ISLAMABAD: Pakistan`s civil service saw 38 major reform initiatives between 1947 and 2016 and many analysts consider these to be unsuccessful as these reforms were politically motivated and failed to address critical issues of accountability, meritocracy, capacity and competency, said the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in an analysis.

The report `Development Advocate Pakistan`, a recently released UNDP publication suggested that the `country`s civil services have perhaps been the most often reformed with least effect than anywhere else in the world`.

`Despite major reforms initiatives launched by both elected governments and military regimes, the consensus view today is that civil servants continue to fail in performing their roles and responsibilities to global standards of modern governance,` the report said in its conclusion.

Quoting academics and practitioners, even civil servants, the report said that the civil service generally `tends to lack capacity, motivation, neutrality, meritocracy, transparency and accountability`. `In most cases, these weaknesses were linked to perverse incentives embedded in the institutional environment within which civil servants arguably functioned for over 200 years,` it said.

But the dif ficulty of introducing real civil services reform in Pakistan was exceeded only by the necessity of doing so.

Civil servants make policy, prepare budgets and develop plans. They manage crucial local services such as health and education. They define property rights, enforce laws, adjudicate disputes and regulate industry. They collect taxes, build public works and run public corporations. They organise elections, advise elected representatives and backstoplegislatures.

Recent public management literature was replete with calls for a `whole-of government` approach to public sector reform. In Pakistan`s case, `whole-of-government` means the civil service. A small step for civil service reform should arguably be a giant leap for the government of Pakistan and its citizens.

Over the past few years, the governments have recognised this reality. The `New Growth Framework` published in 2011 confessed that `no public sector set up can intervene effectively without competent and dedicated public servants` and called for the swift implementation of theNational Commission for Government Reforms (NCGR) reform proposals.

More recently, the `Vision 2025` developed by the ministry of planning, development and reform prioritises `a complete overhaul of the civil services` to realise their vision of Pakistan joining the ranks of the top 25 economies of the world and becoming an upper-middle-income country during the next decade.

The ministry has subsequently moved to launch a fullfledged programme in collaboration with the UNDP to design and lead a comprehensive reform agenda.

The greatest challenge to the current and future reform efforts would be dismantling `rules of the game` that past dependence has preserved as a colonial legacy.

In the meantime, findings of two perception surveys based on citizens` feedback on public service delivery show that accessibility of the social services continue to be an issue despite increased fiscal transfers and administrative powers to the provinces. These surveys were part of the analysis.

Among the problems identified in availing public services, poor quality of service was ranked as the highest with 18 per cent urban and 13pc rural respondents deeming it as such.

Poor quality of service was found to be most prevalent across all sectors; 64pc males and 49pc females rated health facilities in their locality unsafe and inadequate; 62 pc respondents raised issues with low quality of education being given to their children; 60pc respondents reported to have faced a problem in availing electricity and gas supply and complained of the poor quality of the service and 79pc respondents marked transport facilities as non-compliant to basic safety measures thereby hinting that the quality of service in this sector was also unsatisfactory.

While addressing the reasons for poor quality of service, lack of technical skill was found to be the most common reason amongst respondents.

In the health sector, unavailability of qualified staff, inadequate health emergency infrastructure, and no or expensive medications were identified as the major reasons for poor quality of service. Likewise, lack of staff and missing facilities were found to be the most common reasons in the education sector. The electricity and gas supply sector identified long waiting times, high price of services and incompetence of staff as the main culprits behind poor quality of service.