At the very top of the strategic focus is the urgent need to rethink on the founding constitutional mandate of the Commission, especially its role as the gatekeeper and promoter of meritocracy and the merit system. This strategic plan will need to think through how the mandate of the FCSC can keep being executed while maneuvering the structural landmines of the federal character policy. Second, gatekeeping merit correlatively demand that a solution must also be found to address the challenge of staff retention in the face of poor and non-competitive wage and compensation structure that signals that the government is ready to become the employer of choice for its human capital.

Third, the gatekeeping of the merit system also demands that the FCSC will put in place a rigorous and competitive entry-level recruitment and staffing assessment that drastically cut through the framework of nepotism and patronage as the mechanism for political compensation at the expense of civil service workforce efficiency.

This demands, furthermore, that attention must be focused on articulating a correlate framework for securing and injecting integrity tests into the entry-level assessments that insulate the system from recruiting into the workforce criminally-minded persons as well as those who lack the requisite public-spiritedness the system sorely needs.

As a corollary, and third, the strategic repositioning of the FCSC must ensure that the bar of staff progression is constantly raised through the regular conduct of promotion exercises that serve to test the ability of the officers, as well as the skills and competences required to effectively run the business of government at different levels of seniority.This, in addition, should lead to the replacement of the existing annual performance evaluation report (APER) by a framework of performance management assessment reinforced by training-based assessment report.

In this regard, the Commission takes merit to go beyond getting the best people into the civil service. It means also that the best ideas feed the policy making process, and that the best people implement the policies. Beyond the present concern therefore, to get the basics right to reset the federal service, the Commission is determined to review its guideline for mainstreaming, codifying and implementing merit criteria, especially in the recruitment process, in manner that is consistent with realising the objective of the federal character policy as veritable tool for national spread and diversity management.

With this, we will at once have researched the feasibility of the application of the merit principle in the selection and career management in other public services including our educational institutions.

At the other level of the constitutional mandate of the FCSC is the key issue of discipline. One of the critical findings of the rapid assessment carried out at the inception of the 10th Commission is that discipline is at its lowest ebb system-wide, and this is equally attendant by deviant and anti-system unruliness that further compromises efficiency.

A strategy to combat this disciplinary matter must consider critical questions: (i) Are there already in place the framework of principles and rules for addressing staff disciplinary issues and grievances? (ii) Are these rules and principles fairly, reasonably and consistently applied in practice? (iii) Are alleged professional misconducts thoroughly investigated before disciplinary charges are laid? (iv) Are offenders given adequate time to respond and make representation? (v) Are findings considered transparently and with full fidelity to regulations, and are follow-up investigations conducted where desirable? (vi) Are penalties and sanctions meted in accordance with the rules of law and in manners that are fair, consistent, reasonable, and is there room for appeal? (vii) Does this whole disciplinary procedure for handling infractions and staff grievances comply with extant rules, regulations and established codes of practice?

The significance of disciplinary measures to curb professional infractions demands that the strategic plan for repositioning the FCSC must facilitate reform changes that enable the FCSC to guide against systemic weaknesses. This can be in the form of (a) procedural errors, with possible legal cases and the attendant financial burdens, arising from lack of professionalism and training for staff who handle disciplinary cases, appeals and staff grievances; (b) poor handling of cases in courts occasioning many avoidable legal rulings against government as a result of minor court procedure lapses; (c) numerous court judgments—and the attendant drawback on government’s scarce resources—where government is compelled to reinstate real offenders, pay inappropriate backdated staff benefits and costs of system’s negligence and inefficiency.

As a final and critical strategic imperative, reforming the FCSC demands an antecedent transformation of the FCSC secretariat and core functions. One, there is the urgent need to create a framework that facilitate the professionalisation of the Commission’s secretariat as well as the modernisation of its core operations and processes through computerisation and digitisation.

Two, the strategic plan must prioritise the design of the monitoring, evaluation and reporting system that allows the Commission proper oversight over the power delegated to the MDAs as what is not inspected obviously, should not be expected. Three, new structures must be put in place to strengthen the Commission’s collaborative and partnership efforts with state’s CSCs, regional bodies like the African Association of Public Service Commissions (AAPSCOMMs), and other global communities of service and practice.

Four, the FCSC must be structured in ways that enables it to revive and facilitate a framework of town-and-gown synergy that leverages research and intellectual capacities of pubic administration and policy scholars and practitioners for knowledge management and problem solving. And finally, the strategic plan must find a way to correct and regulate the high turnover rate of staff posted to work in the Commission from the central pools.

Concluded.
Prof. Olaopa is Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission, Abuja.