Chapter 8
The future of public administration
As we have seen, both the field and the practice of public administration have been extraordinarily dynamic. Therefore, their future is impossible to predict. While essential public services, ranging from waste management to public education, are not likely to disappear any time soon, the manner in which their administrative functions are carried out and evaluated is likely to change considerably. As we have seen in our brief journey, dramatic changes taking place at the global level are bringing radical shifts in public administration. Unable to shield their domestic political, economic, and social affairs from the powerful effects of globalization, public managers are forced to perform their functions and mandates in highly unstable and capricious environments. Hoping to attract new global financial investment, modern governments have been engaged in a fierce ‘race to the bottom’ to slash their public budgets. In a globalized world characterized by growing ‘uncertainty’, the politics of budgetary austerity is pressing on public administrators at every level of government. They must think in radically different ways about what it means to govern in the 21st century.
Following the global financial crisis that surfaced in 2008, the Public Sector Research Centre (PSRC), established by PricewaterhouseCoopers, published a report entitled ‘The Road Ahead for Public Service Delivery’. This outlined specific core capabilities that government agencies would have to develop in order to be successful over the long term. Besides emphasizing ‘public-private partnerships, co-venturing, co-creation and co-design’ as ‘ “must-have” capabilities’, the report also stressed that public organizations should become increasingly ‘agile, interconnected, and transparent’. It called upon public sector leaders to become the essential ‘change agents’ in this process. Emphasizing systems-oriented leadership over traditional task-focused management, it urged public sector leaders to articulate a new vision for their agencies. Consistent with the goals advanced by the New Public Service, the PSRC report emphasized citizen-oriented service as the highest public sector priority. Therefore, the focus of government efforts should be directed above all at ‘energizing’ both internal and external stakeholders. They should encourage public administrators to work in partnership with the citizens they serve, so as to identify civic problems and devise innovative solutions.
Today’s public administrators are challenged to meet the growing expectations of a demanding citizenry. The British market research firm Ipsos MORI conducted a ‘public services satisfaction’ survey of 5,000 citizens across ten countries. It revealed that 41 per cent of US citizens were ‘dissatisfied’ with the way public services were administered and managed by the government. Interestingly this was markedly different from countries such as Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, where the level of ‘satisfied’ respondents averaged nearly 65 per cent. When questioned what they believed the most important focus of government ought to be, the majority of US respondents expressed that they wanted government to ‘provide services in a more cost effective way’. Curiously, while US citizens between 50 and 64 ‘reported the highest levels of dissatisfaction’ with the cost and quality of government-provided services, those under 35 were optimistic that the US government would be able to meet their ‘needs and expectations over the next five years’. The survey further revealed that citizens, in general, expect to see significant improvements in the way public services are administered in today’s ‘high-touch’ society. Besides demanding greater personalized service, citizen demands for increased ‘transparency’ and ‘accountability’ in public sector governance have been growing increasingly abrasive.
The next decade
As we saw in Chapter 7, access to a growing number of government services and information is being made available to average citizens, twenty-four hours a day, through new forms of e-governance. Indeed, the explosion of Internet-based services has provided diverse public agencies with new methods of interacting directly with their citizens. At the same time, however, increased access to the policy and administrative process can be a double-edged sword. With greater access comes increased scrutiny of the policy and administrative process. Critics charge, for example, that once the political door is opened to the voices of disgruntled individuals, emotionally charged popular opinion will replace sober policy discussion and reasoned debate.
Under the guise of creating ‘leaner and meaner’ forms of government, right-of-centre political movements in countries like the United States have been waging a political assault on the public sector. Still, as we have seen, in a number of nations questions related to the changing role of the civil service sector tend to be less adversarial, or at least much less partisan, than in others. Despite relentless rhetorical assaults on ‘big government’, the role of the public sector has not been diminished significantly. Indeed, recent data confirms that public sector spending continues to steadily increase. In the US, for example, public expenditure now accounts for 42 per cent of GDP, compared to only 28 per cent in 1960. While there was a slight decrease from 2009 to 2014 in the years immediately following the global financial crisis, the overall trend indicates that public sector spending will continue to grow. Also worthy of note, government revenues (as a percentage of the country’s gross domestic product) have declined. This, in turn, has placed unprecedented strains on public agencies and the administrators who serve in them. As challenges related to immigration, global climate change, exotic disease outbreaks, and so forth grow ever more complex in the future, the burden on public administrators can only be expected to increase. (For a historical overview of the growth of public expenditures, see Figure 3.)
3. Government expenditure as a percentage of GDP, high income countries and OECD nations, 1880–2014.
The world’s population is now estimated at over seven billion people and continues to increase. Some studies project that it could reach eight billion within ten years. Increases in life expectancy rates, changes in family structure, and growing levels of unemployment have compelled policymakers in the US to respond with a host of new public services and additional levels of welfare support. As waves of so-called baby-boomers move toward retirement, there will be unprecedented pressure on public pensions and healthcare systems. At present, nearly 15 per cent of US citizens are over 65. This number is projected to increase to over 18 per cent within ten years. This means that nearly one in five citizens will be eligible for public retirement benefits. At present, over 90 per cent of senior citizens in the US receive Medicare entitlement benefits, which currently cost the country’s taxpayers more than $500 billion a year. By 2015, according to the PSRC Report, the combined federal, state, and local costs required to fund public services for the country’s growing elderly population are estimated to reach as high as $940 billion (4.4 per cent of GDP) a year.
The recent European financial crisis of 2015 has exposed deep structural weaknesses that have long been embedded in the continent’s southern economies of Greece, Spain, and Portugal. In addition to having to confront the challenges associated with chronic youth unemployment, governments in these countries are being forced to expand public services for growing numbers of retirees. Indeed, the proportional size of the senior citizen population is increasing dramatically in advanced industrial countries all over the world.
Unfortunately, most strategic discussions and debates among policymakers and public administrators on how best to avert crises before they happen (and address them once they occur) tend to be crafted in mutually exclusive ideological terms such as ‘governments versus markets’. These false dichotomies fail to provide policymakers and administrators with useful lenses for identifying problems. As a result, they often prohibit them from devising pragmatic solutions. Public officials and administrators ought to be focused on developing sufficient government-led regulatory institutions and policies required to support well-functioning markets.
The health and vitality of any given country’s public sector is closely tied to the conditions of its private economy. Called ‘the greatest recession since the Great Depression’ (of the 1930s), the devastating global financial meltdown of 2008 will have long-term effects that remain unknown. Current US practices of borrowing from the future to pay for public programmes and services are not sustainable over the long term. At the same time, eviscerating essential public services and programmes, as in many European countries, can have dire consequences. The social safety net provided through pensions, public healthcare services, public education, and social insurance can only be retracted so far without disturbing the legitimacy of democratic governments throughout Europe.
There is no question that the future will usher in new sets of challenges for the nation-state and its public administration systems. Some argue that these challenges are placing public servants in untenable positions. Others, however, claim that they are creating historic opportunities for public administrators to create meaningful and positive change. In the past, administrative reforms were characteristically shaped in accordance with each nation’s unique social structure, institutional configurations, and historical traditions. In recent years, however, we have witnessed rapid global, economic, and social changes that are challenging traditional administrative norms and practices. The most important focus of public management and leadership, therefore, should be the hiring of the ‘right’ individuals with the ‘right’ skill sets required to meet the enormous challenges confronting our civilization in the global age.