As public body managers, you are tasked to bid your services to the public and hence you have the responsibility to ensure that the services you provide are not only effective, efficient, righteous but also that their delivery is free from corruption and malpractice. People must find a obvious thought of the primary functions of public bodies and the obligations of your organization and yourselves as stipulated in the law.
distinguished functions of public bodies like your organization, a worthy number of institutions are scheduled by law as public bodies. They are designated as such because their operations and services have notable bearings on the interests of the public and society as a whole. For example, they are the:
- Major services providers given a monopoly/ franchise/license by the government like: bus companies, railway companies;
- Organizations spending/disbursing big public funds e.g. universities, hospitals;
- Organizations performing public regulatory functions e.g. regulatory bodies of the financial sector and valid estate industry;
- Organizations performing other notable public service functions e.g. housing and land development bodies, charitable organizations; and
- Major mass media organizations e.g. television and broadcasting stations.
Public management is public trust. As public body managers, you must ensure that your operations are conducted in a attractive and responsible plan and your staffs fill a high recognizable standard of conduct so that public trust is upheld and public interest protected.
Ethics and values should be taught in public administration schools. Some argue that ethics principles and values can be taught about but they cannot be taught in the same manner as we scream skills and knowledge of budgeting, information technology, personnel management, policy analysis, and so forth.
The debate continues with tiny evidence of a consensus emerging anytime soon. Nonetheless, it is imperative that the debate travel faster rather than slower least the profession languish in the fields of careerism, technical rationality, and moralist.
The second spacious war of the 20th century brought the mythology of the politics/administration dichotomy to its knees and was the beginning of the waste of the prevailing orthodoxy that administrators are and should be passion-less dispensers of public goods and services, thus freeing up a renewal of public administration.
The modern Public Service advocated by Denhardt and Denhardt (2000) . Their vision is one in which public administrators return to their roots as guardians of democracy.
They further enunciate seven principles that, individually and collectively, provide a normative framework for the professional public administrator.
Nonetheless, renewal will not be an easy task for professional associations, public administration educators, or those who toil in the day-in and day-out work of making their communities a better situation to live, work, and play. Some albeit little assist might be found in a recently published collection of essays and articles.
Rediscovery and renewal, as this discussion highlights, is certainly fermenting within the academy. Adams and Balfour call for unmasking administrative substandard has not gone unnoticed. Nor has Frederickson challenge to set aside the public befriend in public service or the Denhardt vision for a current Public Service been lost in the early years of the 21 st Century. Yet the findings reported by Light cannot be dismissed lightly. What then can and should we inquire of in the years ahead? Where do body and soul of public administration reside? If not in or among professional associations or in the workplace, must we finish that our search is in vain? No. Two necessary events are most revealing-the tragedy and triumph of September 11 th 2001 and the financial and organizational meltdown of corporate titans such as Enron, WorldCom, AOL Time Warner, and Arthur Anderson.
The culture of self-enrichment embedded in the business executive corps that has sapped employees, shareholders, and the American public speaks volumes to the culture of greed and self-serving. An ethical meltdown comparable to that in the corporate world borders on the unimaginable if not unthinkable in all but a few American cities and states. Even more dramatically, the tragedy of September 11 brought forth in sure understanding for the world to perceive the triumph of goodness in the brave efforts by passengers and crew members on the ill-fated United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed into Somerset County, Pennsylvania, and the fire, police, and military men and women who rushed to the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to withhold life and property.
These deeds in the air and on the streets of unusual York and Washington remind us that public service is truly about caring for others and this is the essence of public administration. The body and soul of public administration reside in service to others whether on the street, in a distant site or residence around the world, or in the offices of thousands of public agencies.
smooth, there is a enormous need for greater awareness of and commitment to the idealism of public service. Can do must be exalted by should do. Public service is, as so often uttered but so seldom heard, a friendly calling. Perhaps we should remind ourselves of this day-in and day-out and scheme on this feeling to animate our work as educators and public administrators. The result may well be a correct and profound rediscovery and renewal of public administration as a field of leer and practice.