Op-Ed Contributors

People at heart of administrative reform

By Grayson Clarke (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-12 07:54

Two months ago our EU-China Social Security Reform Cooperation project ran what was intended as refresher training for trainees from our previous actuarial courses held in 2007 and 2008. In the event, only half the trainees had attended before because the other half had been rotated into new jobs and the value of the training they received will largely be lost.

Training is another key aspect of improving performance and yet still most government agencies are reluctant to put much money into it. For most departments there seems to be a complete lack of structured training for entry level, mid-career and senior managers and a general attitude that staff can pick up the skills required on the job.

Chinese people themselves are very prepared to invest in their own development - 18,000 students alone are taking the examinations of the Chartered Financial Analysts Institute one month from now - but I doubt outside the sovereign wealth funds and the independent financial regulators, who have their own salary scales, very few will ever the join the civil service or the local governments who manage billions of RMB of public funds.

The civil service is still seen as an attractive and stable career and many young graduates want to join it. But the government must resist the temptation to believe that intensive graduate entry competition will alone translate into great performance and higher productivity on the job.

On the contrary, if the gap between civil service and the private sector on pay training and professional development continues to grow, the greater the risk that the civil service will become the home of time servers, and the corrupt. The government needs to sell the idea that a 21st century China needs a 21st Century civil service expected to perform and given the wherewithal to do it.

The author is an international consultant with the EU-China Social Security Reform Cooperation Project.

(China Daily 05/12/2010 page9)