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 administrative system unable to meet the requirements of modern governance.
When reform was attempted in 1973, it was limited and controversial. Various government commissions and committees were set up in the 2000s and subsequently, whose recommendations were usually not implemented. At other times, ‘reform’ efforts took the form of isolated steps in select areas and not what was needed to make the civil service competent and people-friendly. Patchwork measures instituted from time to time tinkered with the system and fell short of a transformational overhaul of the civil service. No provincial government even undertook such an endeavour.
A systemic problem needs a systemic response and not patchwork reform.
Meanwhile, politicisation of the bureaucratic and police cadres from the 1970s onwards distorted their functioning and entailed a number of damaging consequences — undermining of efficiency, erosion of authority and draining of morale. It also meant the civil service ceased to attract the best and the brightest as it once did. Merit and professionalism were cast aside by both military and civilian governments in manipulating the state machinery for political ends. They failed to see this would ultimately leave governments with less rather than more control.
It is against this backdrop that the government is contemplating reform on the basis of around 50 recommendations from the Iqbal committee. These focus on areas of recruitment, training, performance management, institutional restructuring and compensation. The proposal for greater specialisation in the civil service is a welcome one. Downsizing is missing from the top recommendations except a passing mention of the need to implement those made by another committee.
The main recommendation is the establishment of a ‘National Executive Service’ to provide for lateral entry by opening a certain percentage of senior posts at Grade 20 or above to experts in different areas from outside the civil service.
It is unclear whether NES would have both lateral entrants and career civil servants. The last time lateral entry was attempted was in 1973, with mixed results. There is little doubt that professional talent inducted from outside can inject fresh ideas, encourage innovation and bring specialised expertise to a ‘closed service’.
But if one of the aims of reform is to end the ‘elitist’ nature of the higher civil service, the proposed NEC risks setting up another elite cadre akin to the Pakistan Administrative Service and the District Management Group. Creation of another service may raise both administrative and legal issues that would have to be resolved. Perhaps lateral inductions of professionals can be done while avoiding these problems, especially the risk of politicisation to ensure candidates are not selected on political criteria. The ‘competitive and transparent process’ promised by the proposal will need to be rigorously enforced.
Instead of creating a new separate service, the government could consider identifying select ministries where outside expertise and specialisation are sorely needed and initially open these to lateral entry above grade 19. Induction should be through the Federal Public Service Commission. It would be important to ensure representation of all provinces in lateral entry inductions to preserve the federal character of the service.
Downsizing the civil service is not addressed by the reform package but is essential for reform. A bloated bureaucracy is not just a drain on the exchequer but also contributes to its dysfunctionality. No serious effort has been made in the past to ‘rightsize’ the government.
There are several ways to do this. Reduce the tiers in the bureaucratic hierarchy, merge divisions which have proliferated and abolish posts lying vacant for over three years. Another way is to ensure federal and provincial expenditures are strictly aligned with constitutional mandates, which will both save money and reduce personnel.
The reform proposals do not deal with provincial and local government structures. Yet service delivery takes place at the local and provincial level. Excluding them in the reform effort means overlooking the crucial coordination the federal government maintains with them. Meaningful reform to improve service delivery means it has to be comprehensive with a whole-of-government vision. Strong local government institutions are essential for effective service delivery. Officials argue provincial and local government structures are the purview of provincial governments. But that doesn’t mean reform suggestions cannot be made to them to consider.
Comprehensive reform should involve the following interlinked aspects: fundamental changes in recruitment and training to meet today’s governance needs, professionalising the service by acquisition of specialised skills and technological know-how, incentivising performance by clear criteria, spelling out measurable deliverables, streamlining decision-making processes for quicker decisions, merit-based promotions and weeding out deadwood and poor performers by severance packages. It is yet to be seen how far the government’s final reform proposals meet these requirements. A systemic problem needs a systemic response.
The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.
Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2025
