A Framework for Decentralizing Civil Servants

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A Framework for Decentralizing Civil Servants

• Workshop on Decentralizing Civil Servants
• Wednesday, 9 June 2004

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Purpose of the Review

• To review the staffing practices in 8 countries
  in the context of their decentralization
  experience
• Based on this review, to develop a framework for
  analyzing the range of employer functions in
  terms of their contribution to the objectives of
  administrative decentralization
• Identify specific lessons for developing an
  action plan for administrative decentralization
• The paper also provides some suggestions for
  testing the framework in a broader set of
  countries

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Achieving the intended degree of decentralization

• A decentralization strategy should address all 3
  dimensions
• In practice the degree of decentralization in
  each dimension does not always line up focus is
  often on political /or fiscal aspects
• Achieving intended degree of decentralization
  depends on effective interaction among all 3
  dimensions

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Effective interaction between administrative and
fiscal decentralization

• Critically important to successful
  decentralization strategy
• Failure is inevitable without
• Adequate fiscal tools to manage staff other
  resources
• Administrative authority to allocate resources,
  supervise activities otherwise ensure effective
  implementation
• And without these tools, a politically
  decentralized government cannot reasonable be
  held accountable

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Objectives of a decentralized staffing model

• Decentralized administration means that local
  government has the means to effectively deliver
  its functional responsibilities
• To do so, it must be able to
• hold staff to account
• allocate staff to where need is greatest
• manage its financial resources
• attract and retain skilled staff
• The following table identifies the various
  employer functions that contribute to these
  objectives

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Devolving the Employer Function
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Assessing the Case Studies as Decentralizers
Yyes Ppartial Nno
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Points of Entry for Administrative
Decentralization, based on the Case Studies
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Can we extend the analysis to identify which
functions are most critical to decentralization?
10
Testing the Framework

• Framework based on desk review of 8 countries
  experience
• While promising, it needs to be tested more
  broadly to provide a solid, empirical basis
• Consideration should be given to using a
  standardized questionnaire a draft is included
  in the paper
• Results will also give better evidence on which
  employer functions are most frequently devolved
  early on, and which are most critical in
  achieving objectives