What is the difference between public and civil service? Discuss how should public and civil servants manage conflict of interest?
Answers
Civil Service is an executive arm of the government for implementing certain policies for the social, economical welfare etc. While Public service is broader concepts which comprises all the departments,administration example nurse in public health service.
All civil servants are public servants but all public servants are not civil servants.
Civil servants has greater decision making power within the administration while public servants simply act on the decision.
Managing conflict of interest between public and civil servants:
1) Participative decision making: Where all public and civil servants gets equal saying and ensure consensus based decision making.
2) Rule of Law: All decision should have the legitimacy with constitutional values.
3) Third Party: A neutral third party could adjudicate the matter in case of deadlock. Example: Role of Tribunals
4) Perestroika and Glasnost: Administration should be well structured with greater transparency and accountability in any decision making.
5) Daily decision making power must be given to public servants with greater autonomy while non-regular decision making power must be based on involvement of all stakeholders including public. Example : Net neutrality matter in case of TRAI
6) Clarity in objectivity: This should be clear, which can be refined through good legislation.Ex: In matter of Federal jurisdiction.
7) Monitoring and evaluation at each stage must be coordinated between all departments through technology.
8) Role of Emotional intelligence in handling the conflicts.
Thus these measure would help in curtailing any conflict of interest but it can only be ensured with regular engagement between them. Both should understand the greater public interest which can come through empathy, compassion for the public.
While public service and civil service was used interchangeably at many times, there is a subtle difference between the two. Public service refers to work that is carried out to secure public interest. Civil service refers to a body of officials or bureaucracy appointed by the Government for public service.
While a politician or a social worker may be engaged in public service, he or she is not part of the civil service.
Situations of conflict of interest for public and civil servants arise when their primary interest that is seeking citizens’ welfare is at conflict with secondary interests like those of self, kinship, etc.
These can be managed as follows:
Recuse oneself from taking decisions where conflict of interest is involved, and explicitly reveal grounds for the same.
eg: taking interview for a post, where a family member has also applied.
Eg. Not being part of a tender-opening committee, when a family member has also tendered.
Maintaining objectivity and transparency in all actions and decisions.
Reasons for all actions should be clearly recorded in writing and made available in the public domain.
Following all applicable laws and rules in letter and spirit. Any deviation from law should be guarded against. Discretion is available should be used with proper justifications in writing.
If all civil servants find a way to resolve conflict of interest in favour of public interest, it will lead towards good governance.
I think it helped you.
Two concepts of public servants and civil servants are very confusing in any study of public administration as both are very similar to each other. Not understanding the two concepts clearly is the reason why some students make the mistake of treating them as interchangeable, which is wrong as despite similarities, there are vital differences that need to be highlighted.
One thing common to both a civil servant and a public servant is the fact that they are both officials in government departments, and though they are termed servants, they are actually bred and brought up to feel superior to common people. Both have an umbrella of security in the sense that their jobs are guaranteed, even if they are average or poor performers, and this sense of security makes them arrogant in their behavior towards common people.
Technically speaking, a civil servant is as much a public servant as a bank officer, though the major difference pertains to the level of control each has in his hands. A civil servant is always a part of the administration, and is thus, a rung above other public servants. Even, a nurse working in a government hospital qualifies to be a public servant, though she cannot be compared to a district magistrate (DM) who belongs to the category of civil servants. There are huge differences in not just pay scales and salaries; there are different sets of rules and regulations in hiring and promotion for both civil servants as well as public servants.
Civil servants are selected through Union Public Service Commission at the union level, whereas every state has its own Public Service Commission to select civil servants and press into service at state level. Those selected through UPSC can get postings in public departments all over India, and this gets decided at the start with the cadre they