THE institutions of governance have long needed reform and restructuring. This is apparent from the deterioration in public service delivery and people’s eroding confidence in the state machinery.

Weakening of the state’s institutional capacity has affected the quality of advice available to governments and meant even the most well-crafted policy cannot be effectively implemented.

The increase in the size of the civil service over the years — with federal employees now around half a million — has not made it fit for purpose or produced improvements in efficiency and reskilling of personnel. It has had the opposite effect. Around 2.4m civil servants are employed in provincial governments.

Acknowledging the need for change, Prime Mi­­nister Shehbaz Sharif recently convened a meeting where he heard proposals for reform from a committee set up earlier and chaired by Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal. The committee met over a dozen times and came up with recommendations for “transition to a smart civil service”, which were placed before the PM. Iqbal’s committee has now been given a month to translate these into an action plan for the PM’s approval.

Before discussing the key proposals, it is important to place this issue in its historical context. The declining capacity of the state machinery is the cumulative result of several factors. Among these, two stand out. One, postponed reforms and two, politicisation of the civil service. After independence, governance required transforming the colonial-era administrative system into one responsive to public expectations and the needs of a developing country. For decades, this task was ignored, which left the........

© Dawn