Civil service reform

Page contents

• Introduction
• Latest additions to this topic guide

Introduction

Civil Service Reform (CSR) refers to interventions that affect the organisation, performance and working conditions of employees paid from central, provincial or state government budgets. Since an initial phase of institution building and training programmes following decolonisation, CSR has gone through 3 major stages. The first began in the 1980's, following the structural adjustment programmes supported by the IMF and the World Bank, and focused on 'cutting down to size'. The second stage began in the 1990's and presented a broader range of reforms aimed at 'building up', for example, performance assessment, monitoring, transparency, benchmarking, decentralisation, regulation and sound financial management. The third (and current) phase is more concerned with the political context in which reform is attempted. 

This topic guide outlines the issues currently facing reform efforts and introduces the key technical aspects of CSR. It was prepared by Tom Hewitt and updated by Erika Fraser in June 2009. Comments, questions or documents for consideration should be sent to Huma Haider.

Latest additions

• Webb, S. et al, 2008, ‘CSA Reform Design' in Public Sector Reform: What Works and Why?’ (pp 52-57), World Bank, Washington DC (Document summary available shortly)
• Witesman, E. M. and Wise, C. R. , 2009 ‘The Centralization/Decentralization Paradox in Civil Service Reform: How Government Structure Affects Democratic Training of Civil Servants’, Public Administration Review, Volume 69, Number 1, pp. 116-127 (Document summary available shortly)
• Leonard, D.K., 2008, ‘Where Are ‘Pockets’ of Effective Agencies Likely in Weak Governance States and Why? A Propositional Inventory’, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton (Document summary available shortly)
• Amundsen, I., 2009, ‘Introduction to Public Sector Ethics’, Chr. Michelsen Institute, Bergen (Document summary available shortly)
• Antwi, K.B et al., 2008, ‘Public Sector Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa: What Can be Learnt from the Civil Service Performance Improvement Programme in Ghana?’, Public Administration and Development, Volume 28, pp. 253-264 (Document summary available shortly)
• Iyer, L. and A. Mani (2008) Travelling agents: political change and bureaucratic turnover in India, Harvard Business School (Document summary available shortly)

New additions