Abstract

Our discussion about stewardship and public service begins with a critique of market based reforms that have profoundly reshaped the public service world-wide during the past two decades. While it is maintained that these reforms were necessary and have resulted in many positive outcomes, the central argument is that the market theory upon which they are built is not robust enough to embrace the full range of public sector activities such as governance and guarding public interest. Stewardship is presented as an alternative model that bridges market approaches, primarily applicable to transactional services, and broader public sector responsibilities. As we will see, stewardship is a very old idea that is being rediscovered in many quarters. Unlike the long parade of solutions-reengineering, program based budgeting, empowerment, delayering and countless others-that have been tried and quickly abandoned, stewardship is not a technique or strategy that can be immediately applied, nor is it suggested that it is a remedy for all ailments. Rather, it is a way of doing things that provides a compass rather than prescribes a route. Like the market approach, stewardship can address efficiency issues. However, it goes beyond self-interest and, more importantly, provides the conditions for governance stability over a long period, something that the market model does not do. In other words, stewardship provides a synthesis for the conflict between market efficiency and the cumbersome and costly task of maintaining the stability essential to public interest systems of governance. The principle purpose of this discussion is to explain why an alternative to market theory is essential to the public service and to examine stewardship and its broader implications. In offering stewardship as an alternative to the shallowness of market theory a number of other important issues are revealed. These issues demand to be addressed whether or not we pursue the notions of stewardship. However, because they are beyond the scope of this discussion paper, these issues will only be mentioned in passing. The first issue that arises is what we mean by the public service. In the following discussion, we purposefully use the term in a broad context to include everyone dedicated to delivering work and service in the pursuit of the public interest and common good. As the public sector changes in composition with ever more interesting ways of delivering services traditionally provided by governments, and as partnerships and collaborations between levels of government and other sectors develop to do this work, the public service needs to be redefined. Should the public service refer only to those under the Public Service Employment Act? Perhaps in the end it will include a small core of people managing contracts, enforcing standards, and advising on policy. On the other hand, the term public service may include a much larger and more loosely organized collection of individuals providing services in numerous types of community organizations, virtual companies, agencies, partnerships and contract arrangements. The question then becomes whether or not these people need to embrace the same ethical standards and public service values as traditional public servants, how they are to be tutored, led, managed, motivated and so forth. The second issue is how the apparent conflict between the market and public interest approaches can be resolved. Jane Jacobs' Systems of Survival, and John Ralston Saul's The Unconscious Civilization present two substantial critiques of the introduction of market forces and corporatization into the public sector. Their concerns must be thoughtfully addressed by any public service claiming to be serious about public interest. Other issues emerging from the discussion include: • The importance of deepening policy reflection and the continuing validity of the public service's role as expert policy advisors. • Can a permanent professional public service, a traditional foundation of parliamentary democracy, be replaced by other means and if so, what assurances need to be put in place to avoid a public service acting in a self interested manner? • Do societal, ethical, demographic trends take us in a direction so far away from selflessly safeguarding public interest that the idea has become untenable, or outdated? • The public service must be flexible and at the same time provide long-term stability. This requires continuously learning and adapting, which indicates that more needs to be understood about learning organizations and how they can be nurtured within the public service. These emerging issues provide us with a set of beacons that point toward the central issue of this discussion-that is finding an approach to governance that balances the capacity to sustain, the public interest, the common good, order in society, and the degree of stability required to sustain the institutions of governance for long term survival while allowing flexibility to bend to the will of people through serving successive governments, in a cost efficient, effective manner with the level of service the public demands. The stewardship approach addresses this issue, but before exploring what stewardship is, we must first develop the case for moving beyond market theory. The Seductive Power of Technique and Strategy STEWARDSHIP AND PUBLIC SERVICE Technique and strategy-market driven reform During the past two decades, around the world, public sector reforms have been sparked by fiscal crisis. They had at their core managerialism and private sector emulation. In virtually every country, slaying the fiscal beast has meant reducing the influence of the public sector and weakening its principles in favour of market techniques and methodologies, be they privatization, commercialization, downsizing, rightsizing, deregulation, quality management, reengineering, devolution, delegation, decentralisation, alternative service delivery, or a host of others. These reforms, some more successful than others, represent experiments in public sector management of unpresedented breadth and intensity, and offer rich experiential learning. Accounts of these comprehensive experiments are numerous and we do not intend to go into them here. However, reform was necessary and many of the improvements brought about have left lasting and beneficial effects. For example, the state is no longer considered to be the sole provider of public services, which opens the door to more collaborative, inter-jurisdictional partnerships and to services integrated around citizens' needs rather than those of the bureaucracy. The fiscal responsibility and discipline of reform has also taught the public sector that it is indeed possible to provide improved services with less money. In addition, managerial reforms had the effect of improving managerial accountability, placing greater demands on public servants as to the success senior bureaucrats, heads of agencies, etc.) carry the additional mantel of providing and nurturing the environment within which the overall public service can best serve citizens-organization building, learning and organisational memory, and ensuring fairness, equity and due process illustrate this second cluster of activities. The first two levels of responsibility-governance and leadership-call for the public service to provide a sense of purpose, legitimacy, values and an ability to look outward. In addition, these two levels of responsibility charge the government, through the public service, with building and maintaining the institutional infrastructure necessary to perform these functions. • The third level, delivery of public services, centres on delivery technique and strategy including alternative forms of delivery, output measurements, controls, structure, contracting, delivery practices and so forth. In this realm of responsibility, the role of the public service is to improve services, reduce costs, develop service standards, systems and structures, and ensure higher levels of personal responsibility for service delivery throughout its workforce. The delivery of public services is an important facet of public interest. It has been well served during recent years, but has tended to address the balancing of public interest issues relatively single-mindedly. A strong argument can be made that market driven reforms have touched mainly the third level, barely influencing the second area and totally ignoring governance and higher-order tasks. In short, reform has focused on technique and strategy without attention to the impact on or question of public interest. Indeed, governments everywhere are changing in many positive ways. The changes have been so rapid and demanding that they have not yet fully analyzed the public interest in new and emerging forms of governance, fragmentation of institutions and services and other related risks. Hence, designed for the private sector, reforms fixed private sector problems. While they have resulted in marked improvements in public sector management, they may be bound for disaster if they continue much further in the same one-dimensional direction. To take full advantage of the progress accomplished, we need to go the rest of the way and work on the foundation element that has been left out: work on the raison d'être of the public service and reconcile it with recent reforms. To substantiate this overemphasis on technique and strategy, one needs only examine the literature on government reform and transformation. The OECD's Governance in Transition (1995), for example, focuses on the devolution of authority, performance, control and accountability, competition, service, improving human resource management, optimising information technology, improving regulations, and implementation strategies, to the exclusion of questions of how these have affected the public interest. STEWARDSHIP AND PUBLIC SERVICE A Discussion Paper Prepared for the PSC _____________________________________________________________________________________ The OECD is not alone, other research has also focused on technique and strategy and paid only lip service to the public interest or the underlying purposes of the public service. With few exceptions (Peter Aucoin being one of them), questions of public interest have given way to those of politics, case interpretations, delivery alternatives, technique and strategy. Countries themselves have focused consciously and consistently on technique and strategy rather than on their role of protecting the public interest. Reform in the United Kingdom for example, was guided by the three E's: efficiency, effectiveness and economy. The public interest-a neglected purpose For two decades, reform technique and strategy, for many legitimate reasons, have collectively consumed the full attention and energy of governments and the public service. This intense refocusing might have been called for to counteract the euphoric, perhaps numbing and narcissistic, effect of long years of fiscal growth and rapid organisational expansion. There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting better government that costs less and this aim should be part of the public service's DNA imprint. However, the frenzied quest for cost-effectiveness and efficiency, coupled with an excessive focus on transactional service, has left little time and energy for: • a thoughtful analysis and discussion about the long term protection of the public interest with particular attention to governance, and, • consideration of the rationale for the existence of public institutions, which, during the market reforms, was too readily overlooked. When reviewing the international wave of government reform, it becomes clear that traditional public service institutions have been limited in influence and downsized with little consideration for implications. Recent reforms have captured the minds and seduced the sensibilities of public servants until they are on the verge of becoming technologists, as opposed to guardians of the public interest-technologists who routinely put rules before values, and place techniques and strategies over purpose. A hybrid system We have grafted principles and approaches taken from a system that has evolved over centuries to respond to the needs of a market and trading system onto public institutions designed to guard and nourish the public interest. Reforms have left us with a questionable hybrid. Following the market model to its ultimate conclusion, the dynamics at play can and frequently do lead to business failure. While needing to be flexible and have the ability to self-renew, essential features of public institutions are steadfastness to the public interest, stability and longevity through societal and governmental change. The market model does not require this longevity and stability. Governments and government institutions have largely been conceived to provide stability and social order. While the market driven improvements were undoubtedly necessary, especially in the context of the current service culture and fiscal pressure, much remains to be done to integrate the two value systems and create a public service able to deliver the efficient and cost-effective services expected by citizens while fulfilling its higher-order role. STEWARDSHIP AND PUBLIC SERVICE A Discussion Paper Prepared for the PSC _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________J ames L. Armstrong & Associates, Inc. 11 As shown in • How can the dilemma between the necessary freedom and flexibility-a deputy minister's need to operate efficiently and the central control needed to ensure merit and non-partisanship-be reconciled? • non-partisanship • broad conceptual capacity-big picture • rigid • formal accountability frameworks Over four in five citizens interviewed over the past three years feel that governments have lost sight of the needs of average Canadians, only 18% of the population believes that the public interest is considered when the government makes decisions, and 83% believe that politicians and business leaders seem to take care of themselves and their friends on the backs of average citizens (Ekos, 1997). • How can the public service broaden its role in fostering and stewarding the public interest? The dichotomy between control and efficiency is as present in the literature as it is in the minds of public sector managers. (Fesler and Kettl, cited in Anechirico and Jacobs, 1994, pg. Excessive controls can disrupt consistent administration and produce inequities. Excessive controls multiply requirements for review of proposed actions, increase red tape, and delay action. So much energy can be spent attempting to control administrative activities, in fact, that little time or money is left to do the job at hand. Excessive controls, therefore, may dull administration's responsiveness to its public 471). Further, there is an inherent contradiction between accountability on one hand, and collaboration and partnerships (horizontality) to more effectively serve citizens on the other hand, as collaborative arrangements require strong accountability frameworks and clear lines of accountability for the many other people and organisations who will deliver public services and this leads to more, rather than less, stove-piping. Similarly, there is conflict between being responsive to political direction and preserving the public service's non-partisan integrity, just as there is between empowerment and the command and control systems necessary to back up the principle of ministerial responsibility. In addition, the dilemma between being subservient and telling truth to power needs to be resolved. The politics-administration dichotomy assumes a public service with an obligation to render advice that addresses the merits of government policy STEWARDSHIP AND PUBLIC SERVICE A Discussion Paper Prepared for the PSC _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________J ames L. Armstrong & Associates, Inc. 14 preferences or proposals against the broader public interest, whether requested or not: it must fearlessly "speak truth to power" In her analysis of the two systems, Jane Jacobs contends that the combination of the two systems unavoidably results in corruption and chaos (Systems of Survival, 1994). However, we are not in a position to yield to her apocalyptic warning as neither the principles instilled in the public service by recent market inspired reforms nor those of the traditional public service can be done away with. It is not likely that reform and the direction it is taking will stop for some time, nor should it. It is just as unlikely that the public will easily abandon the foundation of our democratic parliamentary system and the institutions designed to protect and enhance the public interest. Further, it is now clear that both systems are necessary and that neither can address all of society's needs alone. Therefore, we are left with the unavoidable task of resolving the serious dilemmas we are faced with. An examination of the foundations of parliamentary democracy might help us get a clearer sense of which public service core functions need re-emphasised and rebalanced and how it can be done while benefiting from the gains made by recent reforms. The public service must be subordinate to and separate from government and ministers. Foundations of parliamentary democracy This separation is seen most clearly in the staffing process. In no Westminster system has this principle been abandoned. An explicit political commitment reaffirming the value of a professional, nonpartisan public service is required to reinforce this cornerstone of our democratic system. Of course, in obtaining this commitment, the public must show impeccable integrity, abide by stringent demonstrable merit and competence guidelines, and avoid bureaucratic abuses of power. It must be remembered that bureaucratic patronage can be as widespread and damaging as political patronage. Our system of parliamentary democracy needs permanent public institutions that provide: • continuity through changes in government • an objective, politically neutral sounding board for Ministers • assistance and advice independent from partisan politics, interest groups, affiliated think tanks and sectors pursuing individual and corporate interests • a repository of knowledge and experience on public service delivery and policy • personal and institutional commitment to serve over the long term. With emerging forms of governance and the multiplicity of new service arrangements, the question becomes how much of the public service, broadly defined, must have these characteristics? While this important question is beyond the scope of this discussion, it needs detailed attention. Rasmussen (1994) continues: A fearless and independent deputy was the first major step towards the ultimate goal of a fearless and independent civil service capable of working towards the public interest. Ultimately, for this scholar, it was the public sector, reforming itself for its own benefit, that laid the foundation of our version of the Westminster system. Through gaining collective bargaining rights and building considerable institutional influence and power, the civil service became more than an efficient instrument to carry out the decisions of Parliament. An administrative elitism was spawned. There was, during the 1930's, a growing recognition that the civil service, as experts, must serve the broader national interest as opposed to the narrow party interest. This tendency led to a remarkable increase in civil service influence as public interest groups began lobbying bureaucrats as much as or more than politicians. By the 1960's, the so-called golden years: Armed with rights, protected by an armory of bureaucratic watchdog agencies, and courted by influential interest groups, the public service began to be seen as a powerful institution fully capable of bargaining in its own interests without reference to any mythical public interest or service ethic (Rasmussen 1994b). To be sure, these trends brought the public service, in Canada and elsewhere, into conflict with its superiors. The propensity Rasmussen describes is at the heart of the global has remained untouched by public choice theory, managerialism, and market driven reforms. Furthermore, public choice interpretations are based on the belief that individual action is motivated by self rather than collective-interest. This view holds no better in the public sector than it does in the private sector as we will see when we explore contemporary research on stewardship. Stewardship-a Forgotten Tradition After examining reform and considering its sweeping impact in implanting private sector principles in public sector systems, the resultant conflicts and dilemmas, and after examining the fundamental role of the public service, it is now clear that a broader concept or approach to the public service is urgently required as the market approach is not robust or encompassing enough. An alternative concept is found in the notion of stewardship. Where it came from and what it means Today, the term stewardship is most commonly used in the fields of environmental protection, stemming from overseers of estates-a sense of care-taking for a greater good for future generations-and in religious institutions-where their congregations are Joseph became fully self-actualised, a theme we will pick up later in the discussion. The New Testament's parable of the three servants expands on the stewardship theme. A master divided up his goods among three servants who were to care for them while he went on a long journey. Two servants nurtured the goods and made them multiply while the third, out of fear, buried them in the ground. When the master returned, he praised the first two servants and severely chastised the third for being wicked and slothful before banishing him. The assets left to the servants are, as parables go, symbolic rather than real. The moral is clear and simple enough: when you are entrusted with something, you have a duty and obligation to improve upon it however possible. Indeed, it is self-centred and wicked to hide it for fear of loss or to do nothing because of the lack of possibility for personal gain. The concept of ecological stewardship flowed directly from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Today, there are thousands of organisations whose principal purpose is to provide stewardship for the environment. These range from individuals managing their farms as stewards for future generations to governments adopting stewardship strategies in order to protect the environment. These stewardship strategies include the building of a number of relationships, partnerships and collaborations that self-manage and selfregulate a number of important aspects of environmental management. Agency theory depicts top managers as agents with goals and interests that may be, and often are, different from those of shareholders. A great deal of attention is therefore given to methods to control the behaviour of the agent. In agency theory, when faced with several alternatives, a rational individual will choose the one that maximises his or her individual utility at the least cost or effort. The important word here is rational-an individual is considered irrational if he or she is not motivated by personal gain. Hence, emphasis is put on mechanisms, rules and regulations to keep self-serving behaviour in check because, if managers have the sole objective of taking care of their own power, prestige and prerequisites, they are likely to lose sight of the objectives of the organisation and lead it into failure or collapse. Mechanisms to prevent this behaviour are often elaborate reward and incentive systems, strong sanctions or a board of directors whose function is to oversee and to perform periodic audits and evaluations. The casting about for a broader, more encompassing model emerged because the agency theory could not account for all of the complexities of organisational life, nor did it account for the quite different behaviour of a number of organisational leaders. Current stewardship theory defines situations where managers are not motivated by individual A steward derives satisfaction from the success of the organisation and his or her behaviour is organisation-centred rather than self-centred. Therefore, a steward focuses on performance, organisation development and improvement and, consequently, satisfies more stakeholders than the agent. Unlike in agency theory, where controls are emphasized, it is better to maximise the autonomy, authority and discretion of organisations under stewardship leadership since they can be trusted. Moreover, control can be counter-productive because it undermines pro-organisation behaviour and lowers motivation.