MAKING THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT IN SERVICES DELIVERIES 

K. Y. MUSTAFA
The Sabah State Secretary
Chief Minister’s Department
Kota Kinabalu, Sabah 

INTRODUCTION 

On the 04^th November 1999, we adopted and launched a new approach to our Public Sector Management Transformation through our Reinventing Government Initiatives.  In this initiative, we attempted to serve and delivery services that matter most to the people of Sabah.  Our ultimate drive was to create a Good Government that attempted to serve the people of Sabah. 

In bringing about those changes in our Reinventing Government Initiatives, we recognised that Local Governments are playing a crucial roles.  We are aware that we need a Local Governments that provides services valued by the local communities.  In our new and current challenges, Local Governments need to pay attention to delivering very important elements of our National Development Plan.  Local Governments must now lead local development.  The new National Development Plan should now be at the heart of Local Governments Agenda.  The Reinventing Government Initiatives and the new emphasis for Local Governments to lead local development agenda and improving local service delivery bring about another challenge to Local Governments.  The challenge posed by the above agenda is that of “do the structure and ways of working in the current Local Governments are fit for the above purpose?”.  And  what significant changes can be proposed and necessary if we are to realise the potential of our new National and State Agenda?  In another words, our tasks is that of how to make Local Government effective and efficient in service deliveries at local levels. The above issues should be the focus and tasks we attempted to deliberate in this paper. 

We discussed the above issues as follows.  First, there is a brief discussion on our initiatives to introduce public service transformation through our Reinventing Government Initiatives.  Second, there is the discussion on (creating) Local Governments of the State Reinvented Government.  Third, there is the need for new approaches and directions among Local Governments on delivering important elements of the National Development Plan.  Fourth, there is the examination of the kind of structures and ways of working that could best drive and support the earlier above issues.  And finally, there is the concluding remark. We discussed these as follow.

THE REINVENTING GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES 

Our Reinventing Government initiatives began as a respond to take the State Government management beyond the year 2000. It was our desire to see that the State Public Service would be able to responding, performing the custodianship of public trust, and made herself relevance  into the future. This very idea was also endorsed and adopted in the State Legislative Assembly. In November 1999, the initiative was formally accepted and launched as the State premier agenda of Reinventing Government  (RG).  In this initiative we were guided by the work of Osborne and Plastrik’s (1997) and Osborne and Gaebler (1992). These authors defined Reinventing Government as:

“ The fundamental transformation of public systems and organisations to create dramatic increase in their effectiveness, efficiency, adaptability, and capacity to innovate. This transformation is accomplished by changing their purpose, incentives, accountability, power structure and culture.”      Osborne and Plastrik: 1997

From this initiative, we crafted our State Public Service vision as: “To transform Sabah into a prosperous, knowledgeable and civil society”. We are convinced that we would be able to make some progress towards achieving this vision as per our following mission:

A Reinvented State Government that transforms Sabah into a knowledge-based society, with the following qualities:

&   A result-oriented, responsible and respected State Government Administration

&   A knowledgeable, effective and trustworthy State Public Service

&   A pleasant and open work environment that promotes transparency and a continuous learning culture

&   A fully networked and functioning Electronic Government System

Our ultimate motivation from the Reinventing Government initiatives is that of creating Good Government characterized by a Public Service that:

&   Provides the best services and information

&   Understands and provides services actually needed by the people

&   Ensures that the Services  and Advices are fully felt and enjoyed by the people, especially the Rural Community

&   Earns the recognition and appreciation of the people
 

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS OF THE STATE REINVENTED GOVERNMENT 

The Crucial Role of Local Governments 

Over the last three years, we have been contemplating on instituting, enhancing and creating Local Governments that people have confidence in and is a place where things get done.  This crucial role could be performed when the following can be satisfied.  First, Local Government should be leading in reflecting and responding to the needs and priorities of the local people.  Second, Local Government should be delivering range of services and outcomes that matters locally be given utmost priority.  Third, Local Government should be the heart of local community now and in the years ahead.  This, therefore, requires that Local Governments  are seen in relation to the future of Local/Regional Development (under the National Term Plans).  And finally, as our Reinventing Government Initiatives earlier suggested, we need to look hard at what is working well and what is not working well at present.  We also expressed this as “Doing More With Less” and “Doing Less With Less”. 

The Reinvented Local Government 

Earlier, we alluded to the characteristic of a Reinvented State Government.  The challenges for Local Governments in the Reinventing Government Initiatives would be to achieve the following qualities.  First, there is the vision for the Local Government of today, tomorrow and in the future.  Second, there is the creation and sustaining Local Government Leadership.  Third, there is the move to push for local citizen engagement and participation.  Earlier, we talked about this as a community owned Local Government.  Our current sustaining efforts can now be seen as “managing to serve the public”.  Fourth, there is the delivery of services and goods that matters, as promised, and the need for Local Government performance framework.     This is in line with our Nation’s current drive to institute  and practice Key Performance Indicators.  We briefly discussed  these elements as follow. 

(i)         Vision of the Local Government of the Future 

This vision is about the outcomes we wish to achieve for local communities.  When we launched  our Reinventing Government Initiatives, we talked about our services and management as being effective and efficient when we are able to deliver high quality services and having some direct impact upon people. 

Our understanding of Public Sector Leadership is that of it happens at all levels.  Our Local Government Leadership should, therefore,  be that of giving local leaders responsibility, accountability, and opportunity to craft and design services around the needs of local people. 

The Reinventing Government Initiatives, among other things, is about flexibility.  Our vision of the Local Government organisation is that of being able to meet the aspiration of local communities or users. 

The essence of Local Governments’ vision is that of putting people at the center of our public services.  This, therefore, entails that public services must now be redesigned  around the needs and preferences of local people and communities.  In order to be able to deliver these, Local Government Officers and Staff must be knowledgeable about local needs and are in the front-line of delivery. 

In Reinventing Government Initiatives, Local Governments are in position to make a big contribution on many issues that matter most to people.  Our vision of the Local Governments of today and in the future should be able to provide the following potentials.   First,  by being close to people and issues  which concern them, Local Government could deliver Government’s agenda according to the needs and requirement of the localities.  Second, Local Governments are an interface between Government and people.    Therefore, Local  Government  could  involve  local  communities  in responding to national services provisions and local community needs and priorities.  Third, Local Governments are in position to coordinate the delivery of other locally provided services and goods. 

Achievement of this vision, however, requires strong, self-confident local authorities in all areas of responsibilities. 

(ii)        Local Government Leadership 

In the  Sabah State, we have engaged ourselves in Public Service Training Reform.  In this reform, we called for and initiated a new training, development and learning approaches: i.e., Training for the Future and Growing/Developing Future Leaders.  Our premier agenda in this reform is that of Succession Planning and Management Programmes.  These programmes comprise of Executive Development Programme, Management Development Programme and Executive Induction Programme.  These programmes are intended to ensure continuous supply of competent leaders in the State Public Service Leadership.

Conventionally, Local Government or Council with strong leadership generally does well while Councils with weak leadership often perform badly.  In our Reinvented Local Government Environment, our Councils’ managerial level leadership is taken care by the above programmes.  Perhaps,  new ideas and approaches could be thought of in order  to   develop high quality Council’s “political” leaders. 

(iii)       Community Owned Government/Local Citizen Engagement and Participation 

Local citizen engagement and participation over the delivery of public services ensure   reflective ness   of   people’s   needs   and   preferences.         Greater engagement among local community in the service deliveries helps to enhance people’s sense of pride and involvement.  Both of these preferences and sense of pride and involvement help to make the deliver of public services at local level more responsive and effective.  It may also increased people’s  understanding, influence and choices over services deliveries and provisions. 

(iv)       Delivery of Services and Goods that Matters and Performance Frame Work 

(a)                Delivery of Services and Goods that Matters

In order to be able to deliver high quality, cost-effective services, and according to the needs and preferences of citizen,  Local Governments must constantly focus on improvement to current ways of delivering services. In those continuous improvement initiatives, new ways must be found to encourage and enable a wide range of services.  A diverse range of partnerships and approaches need to be considered if we are to meet the needs and preferences of citizens. 

(b)                Performance Framework

Our Reinventing Government Initiatives challenges Local Government to be engaged in managing for results and impact.  In order to manage this, an effective performance framework must be instituted.  An effective  performance  framework  possess  the following characteristics.  First, it must drive continuous improvement in the delivery of cost-effective, efficient services.  Second, it must be supportive of greater accountability to local people and across local partners for performance.   Third, it must secure the effective delivery of national/state interests and priorities.  And fourth, it must encompass the contribution of partnership working to deliver local outcomes. 

In the above segment of this paper, we have discussed some key issues that highlighted a vision of strong, self confident Local Government, and trusted to secure better outcomes for local people.  Our current Local Governments visionary drive should also be focused towards delivering on very important elements of the National Development Plan. We discussed this issue in the next section/segment of this paper. 

NEW APPROACHES AND DIRECTIONS ON DELIVERING NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN 

From the earlier discussion, we pointed out that Local Government must lead in local development that matters most.   Hence, there is the need to initiate and strike out in new approaches and directions.  These new directions and approaches must set out plans putting and promoting local community overall economic, social and cultural development.

Since the implementation of our Reinventing Government Initiatives, our drive has been centered on the following.  First, there is the drive that public organisation should maximise their contribution to economic and social development of the people of Sabah.  Second, there is the drive that an excellent service should be provided to the public.  And third, there is the drive that public resources should be use effectively by public organisations. 

Beside the above drives, our Reinventing Government Initiatives has also been about tackling important issues on managing for results in the Government.  These issues include the following.  First it has been about delivering services to the public : customers and clients.  Second, it has been about delayering the public organizations.  This is a deliberate effort to reduce “red tape” or eliminating unnecessary bureaucratic burden.  Third, it has been about pushing responsibility and accountability to the front-line.     Fourth, it has been about doing more with less and improving financial management that ensures value for money.  Fifth, it has been about improving our human resource management and development.  Sixth, it has been about enhancing the use of information communication  technology.  Our E-Government Agenda has been main power mover in our Reinventing Government Initiatives and its subsequent ICT  development in the State Public Service.  And finally, it has been about improving our work co-ordination at all levels and  organisations. 

With all these initiatives in place and the current challenges to lead local development agenda, Local Government should now be able to craft and prepare for strategic statements and business plan setting out the works necessary in order to achieve the new mandate.  The set up of those plans should include: 

(i)         How and when various steps are to be taken;

(ii)        What resources will be applied; and

(iii)       What indicators there are to assess performance. 

The New Directions for Local Government 

In line with National Agenda of combating the unnecessary bureaucratic burden, our State has formed various Task Forces.  We believe that those Task Forces should now be able to set a path that enable Local Government to influence the provision of public service locally.  Perhaps, it is now timely that local authorities should be taking specific and leading role in Local Service Delivery.

 Enhancing Delivery of Services 

The State Local Government Initiatives for co-ordination of service delivery through one-stop center is a work in progress.  Through this one-stop center Local Authorities could further develop customer service ethos.  For example, we may need to plan and identify customer service objectives along the levels and standards of service which the public can reasonably expect.  This, therefore, could be articulated in Local Authorities Corporate Plans. 

Managing to Measure up to the National Development Plan 

If Local Government is to response to the challenge of the National Development Term Plan, the right management issues and structures would have to be in place.  The translation of this Development Plan into reality requires that Local Authorities management structure be focused on performance.  There should be clear lines of delegation of authority, responsibility and accountability.  These requirements, therefore, must be in corporate the Local Authorities Corporate and Business Plans. 

We alluded to this management culture and values as “trust and trustworthiness”.  Managing to measure up to the National Development Plan in the Local Authorities would have to be “free” to manage without unnecessary control from the center.  Our efforts and initiatives had been those of upgrading and creating of Local authorities Executive Services.  In order to manage those challenges and opportunities successfully, we require the full commitment of all with a State in Local Government – Councilors, Executives Managers, Staff, and the collaborating partners in the Local Service Deliveries. 

The New Ways of Working for Results 

Within the current National Development Plan, there lies an exciting agenda at the heart of Local Government.  We are now faced within opportunities and responsibilities to build sustainable local communities, improving local services, and promoting equity, equality and social cohesion.  When we achieved some successes in the above service deliveries, we could actually  make a real difference to people and communities at local levels. 

In order to make this real difference, however, we need to enhance and explore new ways of working that fit for making this difference.  Some significant changes need to be proposed.  We are confident that those changes are necessary if we are to realise the potential of our offered in our new  National Developmental Agenda. 

The Proposals

In many of our State Public Services events, we always highlighted that organizations are driven by the talent, skills and motivation of its people.  The quality of relationships organizations established with key partners and the public are also equally important as success requires more than individual effort.  Some of these important components are those of strong leadership from the Councilors, strategic direction, organisational alignment, and some new ways of working.  We discussed these briefly as follow. 

(i)         Strong Leadership

Since the year 2003, we have been preparing, developing and growing the State Public Sector Leadership cadre for the current and future requirement.  The State Local Governments Executive leadership  is  included in this agenda.  We suggest that the Councilors/Board members’ leadership need to be selected and develop parallel to their counterpart in the Public Sector.  We are convinced that once the above agenda is in place we can jointly enhanced our responsibilities for setting strategy, leading the Local Authorities and ensuring a high level of performance. 

Achievement of shared leadership development would direct us towards a strong sense of collective purpose and authorative public profile.  This boarder leadership ethos would also help us to establish a collective responsibility for the leadership of Local Authorities. Further, this agenda would enhance our drive for performance, generate strategic thinking, and draw resource and expertise to solve problems and respond rapidly to new and changing demand  posed upon our Local Governments. 

(ii)        Realigning/Reshaping the Structure of Works

In order to seize the opportunities offered by the new agenda, we propose the Local Governments to realign and reshape their structures to better match the span of responsibilities in the new governance agenda.  In this realigning and reshaping, we proposed Local Government (staff) should be based and grouped into : (a) service providers to their staff and the wider organisation; (b) specialist skills and knowledge in the organisation; and  (c) Managers and Co-coordinators of resources and external relationships. 

With this arrangement, we believe that we can ensure effective deployment of staff to projects and services.  It would also help in enhancing performances management and professional development, and  the quality of their working environment. 

(iii)       The “New” Ways of Working as One Government

Gone were the days when we were working on “organisational rivalry”.  Today  we  need  to  work  as  one  Government.   Since we launched our   Reinventing Government Initiatives, we have been propagating for the need to collapse all walls and our functional silos.   These, of course,  need to be  coupled by one fundamental requirement : i.e.; open up and be opened mindedness.  These are all about working together.  

How we work together are very crucial if we are to ensure effectiveness in handling and managing our responsibilities, tasks, and opportunities.  Our experience from the practices and elucidation from our RG Initiatives, success in this endeavour hinges on the following key elements.  First, there are the flexibility and coherence.  Our current working on collaboratively and flexibly across organisations could be given new dimension in our Local Authorities.  If our passion  working for the people become the dominating ethos, we believe all unnecessary bureaucratic burden and hindrance can be done away with.  Second, there are the focus, pace and clarity.  Our Reinventing Government Initiatives which focus on “doing less with less” directed us towards the need to be clear on our priorities. The same initiative also requires us to be quick to respond to new ideas and challenges.  Within all of these, we have been reminding ourselves that clear and frequent communication with each other and our partners at all levels had been given higher priority.  Third, there are the professionalism, passion and pride.  Long before we initiated the Reinventing Government Agenda, we propagated the need to be professional and professionalism in the State Public Service.  Hence, we initiated, and implemented, and will continue to implement the drive for the “Training for the Future”, developing and growing future leaders. Hence our efforts in  investing in and growing talent all levels across the organisations.

In this new local governance drive, our long planned and conceived collaboration between UiTM and the State Public Sector Training Institute may now be given new opportunities and explore how it could benefit our Local Governments.  We are confident that this  is a fertile ground for close collaboration for the betterment of the State Public Sector and the people of the State of Sabah. 

CONCLUDING REMARK 

In this paper we have discussed the challenges and opportunities on  how to make Local Government as a “Good Government” and effective and efficient in the services deliveries. We begin with brief discussion on what Reinventing Government initiative is, what kind of State Public Service we wish to “recreate”, and our ideal good government is. Our ideal is that of performance of our custodianship of public trust. The opportunities at local level arrangements are those of  “Reinvented Local Governments” with qualities and characteristics that took local people at the heart in what ever are being undertaken. Our timely National Development Plan should be guiding our local development agenda and as well as translating the intent of that Plan in bringing about common benefits at local levels. Hence, we need to craft and mould our ways for new approaches in delivering our National Development Plan. Our new suggested approaches are centered on the drive that public organisations should maximise their contribution to economic and social development of the people of Sabah.  Our second  drive focus the  excellent service  be provided to the public.  And our third  drive centered on effectiveness in the utilization of public resources by public organisations.