Sectoral Activities Programme |
4. The impact of working conditions on
human resource development in
the public service
The structural adjustment process in the public service has affected public service workers and the industrial relations governing their working lives profoundly. In particular, the decentralization of budgetary and operational responsibilities, both to lower tiers of government and, within the same tiers, to line departments, agencies or external service providers, has increasingly been matched by the devolution of a range of personnel matters. This, combined with the increasing flexibility of working time and job functions, and with greater emphasis being placed on performance than on traditional means of hierarchical control, is steadily transforming the working and industrial relations environment for public service managers and their staff.
OECD countries have reported greater flexibility for managers to design job descriptions and to have more say in recruitment and promotion procedures. Some countries have devolved responsibility for training and development, while others have devolved equal opportunities agreements and other aspects of industrial relations. In most countries, however, overall pay determination has remained centralized.
The focus of administrative reforms is placed on how citizens can benefit from public service activities, with the interests of the public service taking second place to the common good. Public servants may not necessarily be compensated for their more intensive work rhythm with higher pay, but instead with improved working conditions, including:
In situations of structural and other change, it becomes apparent that various aspects of working conditions interact to transform the work of public service personnel and to shape HRD. Some of these changes will be highlighted below. Other working conditions affecting HRD, such as social protection, will not be addressed in this report as the observations made in the ILO report to the Joint Meeting on the Impact of Structural Adjustment in the Public Services in 1995 are still considered to be valid.(57)
4.1. Pay
As indicated in the above-mentioned ILO report to the Joint Meeting on "the size of the public sector pay bill, and its impact on taxation, borrowing levels and private sector pay, is an incentive to impose restraint; at the same time government has the responsibility to promote equitable employment practices and to ensure that the public sector can attract and retain the calibre of staff it requires. ... Many countries are in the process of changing the rules governing pay structures and wage determination, including industrialized and developing countries, as well as the economies recognized as being in transition. Pay issues are emerging as a key element in the wider adjustment and restructuring process".(58)
4.1.1. Pay levels
Public service pay levels have become an area of concern to more than just public servants. Although cutting the wage bill of the public service may contribute to macroeconomic stability, it has been recognized that reducing real wages beyond a certain point becomes counter-productive.(59) When salaries in the public service erode in absolute values and in relation to private sector pay, staff motivation and the possibilities of recruiting and retaining public servants will be affected. Highly qualified personnel will tend rather to join the private sector, at least when their training and qualifications make them attractive to potential private sector employers.
Pay is now becoming an even more crucial element in the light of eroding employment security (see section 1.3 above), a factor which used to be regarded as compensation for the lower salaries and stagnating purchasing power of public service officials. In times of structural adjustment and transition, maintaining employment security is, however, closely linked to the budget available for the overall public sector wage bill.
In industrialized countries, a frequent concern in recent years has been at least to maintain the purchasing power of public service personnel. Some countries have responded to fiscal crises by freezing public sector pay, resulting in the slow decline of real wages. In Austria and Canada, for example, salaries were frozen at 1995 levels in 1996 and 1997.
In developing and less developed countries, public service pay is generally relatively low and is not always forthcoming. In Africa, public employment rose between 1972 and 1993 while wages fell considerably.(60)
According to the World Bank, a rough benchmark for evaluating the adequacy of public sector compensation may be the gap between public and private sector compensation, discounted somewhat to take account of the fact that public service employment is still considered to be more secure. Precise comparisons are difficult, given differences in such factors as benefits, prerequisites and job requirements. The World Bank noted, however, that public servants almost everywhere are paid less than their private sector counterparts.(61) Arguably, structural adjustment programmes have contributed to a deterioration in this situation. In the Philippines, average public pay is only a quarter of average private sector wages, while in Somalia it is only 11 per cent. The opposite extreme can be seen in Singapore, where public sector salaries amount on average to 114 per cent of private sector pay.(62)
The gap is widening in some countries. In Kenya, for instance, the disparity between public and private wages grew by an annual 3 per cent during the period 1982-92. In many countries the fiscal austerity measures implemented during the 1980s that tended to lower real wages rather than employment contributed to the relative erosion of public sector wages.(63)
An example of public service pay policy reform being determined by IMF conditions can be seen in Benin, where in 1997 financial support was conditional on the replacement of the automatic promotion of public servants every two years with merit wage increases only.(64) In 1995, the Central African Republic started to redraft statutes governing public servants to reduce the government wage bill, while in Chad top public servants saw their pay halved and all new recruitment frozen in 1997.
In general, the average nominal government wage bill in Africa(65) was reduced during the last decade and in 1996 totalled approximately 6 per cent of GDP (as compared to 7 per cent in 1986) in 32 sub-Saharan countries. Figures in individual African countries vary considerably: the Uganda wage bill rose from 1 per cent (1987) to 3 per cent (1996) of GDP, with real wages increasing sharply and the size of the public service being reduced by half; Lesotho had a wage bill of 15 per cent of GDP in 1996. The average wage bill of the 14 countries in the CFA franc zone rose rapidly due to the automatic recruitment of graduates from higher education institutions, automatic promotions and in-grade salary increases. With the devaluation of the CFA franc in 1994, the wage bill fell by an average of 3 per cent.
Real wages in Africa, which declined by an annual 2 per cent during the period 1990-96, indicate that the reforms did not achieve their objective of streamlining the wage structure and raising the level of real wages.
In Asia and Latin America, government wage bills amount to roughly 5 per cent of GDP.
It is very difficult to get a clear picture of the differences in pay levels between the public and private sectors in all the countries under consideration, on account of the widescale contracting out of public service functions to private sector enterprises. By way of example, in the context of structural adjustment, a 1996 research paper on Caribbean municipalities made the following observation: "With the intention of reducing government expenditure on the ideological premise that private sector entities are more cost-effective and efficient for the delivery of certain services, the contracting out to entrepreneurs of waste management, road repairs and transport services is now widespread."(66)
There appears to be little hard evidence about the effects of contracting out on public service pay, and what anecdotal evidence does exist is inconclusive. Further analysis would be required to establish whether employment reductions, loss of benefits (such as pensions), pay reductions or combinations of these generate savings. However, existing models and data appear to be insufficient to analyse pay levels, which must be considered in the context of the complex interplay between the pay structure and the little-documented non-wage benefits in the public service and the nature of the private sector labour market. In addition, the limits of the monitoring systems in both sectors cause further problems for analysis.(67)
4.1.2. Pay structure
The difficulties facing personnel policy-makers are not just shortages in qualified staff, but also salary scales that offer few performance incentives. Reducing pay differentials between lower and upper grade salaries has had considerable repercussions on motivating employees to improve their performance, as well as on effective HRD, including training.
Pressures on pay systems in the public sector have arisen due to various macroeconomic and managerial considerations. These pressures are essentially of a managerial nature -- to improve efficiency and to respond appropriately to a rapidly changing environment. As pay should ideally be performance-linked, it is viewed as a mechanism for increasing both public sector efficiency and the quality of service provided. Introducing greater diversity into public sector pay systems would also promote efficiency.
The reforms have been motivated by the need to establish an appropriate pay structure to meet specific labour market requirements in view of the wide range and diversity of services provided by civil servants -- in areas as diverse as education, tax collection, police and the judiciary. As a result of decentralization and deregulation, various public service sectors are being encouraged to adopt new approaches to service provision and to establish the corresponding pay and grading structures. The result has been greater diversity and flexibility in pay arrangements. Linking pay increases to improved performance is just one of the ways in which greater flexibility has been introduced.
Pressures to contain public expenditure, of which public service pay is the major component, often increase in times of recession. The pay reforms introduced in New Zealand and Australia in the 1990s have a number of common features. Both countries have decentralized pay determination in large areas of the public sector to individual agencies. Uniform centralized pay structures are being dismantled and in their place more streamlined structures are being negotiated which are more appropriate to the needs of each main branch of service provision. They have also introduced performance pay for senior managers and other white-collar workers, as well as specific targets or controls on either running costs or pay bills.
The pace and scale of these reforms differed between the two countries, as did the extent to which the countries dismantled previous bargaining arrangements creating scope for reforms to work. Australia quite deliberately sought to maintain a common grading structure for the Australian Public Service. Here, the distinctive federal structure and the greater autonomy of the states has allowed a number of them to push through quite radical reforms.
The decentralization of pay bargaining or the delegation of responsibility for pay might be expected to affect the dispersion of pay among occupations within an agency or organization and within a sector of the economy for a variety of reasons. Decentralization alone will almost certainly lead to increased dispersion in the initial stages. However, it is frequently accompanied by the introduction of new pay structures, which often result in a reduction in the number of different occupations (delayering), which in turn necessitates regrading. The outcome of this process could be either an increase or decrease in dispersion. Sometimes the pay reform process also leads to the consolidation of allowances and overtime into basic pay, which is also likely to affect the dispersion of earnings both within and among groups.
Nevertheless, in some countries more than others, a system in which pay rates were tied to posts and grades rather than individuals, with classification decided centrally, has given way to a more flexible system involving market adjustment, decentralization and individualization. Typical features of flexible pay policy include:
In some countries, such as Sweden, reforms were initially prompted by the problem of losing quality staff to the private sector and the need to give managers flexibility to provide incentives to stay. Increasingly, however, Swedish reforms have been driven by attempts to boost efficiency and productivity. In Finland, in the early 1990s the municipal sector faced severe economic, functional and political challenges. Changes were introduced by increasing productivity, cutting staff, modernizing service systems and investing at the municipal level. Increased local autonomy, decentralization of authority and externalization were key features of these reforms. At the same time, the Finnish industrial relations system was also in transition. The centralized incomes policy disappeared, there was a resurgence in local bargaining and new participation procedures were developed.(68)
Some governments -- especially in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Nordic countries -- have increasingly linked the pay of some staff, particularly managers, to performance. While this trend is expected to spread increasingly to other countries, a growing body of evidence is beginning to suggest it does not necessarily work. A recent OECD survey of middle and senior public service managers in Australia, Denmark, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States found that for the most part, none of the schemes surveyed fully satisfied the core motivational requirements for effective PRP (performance-related pay) schemes and that overall, the survey findings revealed widespread dissatisfaction with PRP schemes and raised important questions as to the impact of these schemes on the motivation and performance of managers.(69) A majority of the managers surveyed believed that the PRP schemes in their agency were generally ineffective in that they were not easy to understand, were not generally accepted and there was no clear link between performance pay awards and the performance achievements of managers. They did not appear to be motivated by the prospect of receiving the PRP awards available to them.
Nevertheless, the use of PRP is being extended in some countries. In 1996, the Australian Government introduced legislation which it said was intended to bind 140,000 public servants to terms more typical of the private sector, including greater use of individual contracts and performance-related pay.(70) In Canada, performance-related pay was reintroduced for public service workers in 1997 after the scheme had been suspended in 1991 for financial reasons.(71)
Other countries are scaling back their use of PRP. A survey in the United Kingdom conducted by the Institute of Personnel and Development (IPD) found that both employers and employees agreed that the small size of awards was the main reason behind the poor response to PRP whether based on individual or team performance. This problem is exacerbated in the public sector where pay freezes are recurrent. The IDP report noted that around 17 per cent of public sector companies were contemplating abandoning their PRP schemes for employees in management positions.(72) Furthermore, the study which IPD launched on team pay in the public and private sectors, found positive results with bonuses linked to team output or to the time saved on team tasks. It was seen that team pay can be successfully used to reinforce organizational change and client orientation.(73)
PRP's potential for distorting performance incentives is also a major difficulty. In the United Kingdom, employment service staff reported that achieving quantitative placement targets had taken priority over matching jobseekers with suitable jobs.(74) Linking pay rewards to these targets appeared to be further exacerbating the problem. Moreover, in situations where it is difficult to establish objective performance parameters, PRP may lower the morale of the public service personnel rather than improve motivation.(75)
The Nordic countries have implemented team-based performance pay with a certain degree of success; other countries have linked collectively bargained pay increases to productivity deals. As part of the tripartite Programme for Competitiveness and Work, for example, the Irish Government negotiated a deal with public servants' unions allowing for rises of up to 22 per cent in exchange for personnel accepting greater responsibility and flexibility.
In the case of sub-Saharan Africa, since independence in the l960s a system of career and remuneration development for public employees has existed, which has no special links to merit or productivity. Seniority often plays a role which international donors consider excessive in terms of budgetary resources. As noted in the ILO report to the l995 meeting:
Where real wages have fallen substantially over time, enormous pressure builds up on the government to use promotion as a way of restoring their value, regardless of the merit of the individual or the existence of a real vacancy. It can, however, be more efficient -- even if more complicated -- to revise salary scales. Where promotion becomes more or less automatic, negative effects may be observed in terms of the demotivation of workers, reduced opportunity for external recruitment, and a grading structure which is not only top-heavy but where there is a mismatch between grades, job content and responsibility on one hand, and reward on the other.(76)
This situation often arises on the African continent and several governments have recently been forced, under pressure from the Bretton Woods institutions, to modify their public service statutes with a view to increasing merit-based promotion and achieving an overall reduction in the wage bill.
The case of Benin also illustrates the difficulty of implementing a reform of the pay system within the framework of structural adjustment programmes and the stakes involved. The proposed review of the promotion and pay system applicable to state officials is part of a more global administrative reform, the main aspects of which were drawn up by the General Meeting of Public Service and Administrative Modernization in December 1994, which referred to the existence of "an administrative culture based on patronage (system of political accommodation) and not on merit". The General Meeting recommended "the development of a new administrative culture directed towards a permanent search for ways to improve individual performance (...) and the containment of the running costs of the administration".
In 1996, the Government of Benin adopted a memorandum on economic and financial policies which states that "the system of automatic promotion is not adapted to the need to increase the efficiency of the public service and is too expensive". The third structural adjustment programme (1997-99) introduced with IMF and World Bank support also makes provision for a change in the system of automatic promotion for state officials. The Ministry of the Public Service, Labour and Administrative Reform has carried out a study on the review of the automatic promotion system for permanent state officials, following consultations both inside the administration (Technical Steering Committee on Administrative Reform, National Commission on Administrative Reform) and with other parties (social partners, other countries, development partners, etc.).
A proposal for a strategy to restructure the promotion system of state officials was finally drawn up in January 1998. According to this document, the current system, whereby all state officials move up one step every two years, has resulted in "poor performance and insufficient productivity in the public administration". Seniority is therefore the essential factor conditioning promotions and increasing the wage bill, in contrast to more diversified methods used in other countries, which combine selective promotions based on the acquisition of new skills or public services rendered, general and/or categorial increases and compensation which varies according to the job rather than seniority.
In order to be viable, the system in force in Benin presupposes that state revenue will increase at a regular and adequate rhythm to compensate for the automatic increase in the wage bill, particularly since the freeze and subsequent strict limitation on recruitment in the public service in recent years have altered the age pyramid of state officials. This structural change in turn has repercussions on the wage bill and is not compensated by gains in productivity and efficiency.
The ageing of staff has led to an increase in expenditure without the State being sufficiently able to recruit younger officials or staff in lower, less well-paid categories. The growth in the wage bill noted in Benin would however seem to be almost paradoxical given the continuous reduction in the size of the workforce between 1986 and 1997. During this period, while the number of state officials fell from 41,593 to 32,298 (a drop of 22 per cent), the wage bill rose by 38 per cent, from 46 million to 63.3 million CFA francs. In spite of the substantial reduction in staff, for the reasons mentioned above the budgetary effects are seen by the Government and donors as insufficient, although there is a three-echelon time lag in the application of the promotion mechanism (in 1998 state officials were paid at the 1992 index, in accordance with a protocol agreement signed between the Government and various trade unions). Under the proposed new mechanism, the promotion of officials would be based on skills and performance. The system would include some degree of merit-based promotion and remuneration as well as a transparent appraisal system based on an annual interview. The system would be adapted to take account of specific aspects of certain sectors or jobs.
This reform, which continues to be the subject of difficult negotiations with the trade unions, would be introduced progressively. The trade unions organized a strike in March 1998 to protest against certain government proposals, and at the time of drafting this report they do not rule out further recourse to strike action. They do not reject outright the idea of some degree of merit-based remuneration and promotion, but they are concerned about the appraisal criteria used. They insist on maintaining the back-up role played by seniority-based promotion to compensate for subjective or arbitrary elements which may be involved in any marking system. The principle adopted by the Government in its draft legislation is to guarantee an annual salary increase of around 2 per cent, without prejudice to the amounts allocated each year to promotions. Furthermore, the trade unions insist that the Government should not focus exclusively on promotion machinery. They want to see efforts made to improve the working conditions of public employees and their acquisition of skills, since in their view these two factors also influence productivity.
As the above examples suggest, no automatic mechanism links pay and performance, and the same holds true for pay and HRD. Although an acceptable level of pay seems to be a prerequisite for HRD, it does not seem to be the only one.
4.2. Work organization
Human resources reform measures in the public services in industrialized countries are increasingly seeking to make more flexible use of their staff, both in terms of working time and job function. Although this can mean individual public service workers have less control over their working time and tasks, this is not necessarily always the case and the opposite can in fact be true.
Trade unions have encouraged some forms of flexibility -- particularly in respect of working time -- while resisting others. The deciding factors for them appear to be the extent to which flexibility is underpinned with security and the way in which control is shared between employees and managers. The extent to which flexibility is introduced varies from sector to sector. Those which have to rely on shift work, like the health sector, have developed a wide variety of patterns, even including annualized hours of work.
The OECD has noted that many countries are facing the challenge of reforming human resources management while managing staff reductions in response to fiscal constraints. The dominant response is to strengthen leadership capacity and equip staff to meet the challenges of the new public sector, focusing increasingly on ways to enhance staff flexibility.(77)
Belgium has listed among its priorities for public service management reform, increased flexibility in working and opening hours, development of homeworking and redistribution of working time.(78)
In Finland, the reduction of working hours, without loss of pay, has been seen as a way of protecting employment. The standard eight-hour working day has been reduced to six for some workers in exchange for working a two-shift system to enable public facilities to extend their opening hours. Productivity levels have not declined as a result of the measure.
In the Netherlands, a recent agreement on the reorganization of working time for health sector workers included choices for extending and shortening working time. In 1996, negotiations led to a two-year contract for a standard working week of 36 hours, with the corresponding creation of new jobs and options for job relocation in the case of reduced working time. With a view to achieving equality of opportunity and treatment, the Government has also concluded a sectoral agreement for public personnel departments which grants all employees who work over 18 hours per week and who have been employed for over a year, the right to take parental leave on half pay to care for children under the age of six. Employees can either take three months off entirely, work half-time for six months or three-quarters time for a year. Pension rights and medical insurance are not affected. This possibility has been taken up by more men than women, suggesting that there is a market for allowing men to work hours which enable them to play a greater parental role.
4.3. Job rotation
Job rotation provides employees with an opportunity to develop and/or refine skills and perform the duties inherent in a variety of job classifications. It also provides employees or public servants with a broader perspective through a better understanding of programmes, functions and activities.
Job rotation can be defined as the performance by an employee of a new assignment on a temporary basis for an agreed period of time. Job rotation is position-oriented, with management determining the need for a specific job to be done. An employee selected for job rotation will normally possess the requisite skills and be paid for work-out-of-class (WOC) if the assignment is in a higher salary range than that corresponding to the employee's usual classification.
Job rotations give management the opportunity to assess public servants in new roles, to determine their skills and abilities to develop in those roles, to make better use of resources and to enhance programme development. They may be inter- or intra-divisional within the public administration, may be between state agencies, or among federal, local or private organizations. Sometimes specific programme/divisional experience will be a prerequisite or the assignment will be part of an individual's career development plan.
Job rotation may attract more attention in times of structural change and transition since it offers the possibility of on-the-job training and the development of multiskilling. Staff who are rotated in this way might be easier to place in the case of restructuring and redeployment.
Several countries are according increasing priority to facilitating the lateral mobility of employees between public service agencies in order to develop their skills and experience and match them more precisely to service needs. Such schemes sometimes relate to training opportunities, for example in Finland where a strategic goal is to improve training opportunities for office staff, most of whom are women.
Other countries have applied job rotation more often at senior levels. In the Netherlands, at the top levels changes in positions and tasks are a prerequisite for promotion.(79) In Austria, Belgium, France and Greece, mobility conditions are being simplified to encourage job rotation. Denmark is said to have used job rotation as an active personnel development tool. Ireland has taken steps to lower barriers between general administrative career paths and those of professional and technical staff.
However, there is some evidence that both declining employment security and decentralization are discouraging mobility, and in Spain, according to the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA), experience indicates that excessive mobility can prove to be dangerous -- it has been observed that the need to continually change posts has led to deprofessionalization.(80) In the United Kingdom, the fragmentation of the public service pay and conditions bargaining arrangements has been blamed for undermining mobility.(81)
Job rotation and mobility also interact with HRD. On the one hand, they contribute to qualifications and training, making staff more "employable". On the other hand, training curricula have to make provision for future flexibility. This phenomenon of multiskilling may, however, contribute to a decline in competence in specialized areas or levels of the public service.
4.4. Changes in technology
A major challenge and source of potential in structural change within the public service is the use of information technology (IT) which is widely seen as an important catalyst for change offering significant benefits, particularly with regard to improving productivity and quality of service. In the same way as most Western industrialized nations, countries in East Asia and the Pacific region are investing to an increasing extent in IT as a key support for public sector management reforms. Although it is now being used to boost efficiency in various ways, evaluations of IT strategies and investments in several countries in the region have shown that they have not always proved as successful as had been hoped, revealing information technology to be a "double-edged sword". A lack of integration between IT use and organizational change and a lack of appreciation of IT as a strategic element were identified as the main obstacles to deriving more benefit from IT.
A number of prerequisites are necessary to ensure IT acts as a catalyst to improve public services. These include enhanced management, planning and control of how IT works, which means using technology to redesign and improve administrative processes, increasing research into the economic, social, legal and political implications of new IT opportunities, and assessing experiences.
Changes in technology often imply new skills and qualifications requirements. The investment required to provide such training is, however, often underestimated. Thus, even if the equipment is made available, its effectiveness can be hampered by insufficient staff training. Nevertheless, there are numerous examples of schemes that have been successfully introduced. The gap between industrialized and developing countries in the use of information technology continues to widen, however; Africa is beginning to lag behind Asia and Latin America in this respect.
The Government of Malaysia used information technology to restructure its public service and hopes that this will boost productivity. It has certainly already led to reductions in the number of support staff, especially those involved in processing paperwork, where the use of IT is reducing the need for such tasks. Support staff constitute over 85 per cent of the total number of public servants in Malaysia, thus the impact is likely to be quite severe. On the other hand, although the Government is using private contractors to help introduce and manage the new electronic administrative apparatus, it is also training some 130,000 personnel to use the new technology.
In the United States, two bills -- the Paperwork Reduction Act, 1995 and the Paperwork Elimination Act, 1997 -- were introduced to eliminate paperwork from federal Government. Indeed, the United States has been one of the most innovative users of information technology in its attempts to reinvent its Government: 24-hour city halls are becoming a reality in some counties and cities, and various services such as the update of motor vehicle registrations, the payment of traffic offence charges and employment information are now available round the clock.
The Canadian Government has also introduced a number of electronic services to serve the public. SchoolNet connects all schools, libraries, colleges and universities into a single network, pooling information and resources, offering on-line teaching and downloading of homework. Teleconferencing and e-mail networks are all available in health care services. In 1995, some 3.9 million Canadians filed their tax returns electronically and 495,000 paid electronically.
In Japan, the introduction of IT in the public services is expected to help contribute to expanding after-hours services. Automatic registration machines issuing certificates of registration have been installed in some cities. However, they are not widely used because they are only located inside city halls or public facilities, and the high start-up costs have inhibited the rapid expansion of the project.
In Europe, some countries -- for example, Denmark, Spain and Portugal -- have introduced electronic "citizens' cards". These cards contain a PIN code allowing individuals access to a range of government information and services using touch-screen kiosks. Over 7 million cards have been issued in Spain already, and by the end of the century the Government expects the whole country to be connected.
In Africa,(82) in addition to the financial investment aspect, other challenges involve convincing senior government officials of the need to integrate information technology into public service reforms, motivating managerial staff to support the introduction of the technology, avoiding compartmentalization and matching the technology with individual organizational units while keeping it compatible across units. In Kenya, as well as rationalizing the system, the computerization of personnel management and accounting systems has also had a positive effect on reducing corruption. This can, however, lead to certain groups resisting the introduction of IT, particularly in times of structural adjustment and declining employment security. In general, through better and more equitable access to information, the introduction of IT fosters participation and democratization, the flip side of which is a loss of control.
Information technology has also given rise to a range of new conflicts between public employees and their employer concerning the use of IT to monitor the workplace and the repercussions on workers' privacy. A number of court decisions in the United States "... seem to indicate that employer interests are going to be given deference, especially if the workplace continues to experience signs of dysfunctional and destructive behaviour ...".(83) A jointly agreed set of guidelines on how to handle technological surveillance may protect both the public employer and public employees against the abuse of workers' privacy.
The use of IT in training programmes is of particular relevance for human resource development. It appears that the considerable need for training and retraining in situations of structural change and transition can only be met and financed by using learning methods that cost less than classroom teaching. Distance learning is an alternative which has become very attractive with the advent of new information technologies such as the Internet. In the United States it is being increasingly used for training in public affairs and administration programmes. Surveys (84) conducted on the expansion and results of IT in distance learning for the public administration indicate that these methods are to expand further. Nevertheless, they also require resources -- particularly in the development and adaptation phase -- access and motivation, and the quality and recognition of curricula must be closely monitored.
4.5. Factors limiting human resource development: Safety and health(85)
Factors which can limit human resource development may not only derive from a lack of conducive working conditions and incentives to develop the potential and competence of public service personnel, they may also lie in the workers' safety and health conditions. The workplace environment or the interplay between the public service staff and the citizens or users of their services may also have negative consequences for HRD.
In situations of structural change and transition, when the main objective is to retain employment and income, safety and health issues are often relegated to second place. However, it is these very situations which generate anxieties, frustration and organizational difficulties, which in turn can lead to violence. In practice, violence at the workplace may include a wide range of behaviour, often of an ongoing and overlapping nature. While attention has traditionally been focused on physical violence, in more recent years evidence has been emerging of the impact and harm caused by non-physical violence which, although often referred to as psychological, can also have physical repercussions for the victim.
A survey by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) revealed that almost 70 per cent of respondents considered verbal aggression to be the leading form of violence, citing physical violence as the next most frequent form. Growing attention is also being paid to perpetuated violence involving repeated behaviour. In itself this type of violence may appear to be relatively minor, but cumulatively it can become very serious, taking the form of sexual harassment, bullying or mobbing. It is this type of behaviour which can have the most negative impact on human resource development at the workplace.
Although a single incident can suffice, sexual harassment often consists of repeated unwelcome, unreciprocated and imposed action which can have a devastating effect on the victim. Sexual harassment may include touching, remarks, looks, attitudes, jokes, the use of sexually oriented language and allusions to a person's private life.
Workplace bullying constitutes offensive behaviour through cruel, malicious or humiliating attempts to undermine an individual or groups of employees. It can take a variety of forms, some of which are easy to identify, while others are more subtle and difficult to explain.(86) They include making life difficult for those who have the potential to do the bully's job better than the bully and punishing others for being too competent by constant criticism or by removing their responsibilities, often giving them trivial tasks to do instead, overloading them with work and reducing deadlines, in the hope that they will fail at what they do. In the European Union, employees in the public administration are reported to be the most exposed to bullying of all workers (13 per cent as compared to 8 per cent of all workers on average).
In recent years mobbing has been identified as another form of systematic collective violence and has reportedly been on the increase in countries such as Australia, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. It involves ganging up on a target employee and subjecting that person to psychological harassment. Mobbing includes behaviour such as making continuous negative remarks about a person or criticizing him or her constantly, isolating a person by leaving him without social contacts, gossiping, spreading false information or ridiculing a person incessantly. The impact on a person of what might appear to be minor single actions of this type can be devastating. It has been estimated that about 10 to 15 per cent of suicides in Sweden each year are caused by mobbing.
In Switzerland, a study conducted at the Department of the Public Economy revealed that 10 per cent of the personnel considered themselves to be victims of psychological harassment. This figure rose to 19 per cent for the staff of the cantonal employment office. The persons consulted also considered the staffing of their services to be insufficient.(87)
The connection between occupational stress and violence has already been clearly established. A Finnish study on the effects of bullying on municipal workers revealed that about half of the bullied workers showed signs of common symptoms of stress. In the United States, it has been shown that the degree of violence and harassment suffered by employees has a direct impact on their stress levels.
Another aspect of violence at work is also manifesting itself in the public service. Public officials, particularly those in direct contact with the general public, are being subjected to psychological harassment and even physical violence by individuals using their services. In times of structural adjustment and transition when personnel and services are cut, citizens direct their frustration against public servants, who they perceive as the implementers rather than the victims of cost-containment measures.
In addition to the growing number of health complaints resulting from stress caused by violence at the workplace, the increasing incidence of such behaviour is also having a direct negative impact on human resource development.
4.6. Culture of the public workplace
Culture can be considered to be the totality of distinctive ideas, symbols, behaviour patterns and artefacts of a human group. The nature of each bureaucratic culture differs as a result of the historical development of each country's public administration. However, civil service systems (career versus post) and recruitment philosophies (general education versus job-related education) are generally the result of administrative tradition and philosophy, often being referred to in national constitutions, and are therefore not easily subject to change. Setting aside all conceptual differences, administrative culture might be defined as the collection of values, attitudes, opinions -- orientation patterns -- that exist within society towards the public administration. In a narrower sense, administrative culture stands for the orientation patterns which exist within the public service itself. The combination of both definitions would create a valid formula to comprehend fully the bureaucratic world from both an internal and external point of view.(88) Ethics, transparency, accountability, responsibility and attitudes towards citizens change and form part of the concept of administrative culture.
The administrative culture must be reflected by public servants in the workplace for it is they who are the "guardians" of that culture. Therefore, education and training (pre-service and in-service) in administrative culture, ethics, responsibility, accountability and general relations with citizens are essential to the culture of the workplace. A number of schools in the United States make participation in ethics courses an obligatory requirement for graduation from public administration programmes. A survey in 1996 reported a positive impact on graduates.(89) In turn, the loyalty of public service staff to these values is influenced by their working conditions and terms of employment. These linkages suggest that workplace culture also affects the way services are rendered to citizens. If public servants are allowed to participate in the design of work organization and environment and related decisions, this will tend both to boost their motivation and to have a positive impact on their exchanges with service users and the quality of the services they provide.
Many governments have taken steps to make public administrations more accessible and responsive to citizens and users, sometimes reinforcing training with performance management and rewards. One common approach is the use of name badges so that members of the public are not confronted with anonymous public officials. Many organizations have instituted standards for such details as how many times a telephone should be allowed to ring before being answered. Other approaches include the use of open-plan offices and the removal of barriers separating workers from users. Some of these initiatives have made employees feel threatened and concerned for their personal security, especially in services in which public contact can involve disappointing users and disagreements, such as in social security and other social services.
However, workers do not necessarily resent being more visible, even if it is more challenging. In the German municipality of Hagen, a survey was conducted of workers after a one-stop shop providing 35 administrative services such as passport renewal, bus ticket sales and the issuing of licences was reorganized into an open-plan office. When asked their opinions about the new arrangements, some used expressions such as "fishbowl" and "zoo" to describe how exposed to their customers they now felt. However, they also reported more positive feedback from users, which enhanced their job satisfaction and sense of pride in their service, and none wanted to go back to being physically separated from users.
In Argentina, an initiative led by the Unión del Personal Civil de la Nación produced a cooperative venture with political leaders and management in the Province of Santa Fe to reinvent the administration for the twenty-first century -- in the words of union literature. The union believed that it was everyone's duty, and also everyone's right, to contribute to the new design. Characteristic of the "responsive state" at which these reforms aim is one in which, within a given legal framework, administrators are free to take initiatives.
4.7. Social recognition
Social recognition in the public service has to be considered under two headings, both of which are of relevance for HRD, particularly in situations of structural change and transition: the social standing of the profession of public servant and the level of self-esteem the official derives from his work. After long periods of considerable social recognition for their profession, in times of economic decline public servants are often considered to be too privileged. As the public service is not only the object but also the subject of structural adjustment, the population often sees public servants as implementers of cost-containment measures and therefore holds them responsible. Consequently, officials are exposed to harassment and sometimes violence which may make it more difficult to attract or retain qualified personnel in the public service who have other professional opportunities.
Citizens often maintain that the public service is already too big, is continuing to grow and should be reduced in size. This perception sometimes stems from a misunderstanding of the realities of public administration. The Japanese public, for example, is often critical of the level of services they receive. One reason for this dissatisfaction in the region is a lack of quantitative evidence of public service efficiency and productivity. Performance in the public service can be measured by such indirect criteria as the timely delivery of appropriate resources, but it is obvious that this type of yardstick cannot compete with the visible standards of the private sector.
The level of self-esteem public servants derive from their work is a major element in increasing job satisfaction and with it HRD and quality services. Changes in work practices can affect employees' self-esteem, as demonstrated by conflicting examples of the effects of contracting out on officials seen in Sweden and the United Kingdom. Describing the case of a small municipality that contracted out several technical services, including road maintenance, water supply and property management, a Swedish union official said the company that won the contract took on about 120 of the staff previously employed by the local authority. She observed that follow-up and assessment exercises conducted three years later revealed that the tasks previously carried out by the technical management division were being carried out equally well by the contractors at lower cost and using a more efficient decision-making process. The staff said that their duties had become more interesting, that they had greater decision-making responsibilities, that they enjoyed their work more, that they were better paid and that channels for the transmission of decisions were shorter. The only negative aspect was less job security in the event of shortage of work than when they were employed by the local authority.
This account contrasts sharply with that of a school janitor and union representative responsible for cleaning staff in the Strathclyde region of Scotland. They observed that once the work had been contracted out the cleaners would be reduced to tears if they were unable to finish it in time, yet had to satisfy themselves with very poor wages. They were expected to complete the work in 15 hours instead of the previously allocated 25, and their working year was cut from 52 to 42 weeks, meaning no thorough cleaning was performed during school holidays. Although they took pride in their work, it was impossible for them to complete it in time.
In the Danish county of Frederiksborg, unions led an initiative, undertaken jointly with management, whereby hospital ancillary workers were reorganized into flexible teams. While this greatly raised the status of some staff, others felt that their relative status had been diminished. This reorganization, which raised certain gender issues, is reported in more detail in section 5.3 which discusses equal opportunities and treatment.
4.8. Decentralization
The concept of decentralization is widespread and has now penetrated into areas where even its greatest advocates would hardly have believed it stood a chance. Even military strategists have discovered that centralized leadership is counter-productive because the final decisions are always made in restricted areas that can only be controlled on a decentralized basis.(90) In the context of the workplace, decentralization refers to the extent and form of intra-organizational responsibilities and autonomy.
Intra-organizational decentralization as an important element of New Public Management has been achieved to a large extent in German local government. Two fundamental decisions have been instrumental in this regard:
The separation of policy from public management is intended to increase the margin of creativity and flexibility of both policy-makers and management. The city council should shape policy, define the principal tasks to be performed by the city administration and the expected results, and allocate the respective budget. All detailed decisions should be the responsibility of the administration.
The combining of executive and financial responsibilities spells an end to the old system, criticized as "institutionalized irresponsibility". On the basis of a global budget, defined objectives and results, departments are able to manage their responsibilities while the policy supervisory body oversees administrative and financial output.(91) A flexible system has replaced the traditional detailed planning of revenue and expenditure for individual departments and budgetary items. The city treasurer plans only global budgetary figures and prescribes these figures as lump sums within a limited margin to the various departments in the city administration, which are free to allocate the funds -- as long as they respect the budgetary framework -- according to their tasks and needs. They must regularly report on the status of goals set to senior management on the basis of defined performance indicators. Cities such as Cologne, Nuremberg and Munich have long been practising this system.(92)
It is important to bear in mind, however, that decentralization must be built on sound local authorities or regions. If local administration is not yet firmly established, decentralization may run the risk of remaining a political issue. Therefore, careful consideration should be given to whether the local authority is sufficiently well established to take on the requisite management decisions and responsibility.
Decentralization can also lead to changes and greater flexibility in public employment management and pay. The new decentralized system involves the risk of jeopardizing the government's goal of a homogenous pay policy and the goal of pay parity aspired to by public officials and their unions.
In many countries, the emphasis is shifting from strict controls to more flexible guidelines and basic standards that must be observed. At the same time, efforts are being made to develop a more strategic role for central management bodies. This is well illustrated in Australia, where a central human resource management framework has been created that defines general principles under which agencies determine appropriate action in a devolved management environment.
In Spain, in March 1997, the Government introduced a new law aimed at simplifying the complex regulations on the public administration by gathering them into one. The law, intended to facilitate better service to citizens, higher service quality and more transparency, is seen as the most important reform of the administration for many years and takes Spain even further along the road towards decentralization in favour of the Autonomous Communities (of which there are 17 in Spain, subdivided up into provinces). Under the new legislation, government delegates in the provinces are directly appointed by the government representative of the Autonomous Communities rather than, as before, being appointed by the central Government.
Some features of the devolution of human resource management are common to many countries. Devolved budgetary frameworks with single running-cost appropriations have provided an essential basis for relaxing central controls over key aspects such as staff numbers, classification and grading, and pay. In Australia and New Zealand pay determination has been devolved to a significant extent and an overall limit is applied to pay expenditure (see section 5.1 below).
In countries that have devolved human resource management, the balance between control and flexibility is still being struck. There are areas where central bodies are clearly unwilling to relinquish control completely. This applies particularly to public service pay, where devolved bargaining is usually combined with mechanisms for ensuring adherence to budgetary limits. Although the use of performance management techniques, especially performance review and appraisal, is spreading in many countries, links between individual goal setting and performance review and organizational performance planning and targets are especially weak.
Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom are among the countries which have gone a long way towards decentralizing aspects of pay determination. According to the OECD, those which have implemented the fewest reforms in this respect are Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
The reforms have led to radical changes in the industrial relations systems in these countries. Because governments clearly remain reluctant to devolve all pay setting to decentralized tiers, centralized collective bargaining and unilateral pay setting still play a key role. However, there is an increasing trend towards the use of a two-tier bargaining system. Under such a system, the central tier fixes across-the-board pay rises or the total pay bill, while the decentralized tier distributes productivity gains, organizes the promotion and regrading process, and rewards individual or group performance.
An OECD study notes that the combination of decentralization and flexibility is often expected to result in sharper responses by management to diverse labour market conditions and to boost internal efficiency. However, research suggests that the combination can also undermine governmental financial controls. In the final analysis, it would seem that changes in public employment management methods and the introduction of pay flexibility and differentiation carry a risk of jeopardizing the governmental goal of curbing public sector wage costs because the decentralization of pay determination may lessen central government control over the pay bill.
Conversely, by prioritizing containment of the overall pay bill, governments can undermine the effectiveness of pay system reforms, as analysis of national administrations by the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) has suggested.
Pay systems in public administration should perform several important functions. They should attract a sufficient number of employees with the necessary qualifications and skills to perform the tasks needed by an efficient public administration. Their structure and dynamics should enable the public administration to retain such persons and motivate them to work efficiently. One additional and important objective is to maintain or achieve pay comparability or parity with the private sector. If properly realized, this should ensure that the public administration can compete with the private sector with respect to personnel, something which in reality, at least for top public servants, is very often not the case. In most member States, the private sector pays much more for top managers than the public sector, meaning that it is becoming increasingly difficult for member States to keep top public servants in the public service.(93)
By their very nature, reforms of this sort are typically the product of decentralized bargaining, albeit against a background of central framework agreements. In Australia, for example, while pay determination remains centralized, operational bodies have authority to vary employment conditions. Many agencies, government business enterprises and statutory authorities have taken advantage of this situation to negotiate changes in leave (including family, bereavement and carer's leave), hours of work (including flexitime, greater use of part-time employment and homeworking), overtime and training arrangements, productivity deals and quality service programmes.
In the light of HRD, decentralization may facilitate systems of incentives designed for different public service agencies and units. The rewards could be tailor-made for the specific situation and thus contribute more fully to improving quality. This would also facilitate monitoring, evaluation and performance appraisal processes.
4.9. Working conditions and corruption
In many countries job security is virtually guaranteed under the public service career system as long as the employee observes work ethics and regulations such as devotion to duty, obedience to supervisors' orders and avoidance of political and private business involvement. The right of appeal and to express grievances guarantees equitable treatment of employees.
Economic and social development are often stigmatized by systemic bureaucratic corruption -- the institutionalized abuse of public resources by public servants. Although it has long remained a taboo subject, corruption is a crucial issue throughout the world. To some extent all governments have made attempts to control or combat corruption. Virtually all heads of government denounce corruption and call for laws to control it. Yet, with few exceptions, these laws are flouted or selectively enforced. The need to fight corruption was stressed by the heads of the IMF and the World Bank at their annual meetings in 1996. Also the regional development banks underscored the need for good governance which includes the eradication of corruption. In November 1997, OECD member States signed a new international convention making it an offence to corrupt officials in pursuit of business.(94) Although it did not include quantifiable sanctions or a means of enforcement, it nevertheless represented the first joint effort to curb widespread corruption in relation to international contracts. National governments throughout the world joined international organizations in placing emphasis on this goal.
There is no single definition for corruption. It varies from region to region and remains largely contextual. In China, for example, the term corruption generally refers to all types of irregularities and connotes bribery, extortion, expropriation of public money, favouritism, nepotism and functionalism.
Administrative corruption may benefit a select few, but the general effect on society's productivity is, of course, negative. Studies in Asian countries reveal that as a result of corrupt procurement practices, governments in developing countries end up paying 20 to 30 per cent more than they would otherwise have to.
The New York Times reported in December 1992: "After years of effort to transfer government work to private contractors, the White House acknowledged today that contractors were squandering vast sums because federal agencies failed to supervise how hundreds of billions of dollars were spent each year".(95) The White House admission had been forced upon it by a report prepared following an investigation for the United States Office of Management and Budget. It described how private companies had been paid for unauthorized and, at times, illegal expenses, including tickets to sporting events, lavish cruises and excessive salaries for executives.
The auditors said that even as the Government vastly expanded its use of private contractors to assume duties as basic as writing congressional testimony for cabinet officers and as far-reaching as cleaning up widespread environmental contamination produced by the military, the Reagan and Bush Administrations tried to save money by cutting the staff of the federal offices that supervise contracts. Public sector unions in the United States have highlighted countless examples showing how corruption has been an endemic feature of contracting out at both state and local levels.(96)
In addition to the context of privatization, there are also problematic ethical issues associated with performance appraisal. It is generally agreed that under conditions of increasing decentralization and management focus, administrators find themselves in an area of tension between probity, efficiency and effectiveness, and are confronted with the increasing pressure of ethical issues and the question of to whom they are accountable and for what.(97)
Some countries have sought to overcome this problem through rigorous accountability procedures. In New Zealand, for example, the development of new means of accountability has been one of the country's most conspicuous and important contributions to public management. The accountability relationship of purchasers and providers has stimulated the invention of new ways of contracting for work and assessing performance. This relationship can be labelled, with only slight exaggeration, as accountability by specification. No other country has accomplished what New Zealand has in building accountability into the framework of government.(98)
The changing environment is in turn changing the ethical challenges facing public service managers. They are subject to greater public scrutiny and increased demands from citizens, yet they are also facing stricter limits on resources. They are having to assume new functions and responsibilities as a result of devolution and greater managerial discretion, increased commercialization of the public sector, a changing public/private sector interface and changing accountability arrangements. In short, they are having to adopt new ways of carrying out the business of government.
While public management reforms have achieved considerable returns in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, some of the adjustments may have had an unintended impact on ethics and standards of conduct. This is not to suggest that changes have caused an increase in misconduct or unethical behaviour. But they may place public servants in situations involving conflicts of interest or objectives where there are few guidelines as to how they should act. There may indeed be a growing mismatch between the traditional values and systems governing the behaviour of public servants and the roles they are expected to fulfil in a changing public sector environment.(99)
The OECD also points to an additional set of concerns by asking whether it is fair to impose conflict-of-interest post-employment restrictions on employees who have lost their jobs in the process of downsizing. What happens if groups of employees leaving the public sector -- a real probability in cases where governments have decided to privatize or contract out whole service areas or functions -- decide to set up a company and compete for public sector contracts? Does their "inside information" put them at an advantage vis-à-vis private sector competitors? (See also Chapter 6 below.)
What these tensions imply is that resolving the conflict between traditional systems of control and new management systems requires new approaches to ethics, training and career development programmes. An EIPA study notes that a modern civil servant working alone or in a team, who is in close contact with political leaders and takes important decisions by himself needs a disciplinary system in keeping with his new situation. France is therefore currently working on changing its disciplinarian system to a genuine system of professional ethics for public servants. From this point of view, public servants are becoming more the subject of professional ethics rather than discipline.(100)
In developing and less developed countries, one common form of corruption is that seen, for example, in the Solomon Islands, where press accounts stated that government funds were misappropriated by public servants to the tune of US$10 million spent on non-existent projects. The ministries involved included finance (where 13 officials were disciplined in connection with the scandal), forestry and environment, provincial government, education and health.
In some countries, public service workers have taken militant action to combat corruption. In 1996, public servants went on strike in Madagascar to protest against corruption. An example of government action taken to stamp out corruption has been Malaysia's support for whistle- blowers among public servants and the general public, while in India the Government has taken preventive action by raising salaries at the same time as threatening stern action against corrupt practices.
The World Bank has suggested that corruption and moonlighting could be reduced by paying public servants more. However, a recent IMF study concluded that the scale of the increases required would be greater than the benefits. For a number of countries, the relative wage was calculated to ensure the lowest score on the "corruption index". Scores ranged from 2.81 to 7.08, but excluded the indirect effect of wages on other independent variables.(101)
Although the statistical value of such calculations is at times questioned, the negative impact of corruption on investment and economic growth is in itself unquestionable.(102) To promote HRD in the public service it is imperative to highlight the links between pay, performance monitoring and appraisal, workplace culture, ethics and corruption. When the interplay between these factors is identified and monitored, human resource potential can be developed. Structural adjustment and transition must balance these factors to produce the desired results.
56. H. Hack: "Reformmodell Kommunalverwaltung: Perspektiven für Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter", in KGSt-Info (1996), p. 141.
57. For issues regarding social protection see ILO: Impact of structural adjustment in the public services ... , op. cit., p. 38.
58. ibid., p. 42
59. I. Lienert, op. cit., p. 43.
60. World Bank: World Development Report 1997, op. cit., p. 95.
61. World Development Report 1997, op. cit., p. 94.
62. World Development Report 1997, op. cit., pp. 94-95.
63. World Development Report 1997, op. cit., p. 95.
64. Reported by Reuters News Service, 1997.
65. Lienert, op. cit., pp. 42-44.
66. Background paper on Caribbean Local Government prepared by the regional International Development Research Centre/Caribbean Centre for Development Administration for the Commonwealth Local Government Forum Conference on Management of Local Government Reforms, Accra, Ghana, 16-20 July 1996, p. 3.
67. R. Klitgaard, op. cit.
68. P. Räsänen: Interests, action and trust relations: Workplace relations at the transforming municipal sector (University of Tampere), undated.
69. OECD: Performance pay schemes for public sector managers: An evaluation of the impacts (Paris, 1997), p. 7.
70. The Australian, 26 Nov. 1996.
71. OECD: Issues and developments in public management: Survey 1996-1997, op. cit., p. 106.
72. The Independent (London), 8 Feb. 1998, p. 1.
73. M. Armstrong: "How group efforts can pay dividends", in People Management (London), 25 Jan. 1996, pp. 22-27.
74. The Guardian (London), 16 Apr. 1997, p. 1.
75. S. Bach: "Restructuring and privatization of health care services: Selected cases in western Europe", in G. Ullrich (ed.): Labour and social dimensions of privatization and restructuring: Health care services (Geneva, ILO, 1998), pp. 81-84.
76. ILO: Impact of structural adjustment in the public services ... , op. cit., p. 43.
77. OECD: Issues and developments in public management: Survey 1996-1997, op. cit., p. 81.
78. ibid., p. 99.
79. A. Auer, C. Demmke and R. Polet: Civil services in the Europe of Fifteen: Current situation and prospects (Maastricht, EIPA, 1996), p. 52.
80. ibid., p. 53.
81. IMPS: Civil service 2000, op. cit., p. 49.
82. S.B. Peterson, op. cit., pp. 37-60.
83. D.A. Cozzetto and T.B. Pedeliski: "Privacy and the workplace: Technology and public employment", in Public Personnel Management (London, Sage, Winter 1997), Vol. 26, No. 4, p. 524.
84. D. Rahm and B.J. Reed, "Going remote -- The use of distance learning, the World Wide Web and the Internet in graduate programs of public affairs and administration", in Public Productivity & Management Review (San Francisco), Vol. 20, No. 4, June 1997, pp. 459-474.
85. This section draws mainly on D. Chappell and V. di Martino: Violence at work (Geneva, ILO, 1998), pp. 9-14.
86. UNISON: Guidelines for branches, stewards and safety representatives. The list complied by the British public service union UNISON describes the various forms of behaviour involved and recommends safety guidelines to bring such attitudes into the open and to develop together with management a clear policy in order to eradicate bullying at its roots. Its guidelines include a draft agreement for the prevention of bullying at work.
87. Tribune de Genève (Geneva), 12 May 1998, p. 26.
88. F. Thedieck: Verwaltungskultur in Frankreich und Deutschland (Baden-Baden, 1992), p. 53.
89. D.C. Menzel: "Teaching ethics and values in public administration: Are we making a difference?", in Public Administration Review (Washington), May/June 1997, Vol. 57, No. 3, pp. 224-230.
90. H.H. Mey: "Die Militärstrategische Nutzung Technologischer Innovationen", in Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zurich), 28 Aug. 1997, p. 5.
91. F. Thedieck: "Verwaltungsmodernisierung und Zusammenarbeit", in Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit (Frankfurt, 1995), p. 199.
92. C. Reichard: "Neues Steuerungsmodell: Local Reform in Germany", in W.J.M. Kickert: Public management and administrative reform in Western Europe (Cheltenham and Lyme), 1997, p. 61.
93. A. Auer, C. Demmke and R. Polet, op. cit., p. 91.
94. R. Graham: "Anti-bribes convention signed", in Financial Times (London), 18 Dec. 1997.
95. K. Schneider: "US cites waste in its contracts", in The New York Times (New York), 2 Dec. 1992.
96. See in particular AFSCME: Passing the bucks: The contracting out of public services (Washington, DC, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), 1983) and AFL-CIO: America: Not for sale (Washington, DC, AFL-CIO Public Employee Department, 1989).
97. N. Flynn and F. Strehl (eds.): Public sector management in Europe (Hertfordshire, Prentice Hall, 1996), p. 266.
98. A. Schick: The spirit of reform: Managing the New Zealand state sector in a time of change (Wellington, State Services Commission, 1996), p. 84.
99. OECD: Ethics in the public service, op. cit., p. 7.
100. A. Auer, C. Demmke and R. Polet, op. cit., p. 112.
101. C. Van Rijckeghem and B. Weder: Corruption and the rate of temptation: Do low wages in the public service cause corruption (Washington, IMF, 1997), IMF Working Paper WP/97/73, p. 406.
102. R. Klitgaard, op. cit., pp. 491-495.
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