FCSC, OHCSF Move to Strengthen Civil Service
FCSC, OHCSF Move to Strengthen Civil Service
To strengthen the nation’s civil service, the Federal Civil Service Commission ( FCSC) and the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation ( OHCSF) on Monday held a joint retreat .
The Chairman of FCSC, Prof. Tunji Olaopa and the HCSF, Mrs Didi Esther Walson-Jack, led their respective delegations to the retreat in Abuja.
While commending the relationship between the FCSC and the OHCSF, Olaopa said that the retreat was necessary in order to deliberate on matters that would enhance the relationship between the two offices and make the civil service better.
According to Olaopa , the two offices have been known for maintaining strategic partnership in their operations, especially under Walson-Jack and himself.
But he decried a situation where in the past, there was a seeming competition which he described as unhealthy for the civil service.
Thus, for him the retreat provided an auspicious opportunity for collaborating and addressing some grey areas in their relationship.
According to Olaopa, the two offices should work on the reprofiling of existing public service policy architecture and institutional capability to help government to better harness and optimize the inherent potential of public private partnerships (PPP) to enhance infrastructure investment financing and to boost public service delivery.
He noted the need to “recalibrate our traditional records management controls and information management protocols to stem the tide of compromises and leakages of official information; imperative need to rethink the nexus between merit, competency-based human resource practices, performance management, and the wage and remuneration structure of the civil service as part of concerted drive to restore the status of government as employer of choice relative to industry and other comparator-players in the economy and beyond; and at that with sensitivity to current unsustainable cost of governance that must be contained for the health of the economy; the need to deepen the process of reprofiling of the planning, research and policy analysis function in the service to truly professionalize the DPRS’ function in one breath, and the strengthening of programme and project management frameworks in terms of skills, competences and capability readiness of service; and reinvention and strengthening of staff induction and probation system for more guarded and systematic onboarding of new entrants into the service, in order to at once make up for educational standards deficits that the service might inherit from external inefficiencies of our tertiary institutions.”
Olaopa stressed the need for gazetting key appointments and significant policy decisions in the service, service’s annual statistical digests and MDAs’ annual report; and the harnessing of ongoing extensive computerization and digitization to reinvent these key functions in the service.
On her part, Walson-Jack, said that the retreat was more than just an engagement because she had been engaging with Olaopa for the success of the civil service. She said the retreat was to forge a stronger partnership with the two offices to deepen service for the citizens. She said that the theme of the retreat underscored the need to strengthen the civil service. She noted that the cordial relationship between the two offices showed that success was only possible through collaboration. She noted that even though the two offices had been working for the civil service, there had not been a well-defined synergy.
She commended Olaopa for initiating transformational changes into the FCSC . She particularly mentioned the Computer -based Test ( CBT) system that Olaopa had introduced for the conduct of examinations in the civil service.
Also, the keynote speaker, Amb. Mustapha Lawal Suleiman, stressed the need for a stronger collaboration for the two offices to achieve their goals of a better service to the public. He stressed the need for statistically driven decisions with inputs from the leadership of the two offices and their staff.
To strengthen the nation’s civil service, the Federal Civil Service Commission ( FCSC) and the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation ( OHCSF) on Monday
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