The Government Reform Com-mittee under the Presidential Office finalized its plans for streamlining the Cabinet on March 30. The 36 agencies will be cut down to 23 and seven independent entities will be established when necessary. Incessant wrangling colored the negotiation process and many of the compromises were politically-motivated.
For example, the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, the Council of Hakka Affairs and the Council of Aboriginal Affairs will remain independent bodies, even though they should be combined. The proposal -- advanced by the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission -- to combine the Coast Guard Admin-istration, the National Police Administration and the National Fire Administration into a "ministry of public safety" was vetoed because some members insisted on establishing a "ministry of maritime affairs."
Ironically, the two distinct fields of culture and sports are being forced into one ministry. No wonder the famous dancer Lin Hsiu-wei (林秀偉), in a public hearing, said, "Policy makers who assume culture is akin to sports should imagine how [the professional basketball player] Cheng Chih-lung [鄭志龍] would look playing basketball in a tutu."
The main factor that allowed political compromises to overwhelm professional considerations was a fixation with the number 23. To meet President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) promise to downsize the government by one-third, the committee came up with a patchwork plan simply aimed at meeting the target of 23 agencies. But this ignored the dynamics of the government. Now, agencies that should be integrated will remain independent and those that should be independent will be forced together.
The logic behind the plan is that a reduced number of admin-istrative entities is tantamount to streamlining -- and streamlining equals government reform. But what is the significance of the reform if the total number of civil servants remains the same, or even rises, and the annual personnel expense still accounts for at least 28 percent of the general budget? Streamlining is not the core value of government reform.
The brilliance of former US president Bill Clinton's government reform campaign became one of his important political achievements. Clinton set up the National Performance Review Committee in March 1993 and appointed then-vice president Al Gore to chair the committee. Each agency had a government reform team. The slogan was: "Creating a government that works better and costs less."
In other words, the core values of government reform lie in improving performance and reducing the budget. The principles and methods of realizing the two values are to: emphasize the cost-benefit concept, focus on performance evaluation, make those who execute policy respon-sible and accountable, introduce competitive mechanisms, innovate and reform, and emphasize customer satisfaction.
Streamlining is not a panacea for reforming the government. The research conducted by the American Management Association between 1990 and 1992 suggests that more than 50 percent of downsized organizations do not achieve the expected results. If an organization is streamlined without adequate preparation, the resulting problems and adverse effects will make the downsizing unsuccessful. Furthermore, research conducted by the US auto industry over nine consecutive years shows that reducing personnel does not necessarily increase revenues, and the actual effects often vary greatly from what is expected.
The government must not be downsized for the sake of downsizing. Reaching a target number does not make reform successful. What should be considered is whether each agency's performance has im-proved, whether the budget is being effectively used, whether the total number of the personnel is kept under control and whether workloads between agencies are balanced.
Therefore, I suggest that "re-shaping" should replace "downsizing" when it comes to government reform. In reality, work is not distributed equally between each agency. Some units responsible for less work have redundant personnel, while others with heavy workloads have too few people. These problems can never be resolved by simply downsizing.
To reshape the government, three principles must be followed.
First, government reform must be undertaken from the perspectives of national development and people's needs. With society's needs diversifying day by day, reform should not be defined by a number.
Second, performance-management mechanisms should be introduced. A full-scale performance and manpower review should be conducted on Cabinet agencies which should serve as a reference for combining or down-sizing, as well as for deciding on the number of personnel.
Third, to take care of civil servants' rights and interests, em-ployees in downsized agencies should be encouraged to take early retirement or be allocated to agencies short of people, thereby controlling the total number of personnel.
The core value of government reform does not lie in streamlining, but in retrenching budgets and improving performance. The Presidential Office's proposal will soon be submitted to the legislature for review. I hope that law-makers can see beyond the magic number 23 and instead consider performance and budget when reshaping the government. Then this will not become just reform in name only.
Lee Yun-chieh is professor of public administration at National Open University.
Translated by Jackie Lin
As Taiwan’s domestic political crisis deepens, the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have proposed gutting the country’s national spending, with steep cuts to the critical foreign and defense ministries. While the blue-white coalition alleges that it is merely responding to voters’ concerns about corruption and mismanagement, of which there certainly has been plenty under Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and KMT-led governments, the rationales for their proposed spending cuts lay bare the incoherent foreign policy of the KMT-led coalition. Introduced on the eve of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the KMT’s proposed budget is a terrible opening
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
Last week, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), together holding more than half of the legislative seats, cut about NT$94 billion (US$2.85 billion) from the yearly budget. The cuts include 60 percent of the government’s advertising budget, 10 percent of administrative expenses, 3 percent of the military budget, and 60 percent of the international travel, overseas education and training allowances. In addition, the two parties have proposed freezing the budgets of many ministries and departments, including NT$1.8 billion from the Ministry of National Defense’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program — 90 percent of the program’s proposed
RSS