were important instruments to
facilitate a gradual creation of performance-accountability
culture in the public service.
Processes and Mechanisms for Performance
Management
Different approaches to performance management
exist. In Tanzania a Result Based Management (RBM)
was introduced using a home grown rubric referred to
as Performance Improvement Model (PIM). This is an
integrated approach to performance management with
interlinked four stage processes and nine elements. This
approach, among other things, requires all public service
institutions to plan, implement, monitor, evaluate, and
report on performance, and finally carry out performance
reviews. From the year 2000 to 2006 PIM was installed
in all Ministries, independent Departments, Executive
Agencies and Regional Secretariats.
The public service introduced a number of processes,
tools and mechanisms in order to facilitate the
institutionalization of a performance management system.
The specific tools for performance management include
strategic and operational planning, client service charters,
service delivery surveys, self assessment programmes,
performance budgets, the introduction of Open
Performance Review and Appraisal System (OPRAS) and
comprehensive Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system.
Performance Improvement Fund
The Performance Improvement Fund (PIF) was
established and implemented to support changes
identified in Strategic Plans. The PIF was an attempt at
inducing change and reform in the MDAs that did not
prove effective. Its original intent was to combine MDA
access to additional funding and technical support from
the PO-PSM in order to encourage capacity improvement
and performance enhancement. In the course of
implementing PIF, numerous setbacks that limited
progress emerged. First, the transaction cost involved in
the PO-PSM processing of MDA applications turned out to
be too arduous and too slow. Second, PO-PSM control of
the PIF diminished the sense of MDAs ownership of PIF.
Third, some MDAs tried to access the PIF for basic supply
and equipment. It was also observed that PIF was weakly
linked to MDAs strategic plans and had none with the
Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF). 3
Strategic Planning and M&E are now integrated into
the MTEF. This is a three year rolling plan and is
technically the government’s budget.4 Its expenditures
are monitored and controlled through the Government’s
Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS). 5
The PIF allows government Ministries, Independent
Department and Agencies (MDAs) to access additional
financial resources in support of strategic initiatives
emerging from performance management system. In
the following sections we discuss Tanzania’s experience
in implementing four components of the comprehensive
performance management system.
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 67
Strategic and Operational Planning
Tanzania has undertaken a number of initiatives aimed at
improving performance in terms of planning, monitoring
and reporting processes. The major objective is to get
MDAs to focus on their outputs (i.e. what they produce) or
their outcomes (what they achieve) rather than their inputs
(the money they spend). Strategic Plans usually cover 3
to 5 years while operational plans generally cover a period
of one year. Tanzania’s planning system is illustrated in
Figure 1.1 below.
The PMS endeavours on the one hand to fill gaps in
strategic planning and monitoring and evaluation; and
on the other hand to link institutional plans to individual
responsibilities. In the course of instituting the strategic
and operational planning tool or mechanism was revealed
that: 6
• Tanzania’s planning process was characterized by
overlapping jurisdictions especially at the institutional
level. Whereas MTEF (which overtime evolved into
use as the Government’s main plan) was championed
by the Ministry of Finance, the Performance
Figure 1.1
Long Term National Strategies
Vision 2025
Medium Term National Strategies
• National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of
Poverty (NSGRP) - MKUKUTA (5-year period)
• Ruling Party Manifesto
Sector Plans
Agriculture, Education, Health etc.
Institutional Plans
Strategic Plans, Operational/Action Plans MTEF,
Performance Budget
Individual Work Plans
OPRAS, Performance Agreements
 Management Systems (PMS) (which is a broader
planning and monitoring system) was championed by
the PO-PSM. The key players were acting unilaterally
to address individual deficiencies.
• There was duplication and unresolved links between
planning levels (like the National Strategy for Growth
and Reduction of Poverty (NSGRP), popularly referred
to as MKUKUTA 7 and institutional plans), processes
and systems.
• The tools to help government plan were insufficient
and the competency (knowledge and creativity)
required to create high quality plans was somewhat
inadequate. Large sector and programme plans relied
heavily on external systems and consultants.
• Most MDAs had multiple but inconsistent plans which
culminated into mixed messages both at the strategic
and operational level. In many instances MDAS
reported different things to different people, resulting
in a duplication of effort and mixed messages.
• Most of the MDAs plans were not very forward looking
and did not chart very well the strategic direction.
Plans describe what institutions want to do, and
what they wish to achieve. MTEF objectives were
predominantly statements of process and could not
be described as strategic. Because of this monitoring
was reduced to discussions of activity completion
rather than performance assessment in terms of
outputs, outcomes or impact.
• The MTEF, Tanzania’s main planning document,
mostly had no indicators to facilitate performance
monitoring, and where indicators did exist they largely
failed the standard test of indicator quality in terms of
SMARTNESS. 8
• Almost all managers claimed not to work from the
MTEF for their sector plans or the PMS plans. Despite
this claim most managers in the MDAs did not keep
copies of their MTEF plans at hand.
• Plans were not updated to reflect changing
circumstances. Despite the level of detail contained
in the MTEF and its use as a tool for tracking
expenditure, the MTEF was not used as a tool to
guide weekly operations at departmental level, and it
was not adjusted to reflect the apparently lower-than-
budgeted quarterly disbursement from the Ministry of
Finance.
• There was a high degree of deviations from the plans
both in terms of scheduling and content. There were a
lot of implemented activities which were not found in
the plans, reflecting a weak planning capacity where
planners did not accurately foresee future activities as
well as frequent changing operational environment.
Consequently plans tended to be intentionally vague
and non-committal.
68 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
• A lot of monitoring was taking place in Government.
However, most of the monitoring was informal and
often non-systematic. It was not directly connected to
the planning process. Very little formal performance
monitoring was exhibited in the MDAs.
• The supply-driven PMS initiative did not sit down well
with MDAs expectations.
Lessons of Experience and Challenges
Tanzania designed and implemented a number of
remedial measures to address shortcomings outlined
in the preceding section. The pitfalls regarding strategic
and operational planning as distinctive components in
performance management are not unique to Tanzania.
Most of these shortcomings and challenges in strategic
and operational planning were taken care of immediately,
and as soon as they emerged as stumbling blocks to
the implementation of the strategic plans. However, the
implementation of strategic and operational planning as
distinctive tools for performance management generated
some lessons of experience which are worth noting and
sharing. They include:
First, eradication of duplication and overlapping and
unilateralism in strategic and operational planning require
well thought and strenuous measures as well as joint
effort. Tanzania Government formed a “Task Force”
consisting of senior officials from PO-PSM, VPO and
PMO-RALG 9 in order to rationalize planning, monitoring
and reporting process in the public service institutions.
Second, whenever new systems are introduced in
organizations such as the public service, sufficient time
is required before they are internalized, fully under-
stood, accepted, used and used with sufficient quality. As
such, institutionalization of new systems in organizations
requires constant efforts geared at continuous training,
learning and follow up.
Third, successful implementation of strategic and
operation plans require a full fledged Monitoring and
Evaluation (M&E) system. Useful information pertaining
to the implementation of the plans must be collected
from different data sources, including surveys; routine
component level monitoring reports; and routine activity-
level monitoring reports. Key information products must
be produced including semi-annual progress reports;
annual progress reports; mid-term evaluation reports;
phase completion reports; and impact evaluation
reports. The information generated must enable different
stakeholders to determine whether the strategic and
operational plans are achieving the intended strategic
goals and objectives or not. These are in terms of
outputs, outcomes and impact of the plans. The public
service in Tanzania is using different data sources and
data gathering instruments has developed a culture
of producing progress reports on the implementation
of strategic and operational plans every quarter, six
months and year’s end reports to the stakeholders. The
comprehensive seminal report was on the “State of the
Public Service 2004” which was published and distributed
to the stakeholders in 2005.
Fourth, planning, monitoring and reporting processes
may be complicated by lack of computerized tools to
implementers. Moreover, performance reporting should be
firmly established. The public service institutions should
be required to produce regular reports and subjected to
parliamentary and, indeed, public scrutiny.
Fifth, demand-driven PMS initiative which takes into
account the specific demands and operational contexts
of MDAs is more likely to achieve the intended objectives
than supply-driven PMS.
Open Performance Appraisal and Review System
(OPRAS)
A new innovation for managing individual performance
in the public service institutions was the introduction of
the Open Performance Review and Appraisal System
(OPRAS) in 2004. This is a distinctive tool in the history
of HRM in the Tanzanian public service. The OPRAS is
one of the major tools that are critical to the adoption and
nurturing of the performance management culture in the
public service. The tool which aligns the objectives of the
individual officer with that of the department/division/unit/
section to the objectives of the organization is used in all
public service institutions. The open Performance and
Review Appraisal system replaced the ‘Closed Annual
Confidential Report System (CACRS) which was used
before in order to assess the performance of employees
in the public service institutions. The CACRS was limited
and largely generated one-sided information on the
performance of employees in the public service.
The OPRAS requires all public servants and their
managers to develop their personal objectives based
on strategic planning process and the organizations’
respective service delivery targets. 9 To develop the
individual performance plan both the supervisor and
subordinate have to agree on performance objectives,
performance targets, performance criteria and required
resources in order to achieve the set targets and
objectives. Moreover, there must be Mid-Year Review
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 69
(MYR), which is important in order to keep track of
the employee-cum appraisee’s progress in terms of
meeting the annual personal objectives and to identify
the resources needs that will be required to carry out the
remaining six-month plan.
The installation of OPRAS by all MDAs has been made
mandatory and the requirement is embodied in the Public
Service Legislation. 11 About 2,500 public servants were
trained on the use of OPRAS from the year 2004 to 2008.
However anecdotal evidence reveals that:
• The adoption and institutionalization of OPRAS in
the MDAs has been patchy. The compliance rate
is estimated to be about 51 percent for, arguably, a
variety of reasons.12
• There are claims that the initial OPRA forms were
overly complicated to complete and they were not
context-sensitive to different professional cadres in
the public service.
• Some public servants remained skeptical of their
intended use especially for promotion purposes.
• Little dissemination took place at the middle and lower
levels of the MDAs or in field offices. The prognosis
however is for their increasing use as staff become
more familiar with the technique. 13
Lessons of Experience and Challenges
Effective employee performance appraisal is a useful
tool for monitoring individual performance. Moreover,
the appraisal system which provides the opportunity for
dialogue between the appraisal and the appraised is
more likely to improve performance than a system of staff
appraisal which is closed and unilateral. A new change
innovation in an organization, if not thought of well is more
likely to generate supporters and believers than skeptics
and doubting “Thomases” than supporters and believers.
There may be leaders and staff who may not support new
innovations. Continuous effort is required to bring the
skeptics and “doubting Thomases” on board.
Furthermore, new innovations in organizations tend to
create anxiety and the desire to see immediate results
and changes as soon as possible. The best way of
introducing new innovations in organizations such as
the public service is by evolution rather than revolution.
The process of installing new performance appraisal
system should be supported by deliberate strategies for
institutionalization of the system, including training and
positive reinforcements.
Employee performance appraisal should, among other
things serve as a tool for identification of the employees’
training needs. Performance appraisal should serve as
a means to an end, hence should not become an end
in itself. Training and development plans for employees
should be developed and implemented in order to
enhance their capacity. This would enable employees to
perceive appraisal as a useful tool in their career and a
source of healthy ‘psychological contract.’ They should
know what is in the OPRAS for them.
Lastly, meaningful performance appraisal should
also provide a means to recognize and reward good
performance as well as to manage under-performance.
Recognition or reward for performance, including
Performance Related Pay (PRP), salary progression
guided by performance or non-pay reward system should
be used as positive reinforcements in order to enable
employee buy in to the imperatives of OPRAS.
Client Service Charters
The installation of client service charters were designed
for all MDAs and Regional Secretariats. The charters were
intended to support the peoples’ demand for accountability
at the institutional level. The implementation of the client
service charters have been, by and large, characterized
by sad stories. Anecdotal evidence point to what may be
refereed to as a somewhat sad story. A recent report by
the World Bank 14 points to the following weaknesses:
• Most of the client service charters are not operational
in the MDAs;
• Citizens are not using them for demanding services;
• Public campaigns to publicizing them were inadequate
and limited; and
• MDAs have not monitored the impacts of the charters
and have not reviewed or amended them to generate
greater legitimacy.
The foregoing observation conveys one critical message
that introducing innovation in the public service institutions
is not an easy task and “things may fall apart”. Introducing
new tools and systems for performance management is
one thing but implementing them effectively and efficiently
is a different thing.
Lessons of Experience and Challenges
The implementation trend of the client service charters, as
a performance management tool in the public institutions
in Tanzania generates more heat than light. However,
there are lessons of experience as well as challenges
which we must point out.
70 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
The charters are likely to serve a useful purpose in an
environment in which the literacy rate is very high and
the reading culture is well entrenched in society. This
permits people to read and derive a correct meaning
from various government documents, and consequently
they are likely to use the acquired knowledge to demand
accountability consonant with the prescriptions of the
charters. Moreover, a conscious citizenry is more likely to
hold public officials accountable if they provide lip service.
Awareness creation is also very important in
“conscientizing” the people to demand services and
accountability. This could be achieved if the government
and other non-state actors, including the Civil Society
Organizations (CSOs) and other interest groups mount
deliberate campaigns to educate the people on their right
to access public services in specified time frame as well
as their entitlement to a quality and timeliness service.
Concluding Remarks: Tying it all Together
Effective performance management in the public service
requires specific tools and deliberate measures. Tanzania
has made significant achievement in recognizing the
need to ensure that performance in the public service
institutions is monitored and evaluated by using a number
of management tools and installing them in all MDAs.
Much as installation of the performance management
tools is important, it is also imperative to ensure that
the performance management systems is continuously
institutionalized in the public service in order to pave the
way for creating and attaining a performance culture in the
entire public service.
A performance management culture cannot be created
by chance or by revolutionary means. This culture must
be created evolutionary by putting into place a supportive
incentive regime, including strategies to counsel and
develop the poor-performers as well as rewarding tangibly
and non-tangibly the good performers in the public
service. The performance management tools should serve
as means to good performance; hence they should not
become ends in themselves.
Effective performance management requires the
institutional and legal frameworks. However, the
legislation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for
institutionalizing the tools for managing performance.
Both the hard (laws) and soft measures, including
counseling and training are required to enforce
compliance with performance management requirements.
There is a growing critique of Performance Management
Systems. Firstly, they are seen as adding more pressure
to a short-term view among MDAs managers which may
well hamper performance in the public service over a
long term. Secondly, they are often proffered in a very
prescriptive fashion, with many writers advocating a single
best way for performance management, to the neglect
of important variables such as degree of centralization,
unionization, etc. The real danger is that performance
management, including the employee performance
appraisal system cannot be simply borrowed from one
organization and applied in another as many advocates
appear to suggest. If PMS has to work the first important
step is to change the focus from appraisal to performance
planning, review and development.
Notes:
1 See World Bank (2008), Implementation Completion
and Results Report for a Public Service Reform Project
(IDA-33000 IDA 3300A) pp.12-13.
2 See the Public Service Act, No. 8 of 2002, p.273;
and the Public Service (Amendment) Act, 2007. p. 153.
See also URT (1999). Public Service Management and
Employment Policy, Dar es Salaam: Dar es Salaam:
President’s Office-Public Service Management, pp. 27-28.
3 World Bank (2008). Implementation Completion and
Results Report for a Public Service Reform Project (IDA-
33000 IDA 3300A) pp. 12-13.
4 See United Republic of Tanzania (2005). The State
of the Public Service Report 2004. Dar es Salaam:
President’s Office-Public Service Management, p. 56
5 Although the MTEF is three years, the IFMS works on a
one year cycle.
6 The shortcomings are well documented in the State of
the Public Service Report 2004; see United Republic of
Tanzania (2005). The State of the Public Service Report
2004. Dar es Salaam: President’s Office-Public Service
Management, pp. 56-65
7 MKUKUTA is a Kiswahili acronym which in English
language denotes the National Strategy for Growth and
Reduction of Poverty (NSGRP).
8 Real or proxy indicators must satisfy the requirement of
being Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Aligned, Realistic
and Time bound (SMART).
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 71
9 The acronyms VPO and PO-RALG stand respectively
for Vice President’s Office and President’s Office-Regional
Administration and Local Government.
10 By organization we refer to the following: i.e. sector,
department, division, unit or section.
11 See the Public Service Act, No. 8 of 2002, p.273;
and the Public Service (Amendment) Act, 2007. p. 153.
See also URT (1999) Public Service Management and
Employment Policy, Dar es Salaam: PO-PSM. pp. 27-28.
12 World Bank, (2008). Implementation Completion and
Results Report for a Public Service Reform Project (IDA-
33000 IDA 3300A) p. 13.
13 Ibid. p. 13
14 World Bank, op.cit. p. 13.
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Performance Management in the
Australian Public Service
Lynelle Briggs, Australian Public Service Commissioner
Performance management in the Australian Public
Service (APS) context has evolved considerably over
the last several decades. Yet, while most agencies
continue to report that they have a formal process
in place, the success of performance management
processes continues to meet with mixed results. This
case submission shares the journey in addition to the key
findings, implementation challenges and results achieved
to date.
History and Context
Performance management is an essential tool that is
relevant at all levels in all Australian Public Service (APS)
agencies, regardless of the nature of their business
activities. It provides a means to improve organisational
performance by linking and aligning individual, team and
organisational objectives and results. It also provides a
means to recognise and reward good performance and to
manage under-performance.
The evolution of performance management within APS
has evolved considerably over the last several decades
from a focus on ‘appraisal’ to a systems perspective
which incorporates an integration with organisational
culture, business planning and learning and development
processes. (see Figure 1 below)
The growing focus on appraisal systems emerged in the
Figure 1: The Evolution of Performance Management in the APS
1960 1970 1980
Growing focus on Increased focus
Appraisal Systems on management
by outcomes -
renewed interest
in performance
management
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 73
1960s and 1970s, but they were not widely embedded
as a regular, systematic and effective practice. Through
the 1980s, a wave of reform in public administration
brought trends in management thinking, including in the
private sector. Significant amongst these trends was
an increasing focus on managing by outcomes and
agency accountability for improving management and
performance. This coincided with a renewed interest in
performance management.
Performance pay was first introduced for the Senior
Executive Service (SES) and Senior Officers in the early
1990s and was seen as a stand-alone initiative, ‘dropped
on’ agencies as a mechanism to achieve improved
remuneration. The implementation was a one-size-fits-
all approach that did not allow for agency differences or
relate to the stage of development of individual agencies’
business planning. Many agencies did not have robust
assessment criteria and processes in place, nor had they
provided sufficient training to those involved. Cynicism
was the result.
The current framework for performance management
in the APS has evolved greatly. It is broad and is
established by the Public Service Act 1999 (the Act) and
the Public Service Commissioner’s Directions 1999 (the
Commissioner’s Directions). Under these arrangements,
government agencies now have the flexibility to develop
and implement performance management systems that
1990 2000 2010
Performance Increased focus
pay first on organisational
introduced culture: systems
for Senior perspective,
Executive integration with
Service (SES) corporate planning,
integration with
learning and
development
strategies
meet their business needs and the needs of their staff.
At a minimum, the Commissioner’s Directions indicate
that a fair and open performance management system
should provide each employee with a clear statement of
performance expectations and an opportunity to comment
on these expectations.
The importance of good performance management cannot
be underestimated. In the 2007-08 State of the Service
employee survey, the majority of staff rated factors such
as feedback, realistic performance expectations and clear
work plans as important to improving or maintaining their
productivity in the next 12 months. 1
However, while most agencies continue to report that they
have a formal, systematic process in place for managing
employee performance, the success of performance
management processes continues to meet with mixed
results. The most prominent areas requiring attention
include the development of an integrated performance
management culture within agencies, the management of
under-performance, and an increased focus on individual
learning and development needs. Also worrying is the high
number of staff reporting that their agency’s performance
review process will not help them to improve their
performance. 2
Strategy, concepts, and principles
Performance management in the APS consists of a set of
interrelated strategies and activities that aims to improve
the performance of individuals and teams, contribute to
the achievement of agency goals and enhance outcomes
for the government.
Effective performance management requires a framework
that integrates organisational, business and individual
planning and performance. In this context, the Australian
Public Service Commission recommends that agencies
focus on a three-leveled approach to ensure that their
performance management systems achieve desired
outcomes, are supported by employees, and are effective
in managing various aspects of performance: 3
1. Developing the workplace culture – this includes
developing a clear understanding of what
drives performance within the workforce and
the establishment of a cultural foundation which
encourages feedback and discussion in an open and
supportive environment
2. Building the system and its credibility - negative
attitudes to performance management and a lack of
credibility can, in some instances, be a by-product
74 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
of inadequate systems. To achieve this, the system
needs to be tailored to support the agency’s particular
context, desired organisational culture and required
skill sets.
3. Supporting practices – in addition to establishing
cultural foundations that motivate and engage staff,
and implementing credible and effective management
systems, a range of supportive practices facilitate
effective performance management. These include
supporting managers, recognising and rewarding
good performance, developing capability, the
appropriate management of under-performance
and periodic evaluation of the entire performance
management framework.
While careful consideration should be given to each of
these, the effectiveness of the whole system relies upon
the successful integration of the three levels.
Key findings and implementation challenges
Although the APS has come a fair way in improving
performance management over recent decades, there
continues to be room for improvement in developing a
more integrated performance management culture within
agencies.
Some agencies have tried to build the sense of staff
ownership of performance management frameworks by
involving staff or their representatives in the design of the
process. Staff ownership is very important and will go a
long way towards overcoming the cynicism and skepticism
of performance management. Most agencies also have
a suite of measures in place to support managers in
implementing the agency’s performance management
system that includes specialist advice, consistent
guidelines and forms for establishing performance
agreements.
While the majority of APS employees report that they
are generally positive about the amount of performance
feedback they receive, and that this feedback provides
them with necessary guidance and assistance, fewer
report that this feedback helps them to improve their
overall performance. 4
Employees are also generally positive that their learning
and development needs are adequately considered
as part of feedback discussions. It is worth noting the
increased use of coaching and mentoring strategies,
both formal and informal, within the APS. Such strategies
will further support employee career development by
reinforcing and building upon talents while transferring
knowledge to the next generation of managers.
Another important aspect of managing for improved
performance is effectively addressing underperformance
issues, and this continues to be another area where there
is room for improvement. For example, the results of the
2007-08 State of the Service employee survey indicate: 5
• one quarter of employees did not think that their
manager deals appropriately with employees
who perform poorly—an increase from one in five
employees in the previous year, and
• over one-third (37%) of employees did not think that
their agency deals with underperformance effectively
• These results are of concern, especially given
that preventing and/or effectively managing
underperformance are ways that the APS can
increase its productivity. An underperformance issue
that is not addressed can have a negative impact on
productivity across the work group.
• Employee perceptions of performance management
are therefore somewhat at odds with agencies’ strong
focus on performance management. It may be that
despite agencies having measures in place to assist
managers implement performance management
practices, they are not being targeted and promoted
to managers in need of most assistance, e.g. new
managers.
• Managers hold the key to building a performance
culture and in sustaining agency health. In the 2007-
08 State of the Service employee survey, the majority
of staff reported very high levels of satisfaction with
the following statements about their immediate
manager: 6 my manager demonstrates honesty and
integrity, there are good working relationships with
my manager, my manager ensures fair access to
developmental opportunities for employees in my
work group, my manager encourages me to build
capabilities and/or skills for new job roles
An immediate manager therefore plays an influential role
in assisting employees improve their performance and
productivity, and their effectiveness influences a range
of other issues that motivate employees to maximise
their contribution to the organisation, for example, job
satisfaction, employee engagement, and retention.
Lessons learned/results achieved
Performance management practices are an essential
component of effective management of the APS.
The APS consists of a diverse range of agencies serving
government, and although there may be many common
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 75
elements, performance management frameworks are
diverse and what works best in a particular agency
depends on a range of environmental factors – leadership,
nature of business and culture, and the maturity of
systems for example. A key success factor then, is that
the implementation of performance management must
be tailored to the specific circumstances of each agency,
in ways that are consistent with the guiding legislative
framework.
Further lessons include:
1. Performance management is a living process that
should rest on a simple framework during initial
implementation that evolves and matures over time.
Complex systems, which cover too wide a range of
issues, have been found to be unsuccessful during
initial implementation, the danger being that in trying
to do too much, nothing is done well. In this context
performance management is seen as an iterative
process.
2. Performance management must be integrated
with organisational planning and overall business
objectives and be seen as an integral part of the
agency’s overall management strategy. It should be
linked to other strategic management approaches
(such as workforce planning, recruitment, succession
management and learning and development.)
3. An effective performance management system
ensures a clear ‘line of sight’ for employees between
their own responsibilities and the business objectives
of the agency. The performance review process itself
should focus employee’s efforts very closely on the
achievement of these business objectives.
4. An effective performance management system places
an emphasis on the future development of staff,
rather than a mere examination of performance over
the previous twelve months. While many agencies
incorporate individual development plans into annual
performance agreements, without sufficient emphasis,
detail and discussion, there is a risk that this plan is
seen as ‘page 2’ of the agreement and not sufficiently
valued nor implemented.
5. A lack of acceptance by staff, or a failure to provide
managers with the necessary capabilities to manage
performance effectively, can affect the viability of even
the most well designed framework.
6. The responsibility for making performance
management a success lies with individual employees
(who must take ownership of their own performance),
their immediate managers and senior executives.
7. For performance management systems to succeed,
line managers should:
• commit to make the management of their people an
important element of their role
• encourage employees to perform at high levels
• define criteria and standards for assessing
performance that are job specific, (e.g. KPIs and
targets) that are understood and agreed by employees
• seek appropriate training to develop the capabilities
required to conduct performance discussions with
employees, and
• provide regular, informal feedback that helps
employees understand their strengths and
development needs, place value on individual
development plans
8. Performance management systems should be
continuously reviewed to ensure they achieve desired
outcomes.
Emerging Trends
Increasingly, agencies are striking a balance between
measuring the achievement of outcomes (the ‘what’) with
behavioural inputs (the ‘how’). Such behavioural indicators
are often aligned to an agency’s capability framework
or Values and can have a positive impact not only on
immediate performance, but on the future sustainability of
the agency.
a variety of performance management systems in order to
balance the needs of the full-time, career employee with
an increasing cadre of part-time and contract workers,
temporary staff, contractors and home-based workers.
Notes:
1 State of the Service Report 2007-08, Australian Public
Service Commission, 2008.
2 State of the Service Report 2007-08, Australian Public
Service Commission, 2008.
3 Sharpening the Focus: managing performance in the
APS, Australian Public Service Commission, 2006.
4 State of the Service Report 2007-08, Australian Public
Service Commission, 2008.
5 State of the Service Report 2007-08, Australian Public
Service Commission, 2008.
6 State of the Service Report 2007-08, Australian Public
Service Commission, 2008.

The advent of accessible technologies has increased the

use of online performance management systems. Such
systems are particularly useful for sharing information and
guidelines, providing templates, enabling the identification
of learning and development needs and generating
multi-source feedback via questionnaires and generating
reports at individual and organisational levels.

There has also been increased interest in recognising

and rewarding teams, although the occurrence of this
as a formal strategy seems to be sporadic. While team-
based reward systems can encourage employees to work
collaboratively, to achieve goals and to share information,
potential issues may arise where individual input has not
been equal, or where teams cannot be easily compared.
Nonetheless, there is considerable attractiveness in
reward or recognition structures that embrace both
individual effort and the contribution of teams.

As performance management continues to evolve in the

Australian Public Service, it will also be important for
agencies to note the significant demographic changes
taking place within the workforce and how this might
impact performance management practices. Key
challenges of the future may include the consideration of

76 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e
C o m m o n w e a l t h A s s o c i a t i o n f o r P u b l i c A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t 77
Commonwealth Association for
Public Administration & Management (CAPAM)
www.capam.org

78 C A P AM FEATURED RE P ORT : P e r s p e c t i v e s I n H u m a n R e s o u r c e G o v e r n a n c e