In this article you will learn about the Permanent Executive in Political Science.
Permanent Executive
The Civil Service constitutes the permanent and professional dimensions of the executive. It is described as the non-political or politically neutral, permanent, professional trained bureaucracy which runs the administration of the state in accordance with the policies of the political executive. Upon its qualities and efficiency depends on the quality and efficiency of the administration. The policies of the government are formulated with the help of the data and expertise provided by the Civil Service i.e. the permanent executive. These are in practice implemented and realised by it.
In every political system, whether capitalist or communist, liberal democratic or authoritarian, the Civil Service exercises a large amount of power and authority. It thrives in all societies and performs a large number of functions. Modern welfare state has made it essential for every government to organise, maintain and use the services of a large, qualified, professional and trained Civil Service for securing the social, economic, cultural and developmental goals of the society. An efficient and well-functioning corruption and delay free civil service alone can enable the executive to pursue and achieve the goal of Good Governance.
Civil Service : Meaning
The terms civil service, public servants, public service, civil servants, government service, government servants, bureaucracy, magistracy, officials of government, officials, permanent and non-political are used to describe the class of persons who carry out the day to day administration of the state. The term ‘Bureaucracy’ and ‘Civil Service’ are used as synonyms and these refer to all the Civil Servants who carry out all the work associated with running the administration of government.
Narrow and Broad meanings of the term Civil Service : The term ‘Bureaucracy’ is used in the narrow sense to denote those important public service servants who occupy higher level positions in the administrative hierarchy and perform planning, coordination, supervising and controlling functions in the system of administration. In the broad sense, it refers to all the permanent employees of the government right from the clerks and peons to top level officers, the chief secretary and secretaries.
Features/Nature of the Civil Service
1. Permanent Character : The Civil Servants hold permanent jobs in government departments. They mostly join their services during their youth and continue to work as civil servants till the age of retirement which is usually 55 to 58 or 60 years. Normally, they serve their departments for nearly 30 to 35 years or even more. Due to their stable and fixed tenures, they are in a position to perform their role effectively and fearlessly. The government depends upon their experience and expertise.
2. Hierarchical Organisation : The Civil Service is hierarchically organised in several levels with the higher level officials exercising control over lower level officials. Each official is placed at a particular level of hierarchy and he enjoys the powers and privileges which are available to his co-level officials. He is under his intermediate higher level official and is above his immediately lower level officials. The principle of rule of the higher over the lower is a sacred and legal principle which governs the interrelation between various levels of administrative hierarchy.
3. Non-partisan or Politically Neutral Character : The members of the Civil Service are not directly involved in the political process. They cannot join political parties and participate in political morchas and movements. They are not affected by the political changes which usually characterise the political executive. The political heads of the departments – the ministers, may be from any party, they may or may not change their political affiliations and ideologies, the civil servants remain aloof and almost immune from all such changes. Whichever party may come into power and make the government, the civil servants remain politically neutral and carry out their assigned departmental role impartially and faithfully.
4. Professional, Trained and Expect Class : The Civil servants constitute the educated and professionally trained class of experts which helps the political executive in carrying out its functions. They carry out the day to day administrative work of the government departments. They are recruited through competitive examinations in which they have to possess the required minimum educational qualifications. Before the appointments, they are given specialised training and during the course of employment they have to attend orientation and refresher courses. They know their job well. They have the knowledge, training and expertise necessary for carrying out the duties.
5. Fixed Salaries and Allowances : Each member of the civil service receives a fixed salary. Right at the time of their appointment, they are allotted a scale of pay that depends upon the nature and level of their job responsibility. All the civil servants belonging to a particular level of administrative hierarchy are placed in one scale of pay. They get regular, mostly annual increments. Each job also entitles them to allowances fixed by the government. On each promotion, these civil servants get the next higher scale of pay.
Thus, Civil Service is characterised by all these features.
This article on Permanent Executive in Political Science is contributed by Dipshikha Anand. If you like LawStudyPoint.com do follow us on our Twitter handle.