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    ® Check for updates Article New Public nan intros Management-based and Reform in Bangladesh: saeubnihene see A Review of Public hepioutalsnepub como Administration @SAGE Reform Commission Md. Shariar Islam' Abstract This article highlights that Bangladesh has not been able to achieve desired success in implementing Public Administration Reform Commission's (PARC) new public management (NPM)-driven reform recommendations as there are major challenges such as lack of political commitment, bureaucratic unwillingness to bring about change, lack of advocacy for NPM reform among the people and inefficient public service management. To face the challenges of NPM reform implementation, it is needed to ensure political commitment, bureaucratic support, awareness among the people through government, non-government and social organisations. Keywords Bangladesh, administrative reform, new public management, South Asia Introduction In recent years, especially after the 1980s, citizens have become more demanding as public administration strives to become more socially responsive. Such a demand has emerged due to the prevalence of inefficiency of traditional system of public administration and management. Similarly, Bangladesh public administra- tion has reached an unprecedented level of inefficiency (Khan, 2013b; Sarker, 2004) with the need for the expansion of operations for the private sector and " Assistant Professor of Public Administration, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh Corresponding author: Mai Shariar Irfan, Assistant Professor of Public Administration, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh, E-mail: shahisam04@duacbé 16 Indian Journal of Public Administration 64(1) enhancing the level of accountability and responsibility, both administrative reform (AR) and new public management (NPM) approach have been inter- twined in many efforts to bring about changes within the administration, Samaratunge, Alam and Teicher (2008) view NPM as the key agent of AR in South and Southeast Asian countries. It implies that this part of the world has been influenced by the NPM characteristics while reforming the administration. Such influence has been observed due to the rise of globalisation and the introduc- tion of global convergence in policy matters (Cheung, 2002). Hence, analysing the issues of NPM reform from the perspective of a developing country like Bangladesh also provides the opportunity to identify some neglected dimensions of analysis. Bangladesh, one of the emerging nations, was ruled by the Europeans like most South Asian countries, Thus, historically there is similarity among the countries of South Asian region in terms of culture, social, political and economic architecture. Hence, analysis of NPM-based reforms in Bangladesh would present several significant dimensions through which one can apprehend the scenario of other developing countries in this region. The article attempts to show the degree to which Bangladesh has been suces ful in implementing NPM-based reforms, In analysing such an important issue of Bangladesh public administration, this article focuses on the largest reform effort in the country’s history. In order to present and analyse the state of NPM- based reform in Bangladesh, Public Administration Reform Commission (PARC) is considered so that an intensive discussion about the result of this major reform effort can be realised. Through the analysis, itis intended to delineate the factors and actors influencing PARC-proposed recommendations and implementation of those by different regimes. It is important to note that PARC had a wide-array focus to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in the public sector. However, this article only sheds light on those recommendations made typically based on NPM principles. In this regard, key conceptual literature and secondary materials on NPM and AR are reviewed. Before presenting the analysis, this article provides a discussion to highlight the relationship between NPM and AR researched previously in different contexts. A detailed analysis of the PARC follows the con- ceptual section to highlight its organisation, background and critical factors that influenced the operation. A later section contains an analysis of major challenges faced by PARC’s NPM-driven proposals. In that section, the result of PARC is realised through the lenses of those proposals and their implementation. The anal- ysis also includes discussion about the role of social, political and administrative culture in accepting and implementing PARC’s recommendations. This article also highlights the implications of Bangladesh case, that is, PARC in understand ing the challenges and opportunities in implementing NPM-based reforms in other South Asian countries. Such a discussion is important to realise possible generalisations of PARC’s outcome in regional context. Administrative Reforms and NPM: Conceptual Discourse Administrative Reforms (AR) are seen as ‘those efforts which call for or lead to major changes in the bureaucratic system of a country intended to transform the Islam 7 existing and established practices, behaviors and structures within it? (Khan, 2013b). Tuer and Hulme (1997) opine that these different meanings indicate several common elements. These are: deliberate planned change, innovations and improvement; need to cope with uncertainties and rapid change; heavy technical content with an inherent political proces em-wide change or targeting fic institutional issues; means to an end; and involye a combination of strategies and approaches. Abueva (1970) focuses on the behaviour of the bureaucrats and the personnel in charge within the administrative framework. He stresses on the change in mindset and behaviour, Caiden (1969) states that AR has three key elements: (a) moral purpose, (b) artificial transformation of administration and (©) administrative resistance. His ground-breaking research on AR paved the way for future research in this atea. Besides, many scholars from different comers of the world and development agencies have also tried to categorise AR based on some of its features, Conceptualisation of NPM is loose and multifaceted (Christensen & Laegreid, 2001, p. 19). There is a correlation between neo-liberalism and NPM (Boston, 2011). The rise of ‘Managerialism’ and ‘Public Choice Theory’ also facilitated the growth of NPM as a major agenda of research and discussion (Buchanan, 1978; Niskanen, 1971; Pollitt, 1998). NPM has been viewed as an entrepreneurial government in which government plays the role of a referee while market remains as the main source of services (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992). Hughes (1998) further elucidates Hood’s (1991) research and opines that application of managerial theory in the public sector means flexibility in managing the functions of the government where public managers are empowered to manage their tasks and responsibilities with complete autonomy like the private sector. Nevertheless, the influence of political system, representative democracy and political culture has been critically presented by Christensen and Laegreid (2002). Chandhoke (2003) talks about the non-hierarchical and non-bureaucratic horizontal linkages among those actors that also correspond with the basic NPM features. However, Peters and Pierre (2003) inferred the similarity between governance and NPM as both discuss about the public service delivery in a wider perspective. Despite some variations, NPM has nine basic elements (Pollitt, 1995). These are cost-cutting, capping budgets and transparent resource allocation, fragmentation of traditional rigid bureaucratic organisations into separate ones, decentralised management, segmentation of public service delivery, establishing market and quasi-market mechanisms, emphasising performance-based management, payment based on performance and increasing emphasis on customer responsiveness and service quality. These basic features of NPM have been used by many countries with some necessary modifications taking into cognisance indigenous culture and actors. That is the reason, features of NPM depend on the context such as micro- economic environment, macroeconomic environment, politics, immediate poli contexts, diagnoses of the problems and institutional context (Flynn, 2002), Despite controversies and criticism from many scholars and practition ers (Armstrong, 1998; Flynn, 2002; Pollitt, 1990; Savoie, 2002; Singh, 2003), NPM became a central part of the AR reform in developing countries during the 1990s (ADB, 2004; Common, 1999; Larbi, 1998; Rahshanjani & Alam, 1997; Samaratunge & Bennington, 2002; Samaratunge & Hughes, 2001). NPM basically Is Indian Journal of Public Administration 64(1) came as a reform agenda and brought some new ideas and strategies with it for those who want to work for administrative change and reform (Eliassen & Sitter, 2008; Khan, 2013a, 2013b). NPM-based reforms do not necessarily reject all the features of traditional public administration. It has to be the injection of some NPM features into the vessel of existing public administration through reform initiatives (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004). Similarly, Wise (2002) argues that it is not only the NPM which shapes the administrative reform, According to him, some normative changes within the administrative setup can be useful to bring about desired change. Manning (2001) and Turner (2002) point out that NPM can be the menu from which countries can choose some features that suit their context best, Polidano (2001) and Caiden and Sundaram (2004) note that lack of proper mana- gerial capability and resources lead to failed adoption of sophisticated NPM fea~ tures in developing countries. They assert that ARs in developing countries based ‘on NPM are quite vulnerable and do not bring success with a complementary relationship. Samaratunge et al. (2008) opine that NPM and AR are not mutually exclusive in developing countries. But they also suggest that diversity in political, macroeconomic and administrative contexts plays a greater part in AR efforts, PARC: An NPM-based Reform Effort NPM-based reform efforts in Bangladesh have been initiated either solely by the government ot in collaboration with international organisations. The legacy of such efforts portrays that the government has been solely responsible for initiating few of those and others have been done in collaboration with international donor agencies and development partners such as the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Department for International Development (DFID), UK, and International Monetary Fund (IMF). PARC has been the biggest effort so far by the government to reform the whole system of public administration considering NPM principles. After the reintroduction of parliamentary democracy in 1991, successive governments have tried to reform public administration based on identical NPM features. Among those, the very first was PARC (Khan, 2013b), PARC was constituted in January 1997 with a former secretary to the gov- emment as its chairman. The Commission was constituted with broad terms of reference for reform of central public administration, The Commission submitted its main report in June 2000 (ibid). The main objective of PARC was to bring about changes in public administration based on NPM. In line with that PARC advocated improving the system of public service delivery. All the major recom mendations of PARC provided the guidelines to establish a system through which one can get transparent, efficient, effective, flexible, and technology-based and customer-oriented public service. ‘There were some political reasons behind the initiation of PARC. The chief reason was the tendency to ignore the previous Administrative Reforms Commission's recommendation. It is important to note that this Commission was formed by previous government led by Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Obviously, the other major political party, that is, Bangladesh Awami League Islam 9 (BAL), after forming the government in 1996 wanted to institute new efforts in reorganising age-old traditional administration inherited from colonial rule. In the process of that the BAL-led government tried to abolish most of the policy ‘measures and reform efforts taken by BNP-led previous government. It implies that the political rivalry plays a pivotal role in a developing country like Bangladesh where regime change comes as a prime factor in many initiatives to reform public administration (Cheung, 2005). At the same time, the pressure from the international donors, who already conducted few important studies that presented a picture of the failed public sector to ensure efficiency and effectiveness, forced the government to initiate something that could incorporate available intemational prescription to bring about reform in the public sector (Khan, 2013b). Apart from the pressure of donor agencies and political motive, there was also some internal pressure from the administra~ tive incumbents. Most of the senior bureaucrats who played an important role in toppling the last BNP-led government were given key positions in the administr tive hierarchy. After being rewarded, they tried to reinforce the notion of useful- ness of NPM to modernise the public administration. Interestingly, they initially thought that the modernisation would bring them benefits without sacrificing the traditional bureaucratic status quo. However, the recommendations made by PARC were not applauded by the same people in later days. Because, those recommendations, to a significant extent, threatened the status quo. Basically the Commission sought to abolish the status quo as they thought it was one of the ‘major barriers to successful implementation of the recommendations. Thus, it important to know what are the recommendations made by the Commission and what is the aftermath of this largest reform effort in the history of Bangladesh. In the forthcoming sections, these questions are answered through a critical analysis of NPM-driven recommendations, Mission ‘The PARC responsibilities included 1. recommending policies, programmes and activities to improve the level of efficiency, effectiveness, accountability and transparency in public organisations; 2. enabling them to fulfil the government’s commitment to ensure socio- economic development and reach out its benefits to the people (CPD, 2001, p. 5); 3. advising the government on issues of organisation and civil service and 4, restructuring the outmoded system of administration (GOB, 2000) Delay ‘The first and the second chairmen resigned in quick succession after short periods, and the third and last chairman, Dr ATM Shamsul Hag, did not take over until May 1998, The Commission’s original term of two years was extended at that time to November 2000. 20 Indian Journal of Public Administration 64(1) Significant Recommendations The Commission has made three types of recommendations, namely interim, short term and long term, for administrative reform in areas such as defining the mission and functions of the public offices; affirming professionalism in the civil service; performance monitoring and result-oriented performance and audit of government agencies; delegation of powers to subordinate and field offices; open and free access to government documents and reports for the sake of transparency and accountability; separation of judiciary from the executive; separation of audit from accounts; and simplification of outdated laws, rules, regulations and forms (ibid.). The PARC proposed the preparation of performance standards and a citi- +harter for three ministries and five important organisations; the constitution of three clusters of closely related ministries—general, economic and socio- political infrastructure; and the creation of three public service commissions— one for general services, another for technical services and a third for education services (Jahan, 2006, p. 6). ‘The major recommendations of the PARC included 1. determination of missions and functions of the publie offices; 2, formation of a professional policymaking group—‘Senior Management Pool’ (SMP); 3, lateral entry into the civil service; 4, reduction of the number of ministries from thirty-six to twenty-five and the abolition of six organisations; 5. establishment of the Supreme Court Secretariat; 6. establishment of the Office of the Ombudsman; 7. the local councils/parishads at the district, upazila and union should have overall authority of coordination for development activities; 8. establishment of an independent commission against corruption; 9. establishment of a Criminal Justice Commission; 10. monetisation of public service benefits and 11, establishment ofa Public Administration Reform Monitoring Commission (CPD, 2001). NPM-driven Recommendations Improving the Delivery of Public Services The recommendations included significantly greater delegation of authority within agencies; specification and monitoring of performance standards; greater public access to information about agencies including published performani standards in the form of a Citizens’ Charter and a Freedom of Information Act; a shift towards value for money audit (and the long overdue separation of audit from accounts) and market-based salaries for the civil service. Islam 21 Reforming the Civil Service Eliminate or at least reduce the balkanisation caused by the cadre system: increase the proportion of entrants appointed on merit; increase competition for senior pos tions; improve pay, particularly at more senior levels; link promotion to perfor- ‘mance; lengthen rotation times in posts; and strengthen training and development, Reorganising Institutions and Rationalising Manpower The Commission’s general thesis is that 1. the government undertakes functions which could either be privatised or contracted out; 2. there are too many organisations for the functions that do need to be performed, resulting in overlapping and redundant functions; 3. a large number of existing ministries and other organisations could conse- quently be abolished or merged and 4, there are far too many staff in the civil service in lower grades and not enough in higher grades. PARC’s review covered ministries and their subdivisions and not ‘autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies’, includ- ing public corporations and SOEs. PARC recommended that these man- power reductions be achieved entirely through attrition (Laking, 2001, pp. 80-81). Restructuring Field Administration and Decentralisation ‘The Commission's terms of reference were limited to advice on devolution of powers to local government within the existing proposed four-tier local govern- ‘ment structure and decentralisation of central government functions. ‘The report identified two types of problems: 1. Failure to complete the devolution of powers to local government envis- aged in the local government reforms and 2. A continued high degree of detailed central control by ministries of the local activities of government departments. Only one of the four tiers of local government—the union parishad—was fully in place. Its problems were lack of resources and an ambiguous relationship to locally deployed central government officials. A second set of problems was the continued interference by the secretariat in the detailed activities of field agencies. So, central ministries—particularly at the Sub-district (upazila) level—continued to decided local priorities, regardless of the theoretical decentralisation of policy implementation to departments operating in the field or the devolution of control of these functions to local government. PARC’s recommendations on local government were designed to ensure that the functions and the resources of central government were effectively transferred to local government a. by transferring the ‘functions, personnel and budget’ of relevant service delivery departments to the zila and upazila and 2 Indian Journal of Public Administration 64(1) b. by abolishing the division-level offices of government departments, trans- ferring further development functions to local government and empower= ing local government to appoint its own personnel. The problems of the weak revenue base of local government were addressed only in passing with a proposal for revenue sharing, Reducing Wastage and Promoting Value for Money Following are ways to reduce waste and promote value for money: strengthening of Comptroller and Auditor General’s Office; rationalising public financial management system; stopping irrational system losses in different sectors; involvement of the private sector in the transport pool; enactment of comprehensive consumer protection law; privatisation of state-owned enterprises within the capacity of market absorption; 7. streamlining rules to reduce corruption and wastage of funds; 8. tuming existing public sector hospitals into limited companies; and 9. increasing users’ fees in respect of services/utilities. auaeNe Combating Corruption Following are some ways to combat corruption: appointment of Ombudsman; allowing more private companies to cut down on monopoly power; deregulation of non-core activities; reduction of discretionary powers of public officials updating anti-corruption laws; and establishment of an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). aeaene Other Recommendations Establishment of an SMP PARC recommended that the SMP should be introduced in the Secretariat, Induction into the SMP at the level of Deputy Secretary would be on the basis of competitive examination to be conducted by the Bangladesh Public Service Commission (BPSC), which would ensure scope for representation of all cadres at the Secretariat and also facilitate fast-track promotion for the meritorious officers (Ministry of Public Administration and UNDP, 2008). Pay Policy The recommendations on pay were based on a principle of ‘market-oriented competitive wages and salaries to civil servants as soon as possible’. Financial institutions and trading enterprises would be excluded from control. For the non- market public sector, pay policy would be based on cashing up non-monetary benefits, regular market-related reviews and cost-of living adjustments. The result Islam 23 would be a significant increase in pay rates for the top end probably paid for by reductions in numbers of lower-level staff (Laking, 2001, pp. 79-80). Performance Assessment ‘The Commission recommended annual performance assessments based on ‘merit, efficiency, integrity, training and service records evaluated on the basis of perfor= mance targets’ and broad-banded salary scales to give flexibility at recruitment and enable pay to be linked to performance (ibid., pp. 79-80). Creation of Decentralised Bangladesh Public Service Commissions (BPSCs) The rationale for this proposal was to reduce the load on the existing BPSC and to make the Education and Technical BPSCs more focused in their assessments, There should be fewer candidates and fewer boards, which should increase the speed of recruitment and should also increase the reliability and validity of the interview boards. Its important to have a degree of separation between the selec- tion processes for the different cadres. This would enable assessment methods to be better focused on the requirements for the job and should lead to more efficient selection and more reliable and valid assessment, It will also enable more direct comparison to be made between candidates, since they would all be competing for similar jobs on a level playing field. Another positive side effect of this separ tion is that it would be harder for technically qualified candidates to opt for generalist positions, whereas the current system facilitates this (Ministry of Public Administration and UNDP, 2008). ‘The outcome of PARC can be analysed through four major perspectives. ‘These perspectives are taken from Pollitt’s (1995) principle of NPM. The pe spectives are: (a) efficient civil servants for better service delivery, (b) decentral- ised and e-governance for efficient service delivery, (c) customer satisfaction and (@ combating corruption for transparent and just public service. These four principles provide a framework to analyse the outcome of the Commission, ‘One can see that the NPM-

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