Public Service Values: Enduring, Adapting or Competing?

Dr Muiris MacCarthaighResearch Division, IPA

Public Service Values Project commissioned by Committee for

Public Management Research (ww.cpmr.gov.ie)

Values – the most important topic in public administration and policy?

But notoriously difficult to analyse Official & secondary sources Workshops with senior civil servants and

local government officials

Defining values The individual principles or qualities

that guide judgement and behaviour Often confused with ethics Ethics = what we view as right/wrong or

good/bad Canadian Office for Public Service Values and Ethics

Values are ‘neutral’ Values also distinct from culture, ethos & conduct

Why values ? Concept of values fundamental to all

aspects of government and administration Shape and inform behaviour

All decisions are value driven Different types of organisation will employ

and encourage different types of value sets Key part of organisational culture

Absence leads to dilemmas - ethical, organisational, political

Why values ? Determine the success or failure of

reform Significant changes over last decade

Enduring, Adapting or Competing? What can the different parts of the

service tell us? Local v. central Higher v. lower grades Administrative v. technical etc

Values and public service Traditional value sets for public

services internationally: Impartiality Neutrality Fairness Honesty Integrity Accountability Legality

Canada – public service values

Table 1: Categories of Public Service Values

Ethical Democratic

Professional

PeopleIntegrity Rule of law Effectiveness Caring

Fairness Neutrality Efficiency Fairness

Accountability

Accountability

Service Tolerance

Loyalty Loyalty Leadership Decency

Excellence Openness Excellence Compassion

Respect Responsiveness

Innovation Courage

Honesty Representative-ness

Quality Benevolence

Probity Legality Creativity Humanity

Value conflicts

Inevitable Growing number of tasks and expectations Frequent ambiguity of goals and relationships

Occur in relation to Maintaining standards v. Adapting to new

circumstances Responding to needs of different stakeholders Need for control v. need for discretion ‘Managing up’ vs ‘Managing down’

Conflicts are normal – coping with them is the issue

Challenges to traditional values

New modes of governance – state and market Greater fluidity, stakeholders

NPM or market-based reforms Politicisation Agencies HRM and recruitment ICT

Codes/Standards of Conduct Response to ethical dilemmas

Offer guidance Increasingly fragmented Combine values with expected

standards, principles, and methods of resolving conflicts

Values in the Irish Public Service – secondary and official

Devlin (1970) Efficiency, Impartiality, Honesty, Loyalty,

Deference Barrington (1980)

Integrity, Honesty, Hierarchy Chubb (1990)

‘incorrputible, non-partisan and usually anonymous corps’

Delivering Better Government (1996) ‘Equity and integrity’

Values in the Irish Public Service

- secondary and official OECD (2000)

Impartiality Political neutrality Recruitment and promotion on merit Proper disclosure of information Sympathetic, efficient and courteous

dealings with the public Efficicney and diligence in work Avoidance of the use of improper influence Avoidance of conflict of interest

Values workshops Honesty, Impartiality, Integrity, Fairness But also: Accountability of much greater

significance ‘Defensive’ values?

Efficiency, effectiveness (VFM) and flexibility also arose

Reputation (LG)

Where do values come from? ‘Osmosis’ – formal and informal,

positive and negative Line managers Induction Codes Politicians?

What’s driving change? Reforms (emphasing market

principles) Social EU and domestic legislation Political expectation

Future values The old ones… …or other new ones? Flexibility Innovation Integrity

Bringing values back in How best to establish a set of

shared values in context of physical and functional (technical) fragmentation

Bringing values back in How best to establish a set of

shared values in context of physical and functional (technical) fragmentation

Identification Expression Treatment Training

Thank you

Public Service Values: Enduring, Adapting or Competing?

Dr Muiris MacCarthaighResearch Division, IPA