Session 2

Civil Service System in Bangladesh

Professor Momtaz Jahan

 The Structural Dimension of
Bangladesh Civil Service
The government of Bangladesh has a two tier administrative system.
 The upper tier is the central secretariat at the national level consisting of the
ministries and the divisions to provide policies.
 The other tier is departments/ directorates or subordinate offices attached
to the ministries and divisions that are mainly responsible for general
administration, service delivery to citizens, and implementation of various
development programs carried out at the sub-national levels (divisions,
districts, thanas/upazilas).
Contd.

The internal organizational structure of a ministry reflects a hierarchical order.

 A Minister is in charge of a ministry and is normally the political head of that
ministry. A Secretary or in his absence an Additional Sec is considered the
administrative head of the ministry. She/he is the adviser to the minister regarding
policy and administrative issues. Ministries are the linking pin between the political
and administrative structures.
 A ministry consists of at least one division A division can further be divided into wings.
A Joint Sec is the head of a wing.
 A wing is composed of branches, each branch is under the charge of a Deputy Sec.
 Below the branch is the section. Headed by an Assistant Sec, it is the basic working
unit of a division.
Types of Ministerial Organizations in
Bangladesh
 Executive
 Regulatory
 Service-oriented/ Welfare
 Developmental
 Promotional
 Advisory
 Research-oriented
 International
Contd.

 Most ministries/divisions have one or more executive agencies-----

departments/directorates or subordinate offices attached to them. They
serve as field establishment for the actual implementation of policies. Not all
ministries /divisions have these type of organizations.
 The civil service carries out all the activities of the ministries, divisions,
departments, and their affiliated organizations at the divisional level headed
by a Divisional Commissioner, at the district level headed by a Deputy
Commissioner, at the thana level which is coordinated by the UNO, and at
the union level by union level officers.
 Ministries/divisions provide policies with broad objectives and strategic
guidelines. While departments/directorates because of their technical
expertise and specialization implement policies.
General Features of the Civil Service

 The civil service has been classified horizontally into four categories, namely
class-I, class-II, class-III, and class-IV based on levels of responsibility,
educational qualification, and pay range. These four classes of services are
adjusted to 20 different pay scales on the basis of individual seniority.
 All govt. employees are broadly classified into two broad categories- gazetted
and non-gazetted. The employees whose appointment, posting, transfer,
promotion and so on, is notified in the official gazette are known as gazetted
officers. All class-I and most class II government servants are treated as
gazetted officers.
Cadre Service

 Cadre service means the organization of civil servants in well defined groups,
services, or cadres. Cadre is a small group within the larger civil service such
as police service, education service within the BCS. Cadre is the distinct
functional sub-division of the governmental bureaucracy.
 Cadre services are constituted under law with a number of positions or
structure, and recruitment and promotion rules. Non-cadre services are
mostly based on positions, with no definite structure of mobility either
horizontally or vertically.
 All cadre civil servants are class-I officers but not all officers of class-I
category belong to the cadre service.
Contd.

 The cadre officers compared to other class-I officers enjoy more facilities and
benefits, prospect for relatively rapid promotion, better training and varied job
assignments.
 Currently there are 26 cadres in BCS to run the activities of the government.
Some cadres are general while others are professional/technical.
 The general cadres (i.e. Administration, Foreign Affairs, Police, Customs and
Excise, Audit and Accounts, Taxation) of BCS are regarded as the most prestigious
cadres, as there is ample scope to exercise administrative authority in the
administration.
 The professional/technical cadre posts are restricted to candidates with certain
academic background. Specialization is necessary for a professional cadre like
Agriculture, Health, Family Planning, Roads and Highways, Railway Engineering,
Statistics, Fisheries, Livestock, Education etc.
Contd.

 Most cadres are confined to a single ministry, for example, members of

family planning and health cadres work in the Ministry of Health and Family
Planning.
 Although most cadres populate a particular ministry or directorate, the
administrative cadre provides the officers for the MOPA, the Civil Field
Service, the Secretariats to all ministries and the Secretariats for the Cabinet
Office and the Prime Minister. Administrative cadre officers are also deputed
to key positions to run autonomous and other constitutional organizations
such as PSC.
Generalist- Specialist Controversies

 Generalists are those who have been recruited to the civil service on the basis
of their general educational background rather than a narrowly specialized
knowledge and skills in a particular/restricted field. They are also known as
administrator, all-rounder, gentleman-amateur.
 Specialists are those who have entered the service by virtue of their
specialization in a particular field of learning such as agriculture, engineering,
medicine etc. The terms craftsman, expert, technician, technocrat, and
professional are also used as synonyms for the specialist. Officials recruited to
posts for which specific technical qualifications are essential are called the
specialists.
 The superiority of the generalists and secondary status of the specialists in
administration is a debatable issue. Numerous arguments and counter
arguments have enormously enriched the generalist-versus-specialist debate.
Contd.

Arguments in favor of Generalists

 At the top echelons of administration, the bulk of the job is administration
and general policy making rather than practice of the specialty.
 Expertise in just one area is not enough to help formulate well-conceived and
well-balanced decisions.
 It has been argued that the specialists are so much preoccupied with the
technical aspects of a policy that they fail to give proper weight to its
political aspects. Their decisions might therefore give rise to adverse political
repercussions. Professionals cannot make a balanced adjustment among what
is financially viable, technically desirable, organizationally possible, and
politically profitable.
Contd.

 Another argument in favor of placing generalists in the top policy making

positions is that appointing specialists to these positions would mean improper
utilization of the available scientific and technical brains of a country.
Arguments in favor of Specialists
 Some arguments have also been put forward to support the claim that at top
levels of administration, the professionals are likely to be more effective than
the generalists.
 A generalist in charge of a predominantly technical department is most likely to
find it difficult to understand the complex and technical policy proposal, let
alone explain and interpret them to the minister.
 The generalist may also be deprived of the needed co-operation of his non-
generalist subordinates.
Generalist Tradition of Administration in
Indian subcontinent

 The Mughal Administration laid the foundation of the generalist tradition in

the Indian subcontinent which was later refined and reinforced under British
rule. The Mughal Emperors assumed that all state officials were competent
enough to perform any state function, military or civil. Sometimes officials
were assigned duties that were totally opposite to the nature of duties they
had previously performed. Officials were frequently transferred from one
department to another without serious consideration being given to their
expertise.
Contd.

 During British Rule in India the Indian Civil Service (ICS) was at the top of the
administrative structure. The ICS was a highly generalist cadre in the sense
that its members were recruited on the basis of an excellent general
education and intelligence rather than on the basis of their specialized and
technical knowledge.
 The ICS officers staffed the key positions close to the Governor-general and
Governors, in the central and provincial secretariats, and the top most
administrative positions in the divisions, districts, and subdivisions.
 Because of the British policy of reserving top policy making and administrative
positions for the ICS members, there was very limited scope for members of
other services for advancement in their jobs. The members of specialized
services had been made subordinate to the ICS.
Contd.

 During Pakistan Era, a new equivalent of ICS---the Pakistan Administrative

Service (PAS) was created which was later renamed as the Civil Service of
Pakistan (CSP).
 Following the colonial ICS heritage, members of the CSP held most of the key
positions in the central and provincial secretariats, personnel agencies, major
training institutes, and government corporations. The CSP also occupied a
large number of top positions in the divisional and district administration.
 The technical experts were relegated to subordinate positions in terms of
pay, status, power and privileges.
Contd.

 The age-old generalist-specialist conflict assumed a new turn in independent

Bangladesh. After independence the demands of the specialists were that the
administrative services should be merged into a single service to reduce its
dominance over all other services and that the specialists be accorded better
scopes for climbing the top positions of the government.
 To alleviate the hard feelings of the specialists about the predominance of
the generalists in the highest positions the government created a Senior
Policy Pool (SPP) in 1979 which was later renamed as Senior Services
Pool(SSP).Officers of proven competence from all cadres could be recruited in
that pool through prescribed means.
Contd.

 The SSP could not satisfy the specialists. They said that it rather consolidated
the grip of the generalists through the automatic absorption of the serving
officers in the ranks of DS and above, who had been overwhelmingly from the
administrative service.
 During Ershad regime the UZP became the hotbed for the age-old subtle game
and the dormant generalist-specialist conflict had a sudden outburst. The
UNO, a mid level BCS(Admin) cadre officer was made chief coordinator of the
UZP with enough authority to oversee and evaluate the activities of upazila
level officers of various cadres. Officers of the technical departments were
not interested to remain any way accountable to the UNO, a generalist
official.
Contd.

 Officers of three largest and most powerful technical services---prokousholi,

krishibid, and chikitshak and other professionals in those technical lines
formed PROKRICHI, a platform for technocrats to promote their causes. On
numerous occasions, usually in the wake of one round promotion in the top
positions they voice their strong opinion to criticize the government for not
paying heed to their demand for a greater share of such positions. After
several rounds of strikes and work stoppage by the technocrat-specialists at
last in 1989 the SSP was abolished.
 The specialists maintained that they are still discriminated and the elitism of
generalist administration cadre officials is retained on a purposive manner.
The situation has not yet marked any substantial change.
Thank You