The Public Service Commission of Kenya (PSCK) is an independent constitutional body estab- lished in 1954 for staff deployment and un- dertakes human resource management (HRM) policy reform.
The Public Service Commission’s is charged with recruitment and human resource devel-
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opment in the public service. According to PSC (PSC website - www.psc.go.ke), its core func- tions among others are:
Recruitment for the public service and
•
local authorities,
Promotion and acting appointments of •
public officers,
Disciplinary control in the public service
•
and local authorities
Despite the enormous opportunity for PSCK
to promote accountability and integrity in LAs, they (PSCK) have been indicted by LAs them- selves and other observers, for failure to de- ploy adequate numbers of well trained profes- sionals, lack of training and failure to promote meritocracy, professionalism and ethics in LAs, and removal of public officers. This is evident, constant transfers of chief officers, incessant wrangling between chief officers and LA man- agement and lack of competitive terms of ser- vice.
Despite the challenges, the PSCK is conscious of its strategic role.
‘’There is now no doubt about the strategic role
Human Resource can play in organisations and
it is now generally accepted that the more stra-
tegic the approach to human resource man- agement (HRM), the greater the contribution
of HRM to organisational performance. This is because HRM powerfully impacts on the poli- cies, practices and systems that influence em- ployees’ behaviour, attitude and performance (Gloet and Berrell, 2003). Yet, there is more rhetoric than reality about the exact role HRM is being allowed to play. (Florence N, Director, Recruitment & Selection, Public Service Com- mission of Kenya)
It is against this backdrop that accountability
management must also be examined, and vari- ous challenges emerge.
Accountability management in 1.
LAs is undermined by a deficient HRM framework that does not enforce integrity, professionalism, well trained and motivated workforce.
A lack of clear human resource HR develop-
ment policy means that professionals have shied away from making LAs their employer of
choice.
Some of the observed HRM malpractices ob-
served by RSDAs in LAs are as follows:
Recruitment is not always on merit. •
Some staff are recruited by politicians without requisite qualifications and they are then allied to their ‘masters’. Local Authorities Performance: Lessons Learned for M&E and Reporting of Projects
Such staffs are not recruited on merit
and therefore undermine accountability and are not eager to improve their skills
and ways of doing things. For most ru- ral LAs, the HR complement comprises a clerk and treasurer as the senior offi- cers with a huge number of junior staff ranging from clerical officers, labourers and guards. The latter are recruited us- ing political discretion and are a huge drain on the budget with little produc- tive outputs. It has been very difficult to rationalize the wage bill because of this political situation leaving LAs with the option of giving such staff duties they are not qualified to perform.
Often, staff do not have skills to cope •
with initiated reforms and thus do not have capacity to enforce requirements such as participatory planning and com- munity partnerships;
The Town Clerk and substantive manage- •
ment posts are filled by the Public Service Commission; as the chief executive and administrative officer, the clerk heads the executive arm and is responsible for coordinating all the activities of the local authority. It is his/her responsibility to-
gether with the treasurer to oversee the
budget, revenues and expenditures and
ensure that legal provisions and admin- istrative instructions from the central government are adhered to. However,
the challenges associated with constant
transfers of clerks and chief officers have
landed on deaf ears and these trans- fers continue to undermine morale and incentives to achieve high standards of service.
Due to low pay, LA officers are often •
demoralized and this affects timely de- livery of services. In the absence of per- formance targets, the culture of staff missing work or leaving office for long hours to attend to personal matters needs to be overcome.
A competitive schemes of service
2. as an in-
centive for sustainable performance manage- ment has not been put in place
The current scheme of service is not favourable
to the local authority staff. To try and bridge the glaring salary and job group disparities, the Ministry of Local Government was requested to upgrade some cadre of staff as a short-term measure to boost performance. Unfortunately, staff at salary scale 11 to 20 who had not up- graded their academic qualifications but had served on the job for a long time felt that they
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were being victimized. They lodged complaints
to the PSC which administered ad hoc audits
and in essence, this was seen as a delaying tac- tic. This has unfortunately created new prob- lems of attitude to work and staffs feel that they have no job security.
Low compliance to code of conduct 3.
Although there are printed copies of the code of
ethics, the document is kept by the Clerk and is not externalized to the rest of the staff. There is no process of induction during which time such
an important document would be shared with
staff. The performance appraisal and reviews with a view to improving on staff performance is not yet in place. The Central Government has
introduced the format used by Government
Ministries where there is a harmony between jobs and skills. This is not the case for local au- thorities. A systematic approach that reviews
the skills gaps based on desired outputs and
one that ensures that skills match the job and then clear reporting and setting performance targets is long overdue.
Human Resource Management is 4.
politicised
Due to the political nature of staff recruitment and retention, there are instances of glaring mismatches in placements. Where the Clerk
is in lower scale and is less qualified than the Treasurer, he cannot effectively enforce disci- pline on the treasurer. The unclear HR policies contribute to this unfortunate state of affairs. Many LAs depend on external consultants to boost capacity, which is expensive and not sus- tainable. There is a culture where Clerks opt to hire consultants for the smallest tasks. This is
not only unsustainable but more detrimental
in the long run as it robs the institution of the
opportunity to own and drive processes such
as strategic planning and institutional develop- ment.
8
SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY
STRATEGIES AND
CHALLENGES
8.1 Conceptual Framework on
Social Accountability
This section reviews challenges in LASDAP as a
social accountability strategy while suggesting
other means of strengthening accountability
through “social accountability” approaches like participatory budgeting. The paper will adopt the World Bank definition of social accountabil- ity defined as “an approach towards building accountability that relies on civic engagement, i.e. in which it is ordinary citizens and/or civil society organisations who participate directly Local Authorities Performance: Lessons Learned for M&E and Reporting of Projects
or indirectly in exacting accountability” (World Bank, 2004:1).
A number of strategies and instruments have been developing to promote social account-
ability including those detailed in the following
table.
Table 7.6 shows typical approaches used world-
wide to promote social accountability and how
each approach is defined.
The World Bank defines the role of social ac- countability as to empower citizens to play an effective role in governance, to enhance trans-
parency and accountability and to increase
development effectiveness. Some approaches advance citizen participation in monitoring the use of public resources, while others promote access to information and proactive engage- ment between the state and citizens (Sirker 2006).
These approaches have various benefits and offer lessons for improved governance and ser- vice delivery. In Kenya, LASDAP has been de-
signed as a social accountability strategy which has made remarkable changes to the level of
citizen participation.