Civil service reforms plan held up at cabinet committee

PESHAWAR: The civil service reforms plan is held up at the cabinet committee constituted for the purpose despite requests by officers belonging to the provincial civil service cadre to the chief minister to look into the matter.

The spokesperson of the Provincial Civil Service Officers (PCS) Association, Fahad Ikram Qazi, said the cabinet committee was constituted to overhaul the civil service in the province through a reforms programme to improve service delivery and good governance.

He said the Provincial Civil Service Officers (PCS) Association submitted its recommendations for reforming the provincial civil service to the chief minister, chief secretary and chairperson of the cabinet reforms committee on November 11, but these not been taken up at any level.

The document, which was shared with The News, argued that the foremost principle to strengthen the foundation of provincial civil service is the recruitment criteria. It pointed out that the Public Service Commission (PCS) recruits a person to run district administrations and other departments, but the evaluation criteria including written test, psychological and personality assessment are not in consonance with the multifarious duties of the civil servants. “In order to recruit the right people for the civil service, the recruitment criteria should be reviewed and reformed,” it recommended.

The document noted that around 50 percent of the Provincial Management Service (PMS) officers come through direct recruitment by the Public Service Commission, whereas 50 percent join PMS through promotion from Revenue and Secretariat Service. “For better service delivery, a competitive process ought to be put in place for entry into the PMS,” it stressed.

Career progression is seen as another stumbling rock adversely affecting the service delivery in the province. The provincial bureaucracy in its letter maintained that currently the Establishment Department has not assumed its role of human resource management and has no plan for career progression of the officers.

“There is no sound criteria for promotion except for seniority list and the outdated and “meaningless” performance evaluation reports (PER) that has already led to gross administrative anomalies,” it stated.

The document submitted to the chief minister noted that promotion of PMS and PCS officers is more a matter of luck given their time of recruitment, which determines their number on the seniority list. “An officer recruited under the same rules will get promotion from BS-17 to BS-18 in three years, another in seven years and the officers of junior batches don’t see any chance of promotion for the coming 20 years because of the rule of seniority list and posting against the scheduled posts of BS-18,” it explained. The main reason for this issue, it pointed out, is the existence of an unjust apportionment formula in the Rules of 1993 whereby the Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS) has been given major share in promotion against the scheduled posts.

The PCS Officers Association letter to the chief minister stated that the Establishment Department neither follows any rotation formula nor it has any criteria for posting against various posts.

The anomaly has led to demoralisation of the officers and most of them have resorted to political and bureaucratic lobbying and unfair means for getting the desired postings.  “Therefore, this issue should be addressed on priority basis so that a culture of merit in posting of officers could be inculcated in the provincial civil service,” it said.

The PCS Officers Association in its charter of recommendations also demanded that officers from National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Office Management Group (OMG), Income Tax, Accounts groups and others working against the provincial scheduled posts should also be forthwith repatriated to their respective federal departments. Moreover, it demanded that the officers from other provincial cadres like teachers and doctors posted on scheduled posts of PCS and PMS should be repatriated to their parent departments.

The provincial civil service officers also sought a better capacity development and training programme as currently there is no training need assessment for on-job training plans for the officers. They pointed out in the document that local trainings are attended by the officers as a respite from jobs’ responsibilities, besides getting more perks as travel and other allowances.

They asked the government to engage a system of checks and balances and accountability mechanism through a committee so that the governance system is made responsive and efficient and officers are made accountable for any lapses.