True value of public service can be worked out

By Samuel B. MachariaGovernments all over are faced with unrelenting pressure to achieve more with less. One of the often-overlooked means of improving public service delivery is the value chain analysis.Perhaps the reason for this oversight is the attitude among public sector leadership that the public service is not private sector, and vice versa. Admittedly, the level of public service delivery has improved considerably over the past few years thanks to consistent reforms that have been carried out in the sector.However, there is incessant need to improve the level of efficiency in the public service. In econometric analysis, efficiency can be considered as the distance of an observation’s input and output vector from the production frontier, or in simpler terms, the ratio of costs to output.According to Bouckaert (2002), the public sector’s success emerges in the quality and nature of the goods and services it provides, its redistributive activities, and in the nature of its regulation of market and individual behaviour. The value chain is a private sector concept, first described and popularised by Michael Porter in his 1985 best-seller, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. It is a systematic approach to examining the development of competitive advantage.A value chain is linked by supply chains — the system of organisations, people, technology, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. The value chain allows a systematic analysis of the primary and secondary business processes in an organisation and of the way they do or do not add value to the organisation’s outputs. Additional servicesThe public service has to consider enriching its processes with the existing clients, use strong networks to reach marginalised groups, create new processes to deliver new public services, and expand processes to provide additional services to current clients and partners.One of the examples that come to mind is the cost of goods and services procured by the public sector. Oftentimes, a product will be bought two or three times the actual cost in the retail store. This means that the public does not get value for its shilling. Tony Bovaird in his book, Public Management and Governance advocates a strategy of Government procurement based on continuous improvement, world class purchasing, and greater flexibility. A more professional approach can reduce costs by working with suppliers to identify the inefficiencies in the supply chainAccording to Kathleen E. Monahan (2001) there is no significant difference between the value chain in the private and public sectors. However, while the private sector focuses on shareholder value, profitability, and customer loyalty, the focus in the public sector is public trust instead of customer loyalty, mission achievement instead of profitability, and public value instead of shareholder value.One of the bottlenecks in the public service value chain is a poor regulatory framework. Notably, Government activity is a complex production process in which various skills and resources are combined in different ways to produce goods and services and regulatory decisions.A one-Government approach enables citizens receive standard services across the different areas in public sector.Performance contracting has brought about tremendous difference in level of performance in the public service. Unfortunately, two arms of Government; Judiciary and Legislature are still not convinced it would work for them.‘mali ya uma’ syndromeAn enhanced value chain in the Judiciary would ensure that justice is dispensed in a timely manner. There are people who wait for this justice for decades!The investigatory and prosecutory arms of Government continue to accuse each other of ineptitude. The wastages and leakages in our supply chain must be dealt with forthwith. The spirits of the mali ya uma syndrome must be exorcised forthwith, and impunity dealt with decisively.Finally we must build public institutions marked by integrity and responsiveness. The failure to change in good time is often the failure to change in good times. The writer is a lecturer at Kenya Institute of Administration.

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