Why Civil Service Reforms Fail

WHY CIVIL SERVICE REFORMS FAIL
Charles Polidano
Office of the Prime Minister
Auberge de Castille, Valletta CMR 02, Malta
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IDPM Public Policy and Management Working Paper no.16 http://www.man.ac.uk/idpm/idpm_dp.htm [e-mail]
March 2001
Abstract
Tactical choices in the design and implementation of civil service reform can determine whether it succeeds or fails. Yet researchers have paid scant attention to tactical issues in recent years. This paper considers three such issues: the scope of reform, the role of aid donors, and the leadership of reform. In each area it considers what sort of approach is likely to maximise the chances of success. However, the paper seeks to go beyond prescribing lessons, also looking at institutional and other reasons why reformers may be impelled to make the wrong tactical choices.
Charles Polidano is Director of Strategy and Planning at the Office of the Prime
Minister, Malta. Between 1996 and 1999 he lectured in public sector management at the University of Manchester. His work has appeared in several journals including
Public Administration, Political Studies and World Development. He is co-editor (with
Martin Minogue and David Hulme) of Beyond the New Public Management: Changing
Ideas and Practices in Governance (Edward Elgar, 1998).
WHY CIVIL SERVICE REFORMS FAIL
Charles Polidano
Most reforms in government fail. They do not fail because, once implemented, they yield unsatisfactory outcomes. They fail because they never get past the implementation stage at all. They are blocked outright or put into effect only in tokenistic, half-hearted fashion.
Observers who have followed recent reforms in countries such as Britain, New
Zealand and Australia may be surprised at this. Whatever else one can say about public sector change initiatives in these countries, one cannot deny that they were vigorously implemented. But there was an

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