Madam, – Richard Bruton’s proposed reforms of the civil service do not sound promising (Front page, October 22nd). At the heart of his proposals is the establishment of yet another department – is not the civil service big enough as it is?
I would urge Mr Bruton to get his hands on the works of Max Weber, the man who coined the term “bureaucracy” or, if that’s too heavyweight a task, skim through a little volume called Parkinson’s Law. The civil service is designed to grow. The reward structure is such that you are judged by the size of your budget and department. This culture needs to be changed and the distribution of work needs to be reviewed. For instance, if five people are involved in a task that has five steps, each civil servant becomes expert in one of these steps. When one of these people is out sick or on vacation, everything comes to complete halt. If all five could carry out the whole five steps, then productivity would only be down by 20 per cent. This is why there are waiting lists all over the place.
While I applaud Mr Bruton’s intentions, his plans do not address the core issues with the bureaucratic structure. I would suggest the reward structure needs looking at – civil servants are not punished when they make mistakes, but they are not recognised when they do something exceptional – as well as the bizarre work practices. – Yours, etc,