TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen has said that senior public servants should be given greater autonomy to take managed risks and to experiment. However, in return they would have to face greater accountability.
Speaking after an address to the national conference of the Institute of Public Administration yesterday, Mr Cowen said one of the key factors in developing leadership was delegation.
“For the future, we have to find a flexible way of working. We have to make sure that people have more discretion, that they have the discretion to operate to provide good services for the public on the ground.
“The deal there is that, with a bit more discretion will come more accountability. I think we should work forward in a positive way. The whole idea is not to stall reform. It is to encourage innovation, to encourage risk-taking, manage risk, to try new things and not to feel that it is all about compliance only with existing procedures where people have to fit into the boxes, regardless of whether people’s requirements are being met or not.”
Asked if officials would face possible sanctions for their actions as part of this greater accountability, he said everyone faced sanctions in one way or another.
“It is about developing a performance culture and that is right through all parts of the service, including the political system.”
In his speech, Mr Cowen said: “We are not interested in compliance alone; we want to encourage creativity and innovation. This means that we must allow managers appropriate degrees of discretion. We must allow them to take managed risks and to experiment.
“Of course, the corollary to such autonomy is that we must hold people to account for their use of resources and the results they achieve, and we need suitable measures and indicators if we are to take this approach. We need to shift our focus so that, instead of looking just at inputs or the processes and procedures used by organisations, we look at their outputs and, particularly, at the outcomes they achieve.”
He said if the country was to embark on more modernisation, then stronger leadership and support for change would be needed.
He said to develop such leadership and to reinforce public-service values, identity and ethos, the OECD had recently proposed the establishment of a new Senior Public Service. This would effectively identify potential leaders and give them broader experience across a range of areas.
The secretary general to the Government, Dermot McCarthy, said management and unions faced a challenge in the next phase of reform in dealing with underperformance by some staff.
Internal public service surveys had shown that one of the sources of greatest frustration was the tolerance of underperformance.
“The vast majority who carry the effects of the lack of performance by others are the most vocal in terms of naming this as an issue.”