No wrong door policy as part of public service ethos
30 March 2021
In 2004, Singapore implemented the No Wrong Door policy. “Under this policy, when a public agency receives a query or feedback on an issue that does not fall under its purview, it should identify the agency responsible for that issue and put it in touch with the person who submitted the query or feedback. This policy has brought convenience to members of the public”, was how Mr Teo Chee Hean, Minister in charge of Civil Service in Singapore, explained this policy.
This policy is a reminder that the duty of all public servants is to put people first, Batho Pele, not bureaucratic processes and systems, that are in anyway meant to enhance government’s service delivery offerings to the public.It is a policy that seeks to break the silo mentality that is often prevalent in government, where citizens are often sent from pillar to post in their quest for basic services, and is one that we must embrace as part of our ethos.
As employees of the Department of Social Development, our services are essential, because they are responsive to the daily, lived experiences of the citizens of Gauteng. Based on our mandate, we must ensure that we effectively develop and implement programmes for the eradication of poverty, for social protection and social development among the poorest of the poor and the most vulnerable and marginalised.
As a department that plays a significant role in eradicating poverty and ensuring the social protection and development of the most vulnerable and marginalised, how do we locate ourselves within the developmental state and its aspirations, in so far as the Growing Gauteng Together 2030 Plan(GGT 2030) and the National Development Plan is concerned?
Academics and scholars posit that the developmental state is one that emerged after countries such as Japan and the Asian Tiger economies: Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea showed the world that high economic growth and improving the lives of people is possible through a state-driven developmental programme.
In a public lecture given at the Human Sciences Research Council, Professor Linda Weiss emphasised the important role that government has to play in job creation, economic growth, poverty reduction, industrial development and improving the living standards of its people.
The key component of a developmental state is a government that puts in place incentive structures based on recipients meeting performance targets within certain timeframes. In other words, for the developmental state to come to fruition, the bureaucracy should be staffed by competent, mission- oriented professionals that are career focused and recruited on merit.
Busani Ngcwaweni, who currently heads up the National School of Government, argues that it is becoming increasingly desirable that senior managers are judged on how they are transforming society instead of just whether they get clean audits and meet quantitative targets. Clean audits and attaining quantitative targets are necessary, but not sufficient conditions of attaining our developmental objectives. In the East Asian countries mentioned already, senior bureaucrats are conscientious self-driven reformers, they initiate change and innovation.
In the United Kingdom, during an election period, the bureaucracy develops detailed plans on how the manifestos of the largest parties can be operationalised post the elections, so that whoever wins elections, the bureaucracy is ready to implement, based on the winning party’s manifesto .
As Joel Netshitenzhe states in a speech he gave at an Ethekwini municipality breakfast in 2015, this is crucial for the practical reason that a new government should be able to hit the ground running. This is what has made countries like Japan and the Asian Tiger countries different from countries that are failing dismally on the developmental front, it is precisely the stability of the bureaucracy, combined with the operational principles of the administrative wing of government.
GGT 2030 and The National Development Plan, must be at the centre of our programmes and performance, so we can move towards a national democratic society. As we work together to hasten development in our province, let us adopt the attitude of the East Asian countries and see ourselves as civil servants as what they call mandarins: change agents with the mandate, authority and will to transform society under the authority of the executive.
We must learn from and borrow the best practices and traditions for the civil service, from those countries that have made the most progress in attaining their developmental aspirations and we in Gauteng, as the economic, cultural and social hub of the country, must be at the forefront of exhibiting these traits of mandarins, of civil servants that are change agents and not just box tickers(malicious compliance), towards the ultimate aim of meeting our developmental aspirations as a developmental state.
Morakane Mosupyoe MPL, is the Gauteng Member of the Executive Council for Social Development. This is an edited version of a speech she gave at the Gauteng Department of Social Development’s Annual Long Services Awards at Birchwood Hotel on the 26th of March 2021.
