-
Human Resource Development And Productivity In The Civil Service
[AN APPRAISAL OF KOGI STATE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION]
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 8]
Page 4 of 8
-
-
-
The
civil service is one of the great political inventions of the
nineteenth century England. The first generation of civil servants was
called “Court servants†or “court clerksâ€. Before the era of court
clerks, the work of government was done by persons of the royal
household (Kapul et al 2002:105).
In terms of origin, “civil
service†as a term was borrowed in the mid-eighteenth century (1785)
from the British administration in India to describe a system that
emphasis selection on the basis of merit (Wey, 1971:2).
The term
“service†connotes a profession, a group of civil servants having common
recruitment conditions and prospect, as well as a “career†in an
acceptable lifetime employment under the government.
According to
the jurist, professor A. Eniola (2001:1-10), the Nigerian interpretation
act of 1964 “which is made the interpreter of the Nigerian constitution
and the other statutes is silent on the general meaning and scope of
the phrase “civil servantâ€.
This is not unconnected with the
observation by Peter Kellner and Lord Norman Crowder-Hunt (1980:9), that
“There is a special sense in which the civil service effects the
British constitution. It is not clearly defined in writing, it evolve
and change with mood and circumstancesâ€. Nonetheless, E.C.S Wade and
G.G. Philips (1968:221) observed with regard to the British civil
service that “a rough definition of the civil service will include all
non-political offices and employment held under the crown with the
exception of the Armed forces.
However, Nigerian scholars have been able to give meaning and understanding to the concept “civil serviceâ€.
Adamolekun
(2002) states that civil service is commonly used as the synonym of the
machinery of the government, this is so in Britain and most common
wealth countries of sub-Saharan African. In British conception, the
civil service is used to refer to the body of permanent official
appointed to assist the decision makers.
The term civil service is
normally used when referring to the body of men and women employed in a
civil capacity and non-political career basis by the federal and state
government primarily to render and faithfully give effect to their
decision and implementation (Ipianya, 2001) such career officers
normally derive their appointment from the civil service commission,
which also exercises power of delegating duties and responsibilities to
departments in accordance with laid down rules.
Today, the civil
service has come to been seen as a complex organization and a modern
institution baguetted to mankind in the process of revolutionizing an
efficient way of organizing any large human organization. It is in this
respect that the civil service is defined as a bureaucracy (Ipianya,
2001).
Civil service is a body of man and women who are trained in
various field and employed by the government on a temporary or permanent
basis to render services to the government and the people of the state.
Thus it does not involve the Armed forces personal and judicial
officers. Civil service is a body of people who are directly responsible
for the execution of government policy; it includes everybody who
participates in the execution of public policy from the messenger to the
top administrative officer (Nwizu, 2002).
Salassie concurs by
defining civil service as a service comprising all servants of the
state, other than those holding political and judicial appointments who
are employed in a civil capacity and whose remuneration is paid wholly
and directly out of money voted by parliament.
Accordingly, C.B.
Nwankwo, and co, defines civil service as a body of men and women
employed in a civil capacity and on a non-political basis by the federal
and state government primarily to render advice and faithfully give
effect to their decision.
Late chief M.K.O Abiola, in an article
titled “Civil Service and African Economy published in daily champion on
Thursday, August 29th 1991, defined the civil service as “the body of
full time professional officials employed in the civil offices of a
state in a non-political capacityâ€. This body which is permanently
attached to the executive arm of government is made up of permanent,
skilled, professional workers who carry out the day-to-day
administration of the state under the chief executive and his cabinet.
The
civil service is a term used to cover those public servants who are
direct employees of the federal and state government, other than the
police, the Armed forces personal, the judicial personal and the
teachers. Its usage excludes also employees of statutory corporations
and boards (Nwosu, 1977).
In line with this, Ademolukun (1986)
defines the civil service as the body of permanent officials appointed
to assist the political executive in formulating and implementing
governmental policies. It also sees the second usage of the term as
referring to the ministers and departments within which specific aspects
of government are carried out.
Traditionally, civil service is the
totality of civil bureaucracy set up by modern governments to administer
and execute their policies and programmes.
Contrary to this, the
civil service handbook (1997) defines the civil service as a growing
body or organ that enjoys continuity of existence. The officials engaged
in it are otherwise known as the “civil servants†unlike members of the
legislative arm or organ of government are not united for a short
period of time in office at the expiration of which they may not be
returned to office; the civil servants remains in office where as
elected members or officers in the government come and go for whatever
reason, when the civil servants leave his office under no compulsory,
voluntarily recruitment or by registration or by termination of
appointment, his office is taken over by another person or officer that
similarly enjoys security of employment. Thus, the civil services can be
regarded as a complex organization with a body of seemingly permanent
officials appointed in a capacity to assist the political executives in
the formulation, execution and implementation of the government policies
in ministries and extra-ministerial department within which the
specific government works are carried out.
Akpomuovire (2007) argues
that the civil service is an institution which is made up of a body of
people employed and payed by the state government to execute the laws,
plans and policies of government. In carrying out this task, the Human
resources (civil servants) employed in the service, develop and manage
the resources of the government for the achievement of policies, goals
and objectives.
The service is the indispensable arm and the bedrock
of the executive arm of government the government uses the civil
service to fulfill that contractual relationship between government and
the people.
In this regard, workers employed in the civil service
have to be trained and developed so as to increase the efficiency and
effectiveness of the service in meeting the challenges of National
development.
Human resource development in the civil service
therefore focuses on the objectives of equipping the personal in the
service from the point of their recruitment to that of retirement, so
that civil servants be kept constantly ready not only to provide
improved living conditions for Nigeria but also set the machinery for
achieving accelerated growth and development within the country.
The
effectiveness of government is said to depend on the abilities of the
instruments of government to respond to the policies and programmes of
that government as observed by Philips (1988) when he said “in a strong
sense a country is a close reflection of the efficiency, effectiveness
and sensitivity of its civil service.
Human resources training and
development is essential to the existence and survival of organization.
Olowu posits that human resource training and development enables civil
servants acquire the relevant professional skills and knowledge for
effective performance.
Accordingly Drucker (1986) said that a good
organizational structure itself does not guarantee good performance. It
is human resource training and development that equips civil servants
with relevant professional skills and knowledge about effective and
efficient performance.
This position was further supported by Pye
(1988) when she opined that “when steps are to be taken to improve the
quality of employees and overall organizational performance, attention
naturally turns to the process of training, education and development of
employeesâ€. Even the architects of the 1988 civil service reforms could
be said to have subscribed to Pye’s submission as in relation to human
resource training and development.
Section (1) of this reform states
that: for the purpose of improving economy and efficiency in the
operations of the ministry and raising the standards of performance by
employees of their official duties to the maximum possible level of
proficiency, the minister shall establish, operate and maintain
programmes or plans for training and development of employees in or
under the ministry by and through government faculties including the
training institution (Implementation guidelines of the 1988 civil
service reform).
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 8]
Page 4 of 8
-
-
ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]The Civil Service as the machinery of Government performs the unique role of governance and National development as such government everywhere in the world have come to terms with the need to train and re-train it’s human resource for them to be better equipped to maximize productivity levels and meet the challenges of governance and management.This work makes use of the system theory as the theoretical framework and data gathered from secondary sources. My chapter one began with the gene ... Continue reading---
