Civil service: responsibility and decision-making

Referring to a recent incident where the minister blamed public officers in... public, LEX pointed out that ‘the minister takes all the blame for anything going wrong in the ministry because he is responsible before the National Assembly for anything that is done, and even not done, at the level of the ministry. The officers who work at the ministry are supposed to be anonymous…It is simply not done that a minister says that “I am not responsible because an officer in my ministry has taken the decision and I do not agree with this decision or that an officer has done this.” The officer may take the decision or act on his own but the minister must assume the consequences of the decision or the action.’There are all kinds of decisions that are being taken daily in any ministry, and basically they are of two sorts: those that are concerned with the day-to-day running of the affairs of the ministry, what one could call operational decisions because they have to do with ensuring the smooth running of the operations of the ministry. The others are policy decisions that are either in line with government philosophy as captured in its programme or may have to be re-adjusted for whatever reason. In other words, the latter are decisions that may lead to a different line of action being taken and have more significant implications for the medium or long term, or a larger impact on the sector and the country as a whole.