ROLE OF BUREAUCRACY: FUNCTIONS:
Bureaucracy or Civil Service plays a key role in running the Public
Administration by performing the following functions:
Implementation of Governmental Policies and Laws:
It is the responsibility of the bureaucracy to carry out and
implement the policies of the government. Good policies and laws can really
serve their objectives only when these are efficiently implemented by the civil
servants.
Role in Policy-Formulation:
Policy-making is the function of the political executive. However,
the Bureaucracy plays an active role in this exercise. Civil Servants supply
the data needed by the political executive for formulating the policies. In
fact, Civil servants formulate several alternative policies and describe the
merits and demerits of each. The Political Executive then selects and adopts
one such policy alternative as the governmental policy.
Running of Administration:
To run the day to day administration in accordance with the
policies, laws, rules, regulations and decisions of the government is also the
key responsibility of the Bureaucracy. The political executive simply exercises
guiding, controlling and supervising functions.
Advisory Function:
One of the important functions of the Bureaucracy is to advise the
political executive. The ministers receive all the information and advice
regarding the functioning of their respective departments from the civil
servants. Sometimes the ministers have little knowledge about the functions of
their departments. They, therefore, depend upon the advice of bureaucracy. As
qualified, experienced and expert civil servants working in all government
departments, they provide expert and professional advice and information to the
ministers.
Role in Legislative Work:
The civil servants play an important but indirect role in
law-making. They draft the bills which the ministers submit to the legislature
for law-making. The ministers provide all the information asked for by the
legislature by taking the help of the civil servants.
Semi-judicial Work:
The emergence of the system of administrative justice, under which
several types of the cases and disputes are decided by the executive, has
further been a source of increased semi-judicial work of the bureaucracy. The
disputes involving the grant of permits, licenses, tax concessions, quotas etc.
are now settled by the civil servants.
Collection of Taxes and Disbursement of Financial Benefits:
The civil servants play a vitally important role in financial
administration. They advise the political executive in respect of all financial
planning, tax-structure, tax-administration and the like. They collect taxes
and settle disputes involving recovery of taxes. They play a vital role in
preparing the budget and taxation proposals. They carry out the function of
granting of legally sanctioned financial benefits, tax reliefs, subsidies and
other concessions to the people.
Record-Keeping:
The Civil Service has the sole responsibility of keeping
systematically all government records. They collect, classify and analyses all
data pertaining to all activities of the government. They collect and maintain
vital socioeconomic statistics which are used for the formulation of Public
policies and plans.
Role in Public Relations:
The era of modern welfare state and democratic politics has made it
essential for the government to keep close relations with the people of the
state. The need for maintaining active and full public relations is a vital
necessity of every state. The civil servants play an active role in this
sphere. They are the main agents who establish direct contacts with the people.
They serve as a two way link. On the one hand, they communicate all government
decisions to the people, and on the other hand, they communicate to the
government the needs, interests and views of the people. Thus, Bureaucracy
plays a vigorously active and highly important role in the working of the
government.
CONTROL OVER BUREAUCRACY:
The rise of modern welfare state and increase in its functions has
been a source of big increase in the powers and role of Bureaucracy. It has,
therefore, given rise to an additional need for exercising control over
bureaucracy. An effective control system has become essential both for
preventing the civil servants from abusing their powers as well as for ensuring
their active and positive role. In fact, every state maintains a system of
internal and external control over Bureaucracy.
Internal Control:
It means control applied from within the organization i.e. by the
administrative machinery. The administrative organization is hierarchical and
is divided into wings, divisions, branches and sections. There are present some
internal controls in its every section. The tools of control are budgeting,
accounting, auditing, reports, inspections, efficiency surveys, personnel
control, code of conduct, and discipline and leadership control.
In particular, regular internal inspections, auditing of accounts
and evaluation of the performance of each civil servant act as main means of
internal control over Bureaucracy. Internal control is necessary for keeping
the bureaucracy efficient and productive of desired results.
External Control:
External control is that which flows from outside agencies. These
agencies are the people, the legislature, the executive and the judiciary.
BUREAUCRATIC PROBLEMS
Following are the major problems with bureaucracies:
Red Tape:
Red tape is the existence of complex rules and procedures that must
be followed to get something done. Any large organization must have some way of
ensuring that one part of the organization does not operate out of step with
another.
Duplication:
Duplication occurs when two government agencies seem to be doing
the same thing, such as when the Customs Service and the Drug Enforcement
Administration both attempt to intercept illegally smuggled drugs.
Imperialism:
It refers to the tendency of agencies to grow without regard to the
benefits their programs confer or the costs they entail. Because government
agencies seek vague goals and have vague mandates from legislature, it is not
surprising that they often take the broadest possible view of their powers. If
they do not, interest groups and judges may prod them into doing so.
Waste:
Waste occurs when an agency spends more than is necessary to buy
some product or service.
Status Quo / Absence of Profits:
Unlike businesses, bureaucracy do not have the direct and powerful
goal of earning profits. That has a deep effect on efficiency and improvement.
Without the profit goal, organizations have little reason to restrain costs and
stem wasteful spending. Nor do organizations have a strong incentive to improve
the quality of their services or the effectiveness of their management. It is
easier for organizations to live the quiet life than to take risks and try to
enhance performance.
Absence of Losses:
Poorly performing bureaucratic organizations do not go ruined, so
there is no built-in mechanism to end low-value activities. There is no
automatic corrective to programs that have rising costs and falling quality. In
the private sector, businesses abandon activities that no longer make sense,
but "the moment government undertakes anything, it becomes fixed and
permanent.
Monopoly:
Adding to the problem caused by the absence of profits and losses,
many bureaucratic activities are monopolies. That further reduces incentives to
restrain costs and improve quality. It also means there are no alternative
sources of information for people to gauge the efficiency of a government
activity. In competitive markets, people can compare the performance of
different companies and products, but with monopolies, poor performance is
harder to identify.
Rigid Compensation:
Bureaucratic employee’s compensation is based on standardized
scales generally tied to longevity, not performance. The rigid salary and benefits
structure makes it hard to encourage improved employee efforts or to reward
outstanding achievements. Rigid pay scales reduce morale among the best workers
because they see the poor workers being rewarded equally. With rigid pay
scales, the best workers have the most incentive to leave, while the poor
workers will stay, decade after decade.
Corruption/Nepotism/Favoritism:
Corruption is a major problem in Bureaucracy, especially in South
Asian states. Bureaucrats use their authority and connections for different
activities beyond laws. Many of them prefer and facilitate their friends and
relatives at the cost of law or other common peoples.
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