Civil Service System in Thailand 117
is “Coverage” as it covers the management of all key HR areas, such as recruitment and selection, position classification, compensation, appointment and promotion, ethics, and discipline.
Another major change under this new act is the more focused role of the CSC and the Office of the Civil Service Commission (OCSC). That is, while the CSC under the Civil Service Act of 1992 has four major roles (HR advisor to the government, organization and management (O&M) manager for the civil service, civil service’s merit caretaker, and watchdog for the civil service officials), the new act streamlines the CSC’s role to only HR manager and advisor for the government, leaving other areas for other organizations. In addition, although the advisory role of the CSC to the cabinet covers all types of officials in the civil service, the jurisdiction of the CSC’s regulatory power is mainly on the ordinary civil servants. Regulating personnel matters for other groups of the civil service rests with their respective central personnel agencies. Section 8 of the act laid out the power and duties of the CSC under the Civil Service Act of 2008.
The Civil Service Act of 2008 also defines the role of the CSC and the OCSC. The CSC assumes the role of HR manager and advisor for the government. There are three major functional areas under such a role: (1) providing proposals and advising the cabinet on public HR management policies and strategies; (2) supervising and monitoring HR management of ministries and departments as well as issuing rules and regulations in pursuance of the Civil Service Act; and (3) formulating and managing government scholarships.
According to section 6 of the act, the CSC is composed of the prime minister or deputy prime minister designated by the prime minister as chairman, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Finance, director of the Budget Bureau, and secretary-general of the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board as ex-o cio commissioners, and no fewer than five but not more than seven commissioners appointed by the king from persons qualified in HR management, administration and management and law whose works are renowned in the relevant fields and being persons recruited under the rules, procedures, and conditions prescribed by CSC regulations, and the secre- tary-general of the CSC shall be a commissioner and secretary. Articles relating to Thailand’s CSC power and duties are provided in Appendix 1.
The OCSC serves as the secretariat to the CSC and is the operational unit assigned to undertake the CSC functions mentioned above. The OCSC is headed by a secretary-general who is in charge of its civil servants and administration, and is directly accountable to the prime minister. Duties of the OCSC are prescribed in section 13 of the act.
6.1.3 Problems of Civil Service Human Resource
While the civil service is recognized as the leading element of national development and serves as the collecting body of the country’s best brains, paradoxically, it has not been characterized by such dimensions as productivity, innovation, accountability, efficiency, and transparency (OCSC 1999, Mutebi and Sivaraks 2007). In fact, the public sector, which the civil service belongs to, was viewed as one of the major factors that caused the crisis in 1997.
The economic crisis that befell the country beginning in mid-1997 and exacerbated by an accumulation of problems for over 50 years was a major turning point for Thai society. One vital factor was the inability of the public sector to manage and adjust to external and internal change (OCSC 2001)
In addition, being recruited into the public service was a dream of the majority of Thai graduates. This has changed. Today, the civil service is perceived as non-challenging, a slow and inflexible
© 2011 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC
118 Public Administration in Southeast Asia
working system, and patron-client relationships (OCSC 2009a). Inter-department/division teamwork is also another challenge of the civil service as job rotation is very limited and not systematic. It was estimated that only 13% of civil service officials have rotation experience (OCSC 2009b).
Compensation in the civil service has also been criticized. The single salary schedule organized in a step-wise structure that had been used until 2008 had various drawbacks. Relatively low salary levels compared to the private sector together with a limited quota of officials eligible for salary increases have decreased working motivation for officials.5 In addition, although performance appraisal has been employed, the management of such a process has not been strong enough. Officials’ performance indicators are rarely set, a feedback mechanism is not systematically used, and the behavior part of the performance appraisal is not concretized.
The civil service also seems to perform only moderately on the issue of good governance, which involves transparency and ethics. In 2008, Transparency International gave Thailand 3.5 out of 10 points on the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) of ethics and corruption, ranking 80th out of 180 countries. Factors that contribute to the good governance problem in the Thai public sector (which the civil service is part of) include a self-serving mindset (instead of servicing the public); lack of transparency and accountability; lack of appreciation for ethics and integrity as principles to be upheld; and lack of trust, understanding, or recognition of non-state parties. Also, efforts to fight against corruption are sometimes given relatively low priority compared to economic reform (Vichit-Vadakan 2008). Another problem of promoting ethics in the civil service is there are too many players. Leading agencies that are promoting good governance include the Ministry of Justice, the OCSC, the Office of the Public Sector Development Commission (OPDC), the National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC), and the Ombudsman. It is of concern that coordination among these agencies is quite limited, which results in duplication of activities as well as waste of resources and budget. The OCSC is currently trying to create a forum where such agencies can share and coordinate their efforts.
Previous efforts have been implemented to solve the civil service problems, but the pace of such policies were viewed, even by the civil service itself, as too slow and passive. In 2001, the government tried again to alleviate the civil service problem by approving the Public Sector Management Reform Plan (PSMRP) to “accelerate the reform processes to achieve tangible results, to set priorities, and ensure that the agencies involved coordinate efforts to promote concrete and rapid change.” The PSMRP aims to renew the civil service based on the new public management approach covering f ive reform areas: (1) revision of role, function, and management of the public sector; (2) budget, fi nance, and procurement management reform;
(3) personnel management reform; (4) legal reform; and (5) reform of cultural and public values. These areas also lead to more than 40 reform measures, including the development of
(i) competency-based position classification system; (ii) performance and competency-based remuneration system; (iii) open system recruitment; (iv) positive and creative values as well as a professional code of ethics; and (v) efficient reward and punishment procedures and disciplinary procedures that are consistent with the processes of the administrative court (Office of the Civil Service Reform Committee 2001).
Unfortunately, although the PSMRP provides a good starting point for modernizing the civil service, the weakness of the PSMRP lies in its own design. That is, most of the measures under the PSMRP are “new” systems that require time to progress and succeed. Lacking effective monitoring
5Annually, a salary increase for an official can range from half step (approximately 2% of his/her salary) to 2 steps increase (about 8% ). The regulation on salary increase requires that no more than 15% of officials can have 2 steps increase in a year.
©2011 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC