Reforms In The Local Government Service – My Thoughts Part Two

This is the second of an article on the above subject matter intended to challenge the current system and provoke some discussions for deeper reforms in the local government administration for improved service delivery in this country.

In the first article I tried explaining that there is something fundamentally wrong with the framework in which we are operating currently. I explained, with examples, how we have given power and authority to one person and then turn around to hold different people accountable when things go wrong. This second part will focus on the second reason why I think the newest service of the Ghana Public Services is doing very little to secure the effective administration and management of local government in this country – Out-of-touch Schemes of Service.

A scheme of service is essentially a written document that provides for a well-defined career structure with clearly defined job descriptions and specifications. It also provides standards for recruitment, training and advancement within a career structure. The merits of a good scheme of service cannot be underestimated. A good scheme of service:

1. Ensures the attraction, motivation and retention of suitable qualified staff;
2. Ensures proper deployment and utilisation of staff;
3. Ensures proper career planning and succession management;
4. Helps to maintain professional standards;
5. Ensures uniform standards, procedures and quality of work;
6. Serves as an effective communication tool that enables staff to know what is expected of them, where their jobs fit within the organisation and the basis upon which their performance will be evaluated;
7. Serves as a management tool for holding individual staff accountable;
8. Serves a management tool for reducing inertia; and
9. Reduces conflicts that are likely to arise from duties and responsibilities.

As per the guidelines of the Public Services Commission issued in 2010, a scheme of service should include but not limited to the following: all grades in an occupational grouping; salary or salary scale attached to each grade; the aims, objectives and goals for each occupational group; specific management tasks falling within each occupational group; responsibilities of each grade; trainings required; clearly spelt out day-to-day duties for all grades; entry requirements; career progression; and organisational and staff development procedures.

The schemes of service for the local government service as it stands today is a classical example of what I talked about in the first article – that we are just picking and applying the principles and practice of the new forms of Public Administration (i.e. New Public Management and New Public Service) and imposing them on a structure or framework that is based on the old or classical models of public administration. Not only are the duties and responsibilities of most of the grades in the service mediocre and unchallenging but they are not clearly delineated thus encouraging inertia and laziness and are difficult to measure or evaluate. It was therefore not surprising that in a recent human resource audit by the Public Service Commission, staff of the service were found wanting in filling several parts of the questionnaire provided for the audit. Why? Because the questionnaire was designed with the principles and practices of Human Resource Management in mind but our scheme of service with its job descriptions and specifications and career structures are still based on Personnel Management which is a trait of the classical models of Public Administration. And you cannot blame the consultant for this because s/he has heard that we have Human Resource Management units (and not personnel management unit as in Traditional Public Administration); s/he has heard that we are signing performance contracts (and not staff appraisal reporting); s/he has heard that we have service charters/service delivery standards etc. Little did s/he know that the fundamental structure and thinking of the system is yet to change to suit these noble principles.

In the Public Services Commission guidelines for the preparation of schemes of service for the public services, section 4.5 with the heading “Duties” says “The DUTIES attached to each grade should be CLEARLY SPELT OUT and should be DETAILED and RELEVANT to the grade level”. It goes ahead to say that duties refers to the specific work or tasks or activities assigned to a person on a DAY-TO-DAY basis. The scheme of service for the Local Government Service, for me, has woefully failed to meet this criterion. For instance, the first grade in the professional administrative class in the service is what is called Assistant Director IIB and the minimum qualification to enter this grade is a bachelors Degree. The job summary (duties) of this grade is spelt out in the scheme of service as follows:

1. Collects and analyzes data (report writing);
2. Ensures the development of the capabilities, skills and knowledge of staff;
3. Appraises direct reports; and
4. Undertakes any other tasks that may be assigned.

Then after 4 years of service and probably trained in Local Government Administration, Public Sector Communication Skills, Records Management, Public Sector Management, Legal Regulations and Basic Budgeting Processes as specified by the scheme of Service and passing a promotion interview, one is promoted to the next grade - Assistant Director IIA. And this is also the job summary:

1. Conducts preliminary examination and analysis of issues and makes suggestions and recommendations;
2. Drafts Speeches, minutes, writing Reports, and correspondence;
3. Ensures the development of the capabilities, skills and knowledge of staff;
4. Appraises direct reports; and
5. Undertakes any other tasks that may be assigned.

Many worrying questions come to mind when I look this duties:

1. How detailed and specific are these duties?
2. How clearly spelt out are these duties?
3. Are these the duties that are performed on a day-to-day basis in the MMDAs?
4. And really, these are the duties we employ degree holders to perform? i.e report writing, minutes taking, correspondence writing etc. God save us!

One thing that experience has taught me is that in designing duties for grades in an organisation, you must as much as possible avoid overlapping roles but ensure that the roles complement each other going up the ladder in a particular job class with increasing responsibility and authority. Duties must be clearly delineated. This is lacking in the scheme of service for the Local Government Service as you can see from the examples above.

In as far back as 2007, when Kenya’s Ministry of State for Public Services decided to revised the scheme of service for Administrative Officers, this is what they stated as one of the objectives: “To provide for CLEARLY DEFINED JOB DESCRIPTIONS and SPECIFICATIONS with CLEAR DELINEATION OF DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES at all levels within the career structure, ...” So you look at the duties for the first grade in their Administrative class (minimum qualification is also bachelors degree) and you see that that person is responsible for something and his/her duties are clearly spelt out – General office administration, assets management, planning and maintaining security, overseeing implementation of development projects etc. And this is completely different from the duties of the next grade. Can someone tell me if this person in Kenya can perform these duties without analysing data, writing reports, minutes and correspondences etc as we have ask our degree holders to do in Ghana as per our scheme of service? That is what Kenya did in 2007.

In 2014, when the opportunity came for the Local Government Service of Ghana to revise its scheme of service, we deleted some of the duties from certain classes (I guess it was for re-alignment since new classes were introduced into the service recently) and added the following to almost all grades in the service:

• Ensures the development of the capabilities, skills and knowledge of staff;
• Appraises direct reports; and
• Undertakes any other tasks that may be assigned.

So if you take away these three (3) which are duties for almost every grade in the service, you will see what the service is asking a bachelors degree holder to do. Mediocrity at its best! Don’t get me wrong; there are several and varied duties and responsibilities that the Administrative Officer or any other officer in service performs or can be made to perform to make the MMDAs more effective which are not listed. With the way the scheme of service is structured, you only get to perform those functions if you can practise sycophancy and hypocrisy or show a certain rich experience in the job that you cannot easily be ignored. All these, from the experience I have in the service, also depend on who is the District Coordinating Director. I hear someone say, the MMDAs have schedule of duties! Yes, I know but those schedule of duties is still at the mercy of the District Coordinating Director. Again, in the recent Human Resource Audit by the Public Services Commission, the consultants were asked to refer to the Scheme of Service and not schedule of duties which are localised. Schedule of duties, in my opinion, should complement the scheme of service by taking into consideration the local needs of the MMDAs and not serve as a substitute.

The first two (2) of these additions to the scheme of service in 2014 for me are not only confusing but problematic! First of all, I honestly do not understand what it means to say “Appraises direct reports” in the context of our duties in the service and I will be happy if someone can explain it to me. Secondly, “Ensures the development of the capabilities, skills and knowledge of staff” suggests some mentoring of subordinates; I stand to be corrected though and it goes without saying that every staff of the service either consciously or unconsciously mentors his/her subordinates and I don’t think it should necessarily be stated as a job task of someone. It is just like stating “going to the office every working day” as a duty of a staff. If it also has to do with general capacity developments of staff, then that should be a function of the Human Resource Management Unit and not almost everybody as the scheme of service captures.

Let me now try to drum home the point why we need a well-written scheme of service. In the service today, many officers perform duties based on a daily or periodic instructions issued by their superiors because of this out-of-touch scheme of service. Such is the sorry state of many staff in the Local Government Service today who go to the office daily, sit in the office, do virtually nothing and come back home not because there is nothing to do but because you are not allowed to function. And instead of a scheme of service making it possible for you to insist on functioning in the system, it worsens the case by failing to state clearly and in detail the specific duties and responsibilities of staff and leaves everything in the hands of an individual or two to determine to once fate by poorly stating one or two non-specific tasks and quickly concludes with “Undertakes any other tasks that may be assigned”. This is what encourages “Job leff, chop leff”, a jargon in the service meaning because there is likely to be some benefit (cash or in-kind) attached to an assignment, a few people will hijack the work whether it is in their line of duty or not and the rightful people sidelined because your presence may widen the net and water down the benefits, as it is usually put. As a result of this, you can have an internal auditor doing procurement or a planning or budget officer or finance officer carrying out protocol duties in many MMDAs or even Engineers doing Human Resource Managers work as in the case of the Local Government Service Secretariat in the just recent past months.

Clear delineation of duties and responsibilities – This is another area of great concern. As state above if duties and responsibilities are clearly delineated, not only will it help avoid conflicts (because “Obiara b3 di ne lane mu” or “Obiara b3 di ne fie asem” as we put it in Twi) but it will also help reduce inaction and make people more accountable for their tasks in the organisation. This is not the case for the scheme of service for the Local Government Service. Apart from the two (2) tasks I quoted above which have been repeated for almost every grade, there are many overlapping and sometimes same roles for different grades either in the same occupational class or different classes. For instance, an Assistant Development Planning Officer is to “Ensures compliance with official guidelines in implementation of development programmes” and a Senior Development Planning Officer is to “Coordinates programmes and ensures they are consistent with official policy directives”. How different are these and is compliance to official guidelines and policies not more of an internal audit function than development planning? Again, whiles an Assistant Director IIB “Collect and analyze data (report writing)” a Chief Executive Officer also “Collect and analyze routine data”. Also, an Assistant Chief Executive Officer “Takes minutes at meetings and writes reports”. Same as Assistant Director IIA!

With these palpable defects, how can someone tell me the the Local Government Service is securing effective administration and management of local government in this country? No wonder many are saying the local government system is being destroyed. For me, I have stopped the silent and continuous lamentation. Time to act and I will not shut up or relent until something concrete is done to salvage the local government service not only from being destroyed but ridiculed. Watch out for a very comprehensive press briefing on these vexed matters very soon. It is a constitutional and above all heavenly duty to which I have committed myself to perform till the last breath is taken out of me.

I shall surely be back!
Charles A. Akurugu
[email protected]