USE technology to “rightsize” bureaucracy.
This is the pitch of Emmanuel Lallana, chief executive of nonprofit organization Ideacorp Inc., to President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. who recently revived “rightsizing” as the way to make the bureaucracy “responsive to the modern era.”
Lallana said “rightsizing” bureaucracy doesn’t necessarily mean reducing the number of state employees or “downsizing.”
“The problem with a rightsizing approach to reorganization in the public sector is its inherent negative appeal to the bureaucracy. This is because of its close affinity to downsizing,” Lallana wrote in a policy brief. “For most people, rightsizing is the more polite term for downsizing.”
He said “rightsizing” the bureaucracy should be all about focusing on delivering public services “more efficiently, abolishing unnecessary work, and reducing or eliminating non priority programs.”
Lallana suggested the use of digital technology to be placed at “the core” of Marcos’s strategy of getting rightsizing “right.”
“The intensive and effective use of digital tools can make government workers more productive. At the same time, these tools can also facilitate collaboration among agencies,” Lallana said.
Other countries in the world have been taking advantage of digital technology in public governance.
In the United Kingdom, state workers in the public procurement process have been “better, leaner and more efficient” with the use of digital technology.
In Nepal, government-to-government, government-to-business and government-to-citizen processes were “re-engineered.”
In Ghana, socio-technical reconfiguration of business processes, structures and arrangements in the customs office has led to “more effective, corruption controls.”
In Estonia, 99 percent of public services are available online 24 hours a day. Only marriages and divorces are not covered by e-commerce as couples still have to get out of the house. All Estonians have citizen’s digital ID and public registries are all digitized. “This allowed the Estonian government to cut down on its operating costs while delivering its e-services 24×7,” Lallana cited.
Agile, adaptive
LALLANA explained that “digital transformation provides a better economic and political argument for making government structure more agile and adaptive.”
“Its focus is on how to use technology to make government more relevant to 21st century governance challenges.”
Since the pandemic forced many to embrace digitization, Lallana argued that more people would now demand for a government that is adaptive to digital technology.
He acknowledged though that “as a rule of thumb,” less people are needed when computers can already do their jobs.
“But you don’t need to fire people made redundant, [as the number of] clients and/or constituents [explands]. For instance, the number of staff at the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) remained (relatively) constant while the number of taxpayers grew. Computerization made this possible.” Lallana told the BusinessMirror.
Also, he claims computerization “can improve the quality of service.” For instance, at the Department of Foreign Affairs, applying for passports is already done online. So the number of people needed to process the passport application is reduced, but the number of people in the passport office can still be the same doing other work that can improve the quality of service such as reducing the waiting time to release the passport.
State workers will also feel “less threatened” with digital transformation because “rightsizing” can be presented to them as an opportunity to “retool” their skills, aligning with the demands of the job.
