Final part of a three-part series on redesigning Pakistan’s civil service.

Redesigning Pakistan’s civil service around professional specialization, while devolving administration and ordinary policing closer to the citizen, represents fundamental institutional change. But fundamental reform does not require institutional chaos. The architecture can change decisively while the careers, experience and legitimate rights of those already serving within it are protected through a managed transition.

Officers already serving in specialist occupational groups would continue within their respective vertical services. Future recruitment to PAS would cease. Serving PAS officers would not be displaced; they would be given the opportunity to select the professional group in which they wish to spend the remainder of their careers. That group would thereafter become their home service, ending the practice of moving generalist officers across unrelated areas of government. The transition should invest heavily in PAS officers already in the system. Senior officers at Grade 20 and above should be given opportunities to undertake doctoral studies at leading foreign universities. The objective is not to discard accumulated experience but to combine it with the professional knowledge required by the redesigned system.

Professional independence also requires legal protection. Civil........

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