Government Merit Systems
Elimination of Merit Systems
For many reasons, merit based civil service systems have come under assault and yet at the same time have been hailed. Merit systems do however attempt and achieve many important objectives including ensuring that an effective workforce is attracted and maintained by providing protections against arbitrary termination and by attempting to avert politically influenced hiring and promotions. Notwithstanding, the way merit systems go about attracting a workforce and the varied protections against termination are the cause of antipathy. Many would agree that a better civil service system is needed. This better civil service system should reward good service and punish bad or mediocre service with dismissal or no promotion. Equally important, this new system has to have a process to hire quality employees quickly. However, this better system needs to have all the mechanisms that are in the current merit systems to protect against corruption. This paper argues in favor of eliminating both merit system protections and merit in hiring and promotions, while at the same time evaluating the various arguments against merit systems. In public administration literature, it is argued that in order for the bureaucracy to be both efficient and effective, it has to be staffed by tenured bureaucrats who feel relatively secure in their positions and receive adequate compensation. The bureaucracy attains its power from the experience of its workforce. Indeed, the bureaucracy is made up of "seasoned and knowledgeable 'old hands '" who have molded relations with organizations and government itself (Kaufman 2001, 8-42). Therefore, if returning to a spoils system results in arbitrary terminations the bureaucracy would be robbed of the most experienced administrators who bestow effectiveness within an agency. An important point regarding the removal of protections against arbitrary terminations is made by Charles T. Goodsell who
For many reasons, merit based civil service systems have come under assault and yet at the same time have been hailed. Merit systems do however attempt and achieve many important objectives including ensuring that an effective workforce is attracted and maintained by providing protections against arbitrary termination and by attempting to avert politically influenced hiring and promotions. Notwithstanding, the way merit systems go about attracting a workforce and the varied protections against termination are the cause of antipathy. Many would agree that a better civil service system is needed. This better civil service system should reward good service and punish bad or mediocre service with dismissal or no promotion. Equally important, this new system has to have a process to hire quality employees quickly. However, this better system needs to have all the mechanisms that are in the current merit systems to protect against corruption. This paper argues in favor of eliminating both merit system protections and merit in hiring and promotions, while at the same time evaluating the various arguments against merit systems. In public administration literature, it is argued that in order for the bureaucracy to be both efficient and effective, it has to be staffed by tenured bureaucrats who feel relatively secure in their positions and receive adequate compensation. The bureaucracy attains its power from the experience of its workforce. Indeed, the bureaucracy is made up of "seasoned and knowledgeable 'old hands '" who have molded relations with organizations and government itself (Kaufman 2001, 8-42). Therefore, if returning to a spoils system results in arbitrary terminations the bureaucracy would be robbed of the most experienced administrators who bestow effectiveness within an agency. An important point regarding the removal of protections against arbitrary terminations is made by Charles T. Goodsell who
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