LEAN GOVERNMENT ENSURES BETTER SERVICE
Economic situation and falling revenue reinforce the need for a prudent government
GOVERNMENTS worldwide have taken steps to limit their expenditure — by doing more with less, seeking efficiency and borrowing tools such as “Lean” from the private sector to streamline the business of government — as a potential solution to increasing costs in education, healthcare, infrastructure; increasing demands for services; and decreasing economic resources to support this growth.
At its core, Lean, which refers to the lean production principles and methods to provide services, is a systematic approach to solving problems and reducing the overburden and employees in an organisation by streamlining processes, which include eliminating wasteful steps and seeking more effective ways to achieve outcomes.
One of the reasons why the Lean approach is successful is the focus on the customer — “Customer is King”. The customer defines the value. If the customer is not willing to pay for a feature of a product, then that feature has no value and should be eliminated. In terms of government, the customer is the public. Lean for government focuses on serving the public with respect and improving service delivery, with a culture that holds customer orientation in management as well as clearer accountability for results in the public service.
The results include reduced waiting time for access to services (in hospitals, court hearing and licence applications) and efficiency in policing. The targets are: more transparency, more efficiency and more quality at reduced expenses. The “Customer is King” approach resonates well with the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) that aims at increasing productivity with less, and to change the way public services are delivered.
Achieving a Lean government entails a long process of government engineering.
Of utmost importance is the sustainable management of resources. The concern centres on the 1.6 million civil servants, the ratio of which is 1 for every 19.37 Malaysians, widely viewed as bloated by international standard. Critics make two arguments about it. First, they contend that the state bureaucracy is enormous. Civil servants make up 5 per cent of Malaysia’s 30 million population, higher than Indonesia (1.9 per cent) South Korea (1.85 per cent) or Thailand (1.06 per cent). Ratio wise, Malaysia has more state bureaucrats than neighbouring countries, for example Singapore is 1 to 71.4 people, Indonesia 1: 110, Korea 1:50 China 1: 108 and Japan 1: 28.
Even in Russia, which underwent a bureaucratic revolution during Trostky and Stalin’s era in the 20th century and later bureaucratic reform under Boris Yeltsin in 1998, the ratio stands at 1: 84. In Britain, a Western country, it is 1: 118.
Second, the issue of ballooning cost.
It was reported that in 2003, the pay for public servants totalled RM22 billion and the pension of civil servants was RM5.9 billion. By last year , the pay increased to RM74 billion and the pension payment RM19 billion.
The salaries, pensions and gratuities form about a third of the budget every year. Determining the right size of the civil service can be a complex matter. Although many countries are used as comparison due to similarities in post-colonial era civil service structure, there are also stark disparities. As outlined in Article 132 of the Constitution, the public service comprises the following components: (1) the armed forces; (2) the judicial and the legal service; (3) the general public service of the federation; (4) the police force; (5) the railway service; (6) the joint public services; (7) state public service; and (8) the education service.
Out of the 1.6 million employees, teachers, including university academics, make up 37 per cent of the public employees; the armed forces and police force close to 20 per cent; nurses 5 per cent; the judicial and legal service, 1 per cent; while the rest are in the railway service, and public service.
The civil service in the United Kingdom, for example, which has 450,000 serving 64 million people, does not include the nurses and the doctors and other auxiliary health services that make up 1.3 million people in the National Health Service. Australia’s civil service excludes teachers, doctors, soldiers and police, which if they were to be included, would create a ratio of 1:12 Australians.
If the army, police, health and education services are excluded from the Malaysian civil servants, the number would stand to about 500,000, about 1.6 per cent of Malaysia’s population.
The economic situation with petroleum and petroleum-linked sectors accounting for more than 40 per cent of budget revenues, and the worrying trend of falling revenue, reinforces the need for a prudent government. The government must be seen to be doing it.
What better way than to begin with an austerity drive that mobilises an effective government machinery, optimising the public sector.
This means not just trimming the civil service, but a holistic exercise, as not all parts of the government are bloated, with an intelligent combination of laying off non-performers.
Retain the right people to do what is needed to be done based on merit, experience, capability and capacity that is financially sustainable.
Also optimise available staff with increased efficiency and high productivity level as part of the on-going efforts under the GTP.
Other government engineering includes focus on more innovation, service quality and results, which are well in progress.