Balancing Acts

(April 23-May 1, 2006)
By Isolde D. Amante

Isolde D. Amante

“Simplicity and elegance are never reasons to think that a philosophical theory is true: on the contrary, they are usually grounds for thinking it is false.”

Thomas Nagel (1986)

Given this view, I take it as a sign of the seminar’s success that I left the International Academy for Leadership (IAF) in Gummersbach, Germany with more questions than answers. This was a surprise. After nearly three months of online discussions about new public management (NPM) as a concept, I had expected the Gummersbach seminar to center on various specific cases of NPM at work. I had thought the real-time phase would tie up most, if not all, of the discussion threads left loose when the online seminar ended. It did, but new questions surfaced in each one’s trail. But I am getting ahead of myself.

This narrative traces its beginnings to January 2006, when the Friedrich Naumann Foundation’s Manila office invited me to apply for an online seminar on NPM. Not only was the subject unfamiliar, there was also the fact that I had never participated in an online seminar before. The prospects of learning, meeting people and travel are difficult to resist.

With February came an assortment of ideas, some familiar as theory, albeit not in practice, like the lean state. Others seemed downright quixotic: expecting politicians to limit themselves to strategic decisions (i.e. what to do), while allowing public administrators to make operational decisions without any political interference (i.e. how to do it).

A virtual library contained readings that introduced key NPM instruments such as quality management, a new model of control, product approach and decentralization. The more we talked about the demand for public efficiency, the more it became clear that government should cease to operate as if it was insulated from market forces. But how could competition be introduced?

The online requirements were manageable: a personal introduction, an essay on the need for reform in our countries, and a brief test on NPM concepts. Deadlines were announced long beforehand, but each participant was left to set his or her own schedule and pace.

Ideas and Expectations

It was the forum that proved nearly overwhelming. With over 100 participants and the great majority of them contributing regularly, there were days when more than 30 e-mails would pour in, all demanding attention. Once compiled, our individual essays added up to over 220 pages. Here was the marketplace of ideas made tangible, and the challenges of a crammed inbox and the occasional confusion were a small price to pay for the insights gained.
I could only wish technology had made this level of preparation possible when I first attended an IAF seminar (on freedom of the press and of information) in the spring of 1996. No online component preceded that first seminar, and in comparison to what I observed this year, back in 1996 we took much longer to get the personal and conceptual introductions out of the way.

For the NPM seminar, the challenges of group work began on day one. Translation services and documentation facilities are topnotch at the Theodor Heuss Akademie, and these helped a lot in making the group sessions lively and productive. After spending so much time together online, we already had an idea of what specific NPM subjects were dearest to each. Some focused on municipal opportunities for NPM, while others viewed specific sectors, such as judicial reform or security services. It was easy to find common ground.

At the same time, however, the online phase also encouraged participants to set somewhat higher expectations for the actual seminar. So when one session didn’t work out as well as hoped, particularly a guest speaker’s presentation on product approach, controlling and benchmarking, the disappointment was palpable. (The excellent facilitators, Dr. Monika Ballin and Carina El-Nomany, were very open to feedback about this and committed to make sure the seminar’s succeeding guest presentation on this subject would match the high standards set.) Fortunately, the other presentations were excellent: detailed, comprehensive and practical.

For me, Dr. Werner Becker-Blonigen, mayor of the city of Wiel, stood out when he emphasized the need to define the local government’s core tasks and businesses — in stark contrast to the tendency of some politicians to promise far more services than what available resources can allow.

Service Orientation

Any services outside the core tasks, he pointed out, would not be tax-financed, but community-financed, and a political consensus must be reached “to make economic efficiency a priority, with clear goals and a clear structure.” For him, NPM hinged not just on defined targets, but also on a highly developed sense of individual responsibility: it would not do to expect the state to deliver everything. (This provoked one of my more persistent post-seminar questions: how can this change in mindset be effected, especially in developing countries where citizens depend so much on state services?) To serve its 27,000 inhabitants as efficiently as possible, Wiel had outsourced some aspects of the public administration, including health, planning agencies, architects and the building sector.

Another instructive presentation was provided by Ms. Iris Karras of the Citizens’ Service of Gummersbach. A clear illustration of NPM’s product approach, the Burgerservice spares citizens from having to trudge from one office to the next. Instead, they only need to transact with one highly-trained employee. This also means each Burgerservice employee, who has his or her own cash register, must make sure no client will have to wait longer than 10 minutes to be attended to. The Burgerservice, which is housed in an open-plan office that looks more like a pricey travel agency than a government department, entertains questions on all manner of public services and accepts applications for ID cards and passports. There are even regular “service evenings” and Saturday morning services, to accommodate citizens whose work schedules leave them no other time for public transactions.

At this point, facilitator Carina El-Nomany pointed out: “Once you establish a service standard, you cannot go under it, regardless of changes in the political administration.” I thought of how excruciating it is to get one’s birth certificate and other papers here at home and saw one area where the need for NPM was glaring.

Now What?

These two presentations, along with our group work sessions on introducing a mindset of customer orientation among public employees, led me to think about oft-repeated complaints in the issuance of passports, business permits and voter registrations. As an initial response to the seminar, I am working on a series of stories that will examine the current level of public services in these areas and, hopefully, help create an awareness of NPM and its possibilities. One observation raised by some presenters and participants is encouraging: NPM’s opportunities are more pronounced in the local, rather than national or federal, levels.

At the same time, I hope to keep learning about NPM, bearing in mind that a balance has to be reached between action and accountability, and that solutions are much better when they develop out of a specific context, rather than being merely transported or replicated from other situations. (The Constitution’s vision of a state that exists for the individual resonates with me, though I know that this has yet to be made real.)

I still have a lot of questions about NPM and about the challenges of reform. Change management is easily explained as a theory, but who among the many potential actors will or should take the lead? How do we encourage merit among political leaders and public sector workers, given a tendency towards clientillism and patronage? Even as I write this report, I cannot help but think about the additional ideas and inquiries raised by my co-participants in our newly minted e-group. And yet, as a journalist and as a citizen, I must strive for a balancing act: creating a sense of urgency, on one hand, and a certain level of patience, on the other, because the work of change takes time.

And there is much yet to learn.