A DOCUMENT produced by nine very senior civil servants was never likely to be a model of clarity and lucidity, and Delivering Better Government compares poorly with the Mitchell report in those respects.
However, given the culture of caution among civil servants and the glacial rate of change over the decades, it was inevitable the necessary reforms would not be spelt out in unduly stark terms.
Reading the document one gets the sense of a great and unwieldy apparatus being shifted ever so gently to face in a new direction. As one of those involved put it, the initial need was to create a culture in which changes could be contemplated rather than to outline those changes in a peremptory manner.
Longtime observers tend to be sceptical governments favour modernisation of the public service in the same way that they are for motherhood and apple pie, and if you can cultivate the image of the cool, clean reformer, so much the better.
If it is possible to summarise the new ethos outlined in Delivering Better Government it is this to bring the atmosphere and vibrancy of a successful private company into the public service.
Easier said than done people do not tend to become civil servants because they like taking risks. Safe, secure, pensionable jobs do not attract buccaneering entrepreneurs. Are the Eight Wise Men and One Wise Woman trying to square the circle? Have they never heard of Mikhail Gorbachev?
The most subtle but in some ways most fundamental difference between this document and one that might have been produced in the 1920s or 1930s is the consistent use of the word "customer" where one might have expected the word "citizen". Oddly, Ruairi Quinn substituted "citizen" for "customer" at one point when reading his prepared script.
In his introduction to the document, the Taoiseach writes that delivering the highest quality of service to "the customers of the Civil Service" is "central" to the programme for change. He goes on to say that civil servants must be clearly rewarded for good performance "and take responsibility for poor performance". What does he mean? Is he hinting that if Sir Humphrey doesn't do his job properly he might get the sack?
It turns out to be more a case of Sir Humphrey doing the sacking. At present civil servants hold office "at the will and pleasure of the government" which sounds as if their jobs are very insecure, but in practice means exactly the opposite.
Under changes proposed in Delivering Better Government, the power of dismissal would be "vested" in the secretary of the Department, "subject to appropriate safeguards and to natural justice". Legislation would be required to give secretaries this new power, and the document adds that "intensive discussions with staff interests" would also be necessary. There will be much to-ing and fro-ing before that Rubicon is crossed.
The existing culture is crystallised in a statement about the system of probation for newly appointed civil servants. The document admits that it is not a system of probation at all "because of the failure to assess performance during the probationary period and the reluctance to terminate an appointment even where there is clear evidence of unsuitability".
The report proposes giving them one year contracts, at the end of which suitability for permanent jobs would be assessed.
The language of Human Resources Management (HRM) is employed in the recommendation on staff training. Arrangements must be made for "an effective performance review system which would be aimed at fostering "a high performance culture and a focus on clarity of objectives".
The report recommends that each Department should allocate extra resources to stuff training and development "until it reaches at least 3 per cent of payroll" compared with an average of less than three quarters of 1 per cent at present.
The launch of the document in Dublin was a heavily male occasion, a veritable sea of suits. You didn't really need to see the graph on page 48 which showed that the ratio of women to men clerical officers was about the inverse of the ratio among assistant principals.
The report proposed that each Department draw up an individual plan of action on "gender issues, with particular reference to the gender balance". A progress report would be made annually.
A major change under the programme involves moving from year to year financial planning to a three year cycle. As well as detailed budgets for the forthcoming year, Departments and offices will prepare outline spending plans for the two years after that.
The late John Healy used to lament that politicians had taken away our country and given us an economy in its place. He would probably not be impressed by the concept of the citizen as customer.
But these are unsentimental times, and the state sector must make obeisance to the free market, in case the same free market swallows it up. Delivering Better Government might be seen as an attempt at self regulation by the Civil Service.
In an atmosphere of growing hostility to the idea of a job for life, it is fitting that civil servants should acknowledge that they do not take their security for granted and that they will try harder to give the citizens, sorry, customers, better value for money.