Public Service Management - Research Paper Example

The public service in any country should be run like a democracy and not as a business. In an ideal sense, it is supposed to be run by public servants who are acting in the moral ideals of principles like public interest, awareness in the ideal way of governance, and also in expanding the democratic citizenship of the people. As a result, they are supposed to be using new skills to develop and implement policies, recognize and accept the complexity of the challenges they face and treating their fellow public servants and citizens with renewed dignity and respect. Creation of new and more vibrant policies create a good rapport between the people in the public service and also with the general public as there is a new sense of service and communal service that is being offered to the people in these places. This is the wish of every citizen in a country that experiences challenges and complains from the public demanding or an upheaval of the public serve given the fact that they supposed to have them serve them rather than be the masters of the trade (Holzer 2000, p.22). Many cases have been reported citing the different ways in which the public sector is not performing in the expected way. There are complains especially in the health sector, the police department, the fire services, and also in departments that are mainly concerned with handling the human population. Consider the problem of helping recently confined individuals to fit into the society. In most countries where these operations are prudent, governments work closely with community-based non-profit organizations to help former prisoners to lead dynamic lives. Those non-profit organizations also are receiving financial support from charitable organizations that are in line with these agendas. Some of that support is paying for university-based researchers to evaluate alternative strategies for successful re-entry (Hensley & white 2003, 93). Outreach to the private sector is essential for these efforts to succeed. Anyone involved in leading or managing such an effort must be prepared to work effectively across the sectors. This however becomes a hurdle the moment the government channels the grants into selfish operations in ways that are not transparent or accountable. This is where the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the public officers and servants is seen and put across more complaints that just explicitly show the major challenges that are experienced by the public sector. We are going to look at the police department and also the health sector to generally come up with formal challenges that affect the public sector and how we can come up with ways in which we can solve the challenges and also offer ways in which improvements can be effected and solved to achieve a very competent public service sector. Police Department: A police career is known to generally be a very challenging and sometimes a very dangerous path to follow. Their main responsibility is to keep law and order and also to be part and parcel of the general community and the government as well. The state is responsible for creating the rules and laws and the police are mandated with task of handling the implementation of these rules in the society. It is clear that the police force faces a lot of difficulties when it comes to having their duties accomplished in a transparent manner given the fact that the society consists of different characters that are of different behaviours. This implies that they have to serve the people in complete earnest to have a way of dealing with the criminal minds and come up with better ways of maintaining peace and order in the society. Through the numerous years in the police service, most will agree that they face a lot of hardships when it comes to solving some of the crimes committed in the society and also coming up with clear ways of handling them in future. By learning the challenges that clearly face the police force, the policy makers can come up with ways in which they can bring reforms and enhance services in this part of the public sector. It is through qualitative studies that one can really understand where the major flaws in the government are and also be able to sort them out in a clear manner without leaving out the most important factors experienced by both the police and also the citizens. They however should be accorded some credit when they have done well and be appreciated when it comes to having to deal with the crimes since it is known that they face a lot of dangers in their line of duty. It is clear that there is a need to come up with the best resolutions that will help recognize their efforts and be able to congratulate them for jobs well done and offer them moral support when it comes to having them deal with failures that may occur in their work. Fire department: This is another department that is marred with complaints and claims of inefficiency given the fact that most of the fires happen due to the laxity of these officers. It is clear that most of these people in the department have been so reluctant that in some countries especially in the third world countries where corruption is the order of the day, offer better services to those in higher places in the government compared to the ordinary person with no clear background. This is important to note as most of these favouritism occurs at our very own eyes. However more challenges are being reported in these departments concerning the need to have these departments reformed to ensure that people do not continue losing more of their property in preventable fires. The fire officers should also involve themselves in educating the general public on the bets ways of putting out fires to ensure that the people in the buildings can perform some of these tasks to contain the fires without having to solely rely on them for service. This would help in decentralising the operations and also help in offering knowledge to the people to ensure that every one is aware of the need to come up with skills that allow people to participate in solving some of the fire problems in a case where they are frequent and are often experienced. Health sector: This is one sector that has received numerous cases of negligence, poor attention, mishandling of patients and wrong prescriptions for some of the illnesses. It has been noted that most of the services offered are done so without the proper processes that are meant to be followed to come up with the required ways in which they can solve the problems got. It has been noted that the people in the sector are doing a lot of nothing when it comes to handling the patients and this is even more consequential when it comes to the number of complaints that are reported day in day out. The cases of doctors neglecting their duties and leaving the patients to handle unclear businesses are so common in many countries and even cases of people having to deal with severe conditions that have even required them to be amputated to combat the spread of some contagious diseases that could have been avoided had the doctors and the others staff been keen to deal with the patients. Cases have even been reported of doctors having dual practices and this has often not gone well with most patients who are on the receiving end. It has been noted that even though this creates some diversity in the work place, some patients have been found to suffer when these doctors have to be in attendance to other patients and he is left to be alone in the ward unattended till the doctor comes back (Van Der Geet 2002, 2145). This has also been seen to affect the other colleagues as these individuals do their work to earn extra cash or even have an increase in the demand of their services. For example, it was noted that the clinicians wrote prescriptions for the patients just to have an increase in the demand for their services (Van Der Geet 2002, 2145). This means that they may offer the wrong prescriptions given the case where the people in the receiving end will have to bear the extra costs should their patients develop complications or more fatal diseases given the prescriptions were not in line with their medical history (Brugha & Zwei 1998, 108). We can however not deny them credit where they deserve it. They have helped in many surgeries, disease eradication, immunizations against deadly diseases, and many other operations that could not have been possible without them. Case studies: The best way to carry out this study was through interviews with the people in the region and come up with ways in which they viewed the police department and whether they were serving them in accordance to their expectations. It was also seen as detrimental to serve other respondents who felt uneasy talking about the police department or other sensitive issues in the open and the questionnaires that served as a tool for examining all the issues that we thought were likely to be of importance and also cause some intrigues in the line of duty were applied. Police department: It was clear that however, it would depend on the region that one was in as some police officers were categorical that coming up with ways of solving the increasing number of crimes in some of the regions as they were notorious given the fact that some of the crimes were situated in some of the regions than in others. It has been noted that areas with immigrants and other races which were known for drug trafficking and other heinous crimes expected low participation of the police as they also feared for their lives. We chose a neighbor hood that was consistently under attacks by criminal gangs and organized gangs that were continuously working against the police and the community in general. Of the interviewed respondents, 80% thought that the police department was not doing enough to stop the crimes that were escalating on a daily basis. It was also noted that most of these people were colluding with the justice department to acquire immunity for their criminal effects. It has also been noted that 63% of the respondents saw the police officers as being part of the criminal gangs rather than be against criminal acts. They were also blamed for being reluctant to handle the crimes when they were reported with 68% of the respondent claiming there were instances of corruption as they were asked to part with some amount to have them served by the police department. It is clear that there may be some evidence on the fact that there was some link between the police and the criminal activities that are witnessed in the area given the fact that most of the time the police report after the crime has already been carried out. It is clear that the police department has to act favorably to the citizens and offer the required services. There was also a need to have the police force reformed as it was noted that most of the people had evidence of the police being involved in the extrajudicial killings of the people and though most of the people in the region rely on the police department to come up with the general ways in which they can offer the people some support when it came to handling crimes in the region. It has been noted that some of the people in the region are also aware of the police being among the gangs that are terrorizing the residents given the fact that they are supposed to be fighting them. However, 32% of the respondents were confident that the police can do a good job as they were seen to serve them better when they reported their cases. They were very responsible given the fact that they served them without discriminating them in the basis of race or gender. This was also noted that the people in the service responded quickly if the crime was near the shopping center as they would only have to cover a small distance to reach the scene of crime. It is clear that the people in the region had mixed reactions when it came to the services offered by the police department. Different statistics were got from other places in the world given the proximity of the crime levels in those regions. In a place like West Midlands, U.K, there has been improvement in the ways that crime is being fought and how efficiency in the police department. The department has come up with more ways in which they identify key case patterns and trends in hopes of solving old cases and identify new criminal behavioral patterns (Holzer 2000, p.26). This is a very positive move that has seen the improvement of services as the police officers are determined to solve the existing cases and also reduce the number of cases that are being reported by intensifying the patrol missions and also come up with the with ways in which they could identify crimes that seem to fit in the behavior patterns and help solve these crimes. It is clear that the people in these departments are giving clear indications that crime can be solved from electronic sources and the advancing technologies. This is positive reforms in the police department. This should be used as a reason to give others encouragement to adopt other methods of handling crime given the fact that they need to have clear objectives when they are handling these issues. Statistics from the third world countries have shown that there is a need to come up with better ways in which crime should be handle. Being told to dish out cash to get one’s rights implemented is not really something that should be given preference in the modern world (Holzer 2000, p.27). Given the development in the global interaction, there is a need to review some of these options and come up with better ways in which they handle these issues. Having to serve people in recognition of their status quo is not actually the best way to continue giving services as they are supposed to be offered to all the citizens regardless of their creed, race or status quo. Fire Department: A survey carried out in the Tracy Fire Department in 2008 showed that these fire stations generally lacked the ability to reach some parts of the city due to inaccessibility and also in the inadequacy of the fire fighters to put up these firefighting efforts within at least ten minutes on reaching the scene of crime. These was however attributed to the inadequate skills that were displayed by the officers given the fact that they were reluctant to come out of their offices and also were also not efficient enough to set up the equipment they had. It has been also noted that the fire department lacked adequate resources to fight the fires in terms of man power and trucks to transport the people to the scenes (Mike 2008). They depended on the volunteers to help them fight the fires and hence had to delay in setting up the equipment since only two fighters were attached to a single fire engine and they have to involve al the volunteers assisting them to ensure that they help them in the correct way and in the fastest way possible. It is clear that the people in this category have to deal with these situations in a bid to come up with the best way in which they can make. It is clear that they need enough money to staff the department with more fighters to ensure that they efficiently serve the people and also have enough resources to counter the cases that are emergent. They are looking for ways in which they can fund the causes that are so demanding and also help in coming up with better ways of doing business. It has been noted from this survey that citizens in the nearby place always complain of the reluctance and poor infrastructure that the department has given the fact that more than five buildings had razed down as they were very reluctant to put off the fires. The department chief is very much aware of this and is using his analytic skills to strategize and identify the most crucial-natured items and prioritize from there (Mike 2008). Given this part of the story, one gets the notion that they need to be to be new ideologies when given this case of scenario where the people will have to be aware of the current situation and bare with it. But the government is very adamant with solving the crisis in the department which still leaves the society with inefficient means of solving problems. The fire departments should however be agile given the fact that some of the fires can be stopped early enough given that they have some of the materials that need be used to put off some of these materials. It is clear that there is a need to handle some of the incoming complains by looking for other ways in which they can solve the fire issues without having to rely on the donations from charitable organizations and from the government. Lack of several fires stations in regions that are large is another cause of the fighters not being able to cope with the increase in the number of cases that are to be on the increase. It is clear that lack of decentralized operations is very consequential given the fact that the people in the fire station can not handle a large area of town. The lack of enough resources should however not be the only way that the state should deny citizens important services. It is clear that they can offer skills to the people in the community in a bid to reduce the number of cases that are reported to the station. It is also a good idea if they sought to reach out to the community and recruited more volunteers who were willing to handle these situations when called upon to deal with them it is clear that the only way that we can increase the efficiency of the fire department is by involving the skilled personnel to come up with easier ways of satisfying the expectations of the general public (Mike 2008). It is clear that the only way also that they can be effective is if they were granted better working resources and were also granted different ways in which they could come up with these materials given the fact that they could handle these cases with complete ease and efficiency. There were also complains from the people surveyed as they cited need for the fire fighters to integrate with the society and be aware of the activities that are common in the society so as to improvise ways in which they can solve the impending cases in these areas. Health sector: Negligence was on top of the list from 72%of the respondents that were interviewed in a bid to generally look at the performance of the health sector in the list of the public sector servants who were being measured on how well they worked. It is clear that the people in the region were fed with receiving poor services from an institution of public service. It was noted that 45% of them opted to go to private hospitals to receive their medication and also to receive quality health care in comparison to the public hospitals. There were also complains from 56& of the respondents who complained of internal injuries causes by mishandling by the medical care personnel mandated to offer them with services like cleaning and especially for those who were in the aging period who required more assistance from the health care staff. This was further supported by claims of medical bills given the fact that they had to be hospitalized yet again because of the injuries. It is clear that most of the people are ignorant of their rights as we found 67% of the respondents totally unaware of the desired actions that were meant to be taken when they were subjected to some of these mal-handling cases by the medical staff. It is also clear that they were not aware of some of the complications that they were diagnosed with as they were even not aware of the medication that they were supposed to be taking when infected with some of the diseases. This meant that even if they were given the wrong medication they would not be aware o f this. They would in turn spend their time in and out of the hospitals. This is surely on e of the sectors in the public sector that requires a lot of reforms given the fact that it is supposed to be serving the people and maintain the healthy status of the country. With these noticed inadequacies, there is need to come up with reforms that will see the overhaul of the current policies and come up with new reforms that will see the health sector serve the people to their expectations. Discussion: Coming up with reforms that will see the public sector serve the people to their expectations is the main challenge that most of the governments in the modern world face. It is clear that there is a need to come up with ways in which the efficiency and effectiveness of the public service will be increased. Given the fact that the people in the region and state as well have their own expectations, there is a need to list the expectations of the government to them for them to understand what role they should play for them to also receive the kind of services they so desire. Like in the police force, there is a need for the recruiters to look for qualities that will entail the way that they are supposed to conduct their selves while on duty. Character is what defines a police man and if his character is doubtable, then there is no need to have them enter the force. There is a need to offer education to the force on how to handle their clients when they are in their line of duty and also how they should respond to the crimes when they are reported immediately. Given the cases where there are detectors that match cases with previous ones and dictate the way that they are going to handle the current ones is a good start towards combating the said crimes. The police should serve the people without any discrimination given the fact that they are supposed to serve every one despite their economic and social, or even racial background with a will to maintain law and order to all the people. It is also the duty of the citizens to inform the police when they notice very queer characters in the neighbor to ensure that they are able to monitors these individuals and be able to handle them should they be involved in criminal activities. Community policing is another way that the arte of crimes in a region can be minimized given the fact that the citizens themselves will be responsible for their own safety and this will make it easier for arrests to be done as the culprits will be easily identified by the people. The government should be responsible for the safety of its citizens by ensuring that all its departments should be well stocked with relevant equipment. In the fir stations, the fact that a station can have two staff members assigned to one engine is quite a challenge given that it requires a lot of people to serve a community and help combat the escalating cases of buildings being razed by fires that could be managed by equipped stations. It is clear that there is a need to come up with ways in which we can also disseminate information to all the people instead of having it rest solely on the shoulders of the fire fighters (Hensley & white 2003, 95). It is good to let citizens cater for their own safety as the issue of equipping the stations is being catered for. It also makes work easier as they are able to come up with ways in which they will help in keeping their environment safe by avoiding some of the risky behaviors that would cause them more harm than good. Given the fact that the fire fighters have the opportunity to interact with all the people in the community and that they also come from the same communities they work for, it is easier for them to teach them on ways of handling their issues that concern safety as they can show them how to handle fire fighting equipment such as fire extinguishers. It is an easier way to involve the people in fighting the fires than solely depending on the government which may take quite a long time to handle the cases given the fact that they have the benefit of using the locally available materials to fight the fires. Another thing is that large cities should be allocated more staff and stations with adequate equipment to ensure that they fight the fires in a simpler way (Hensley & white 2003, 96). The health sector should develop reforms that are customer-centered and those that are meant to create an improved health sector and individual as well. They are supposed to come up with ways in which all those that are registered as doctors have the correct qualifications given the fact that they need to be able very professional when it comes to dealing with the different cases that need to be carefully attended to. Looking at the cases where negligence of the patients is reported, the individual hospital should look at the issues and come up with disciplinary measure of dealing with the doctors found to be responsible for these crimes. It is clear that there is a need to handle cases coming before the hospital board with a lot of interest to help them know how to increase the efficiency of the workers. They can also offer literacy classes to communities to ensure that all of them understand their rights and also the way that they should be attended to during their medical sessions (Transparency International 2001, 237). Concluding all these, we can say that a government should create a platform that is consistent of more flexible and adaptable to the individual needs rather than those that are consistent on having individuals follow the rules they can not identify with. The I.M.F. is having a difficult time dealing with corrupt countries to have them change their public services to have them be granted cash to help them in their respective sectors (IMF 2001, 255). This is especially to the developing countries marred with incidents of inefficiency and ineffectiveness. This is a good way to induce proper public governance and also create running sectors to support the economy. The health sector is another that requires complete overhaul given the fact that there are many quacks that have infiltrated the sector and are offering bogus services to the patients. It is a prerequisite to the government to offer services that are relevant and efficient to the patients without causing any harm to the people in the long run? References Hensley, M and White E 2003, "Integrating build-operate-own and build-operate-transfer techniques within the national privatization: The privatization experience ", Columbia Journal of World Business, 28(1), 93-99. IMF 2001, IMF Research on corruption. In Global Corruption Report 2001. Berlin: Transparency International, 255-258. Holzer, M 2000, Callings, commitments, and constraints: Public service, Michigan: Westview Press, p.20-27 Mike M. 2008, facing fiscal challenges while providing services, Tracy fire department, as viewed on 30th May, 2009, Transparency International 2001, 2001 Bribe Payers Index. In Global Corruption Report 2001. Berlin: Transparency International, 237-239. Van der Geest S 2002, medicine distribution in South Cameroon: The efficiency of inefficiency. 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