Is Good Governance an Approach to Civil Service Reforms?

The Civil Service refers to the body of officials who carry out functions of government under the direction and supervision of the head of government [Rahman (1998), p. 2]. Excluded in this definition are employees of state-owned enterprises, the army, teachers, the judiciary and the police who, together with civil servants, collectively constitute the public sector. It is the civil service, and not the public sector, which will be the focus of this paper. Civil Service arrangements have emerged as important mediating institutions which interface between the state and its citizens. Traditionally these were monolithic, centralised, powerful structures with immense power over the management of the affairs of a nation, and often not very responsive to the changing needs of governance and public management.