[Asia Approach] Why It Is Difficult for Public Officials to Escape Welfare Inertia

Stable job synonym civil servant, another synonym for job security and complacency
Five years of proactive administration promotion, yet still falling short of public expectations
Various reasons hinder proactive administration... Civil servants self-reflect: "Too much work and lack of responsibility"

The Chinese civil service exam site, said to be more difficult than a camel passing through the eye of a needle. Stable government jobs are considered the most desirable workplaces not only in Korea but also in China.

Civil servants have become synonymous with stable jobs, but at the opposite end of the spectrum, the disgraceful synonyms are inertia and complacency. Every government has introduced systems and incentives to encourage proactive administration among civil servants and to exempt them from responsibility when acting proactively, but the gap in perception of public service between the civil service and the citizens who demand these services remains a fact.

Recently, Hwang Seo-jong, head of the Ministry of Personnel Innovation, who announced the comprehensive evaluation results of proactive administration in central administrative agencies, stated in a press release, "Last year, we established an institutional execution base to spread the culture of proactive administration and made efforts for government-wide expansion, but it is still true that it falls short of the public’s expectations." According to the Ministry of Personnel Innovation’s evaluation results by agency, 17 agencies including the Ministry of Environment, Korea Customs Service, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Government Legislation, Ministry of SMEs and Startups, Ministry of Personnel Innovation, and Korea Coast Guard received excellent evaluations for their proactive administration performance. On the other hand, eight agencies including the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, Ministry of Unification, Prosecutor’s Office, Saemangeum Development Agency, Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, and Administrative City Construction Agency were selected as insufficient agencies.

Earlier, in November last year, the Ministry of Personnel Innovation conducted a survey to commemorate its 5th anniversary, targeting 2,880 citizens and 12,862 civil servants. When asked whether they thought improvements had been made in the field of proactive administration over the past five years, positive responses were 49.0% among citizens and 47.2% among civil servants, while negative responses were 15.5% among citizens and 13.0% among civil servants, showing similar results. Based on this survey alone, it is difficult to judge whether civil servants have overcome inertia or if inertia still persists.

The scene of the 4th Active Administration Best Practice Competition held on November 7, 2019, at the Government Sejong Convention Center in Sejong City.

A report titled "Analysis of Obstacles to the Activation of Proactive Administration" published by the Board of Audit and Inspection last year reveals the reasons why proactive administration is not activated (or conversely, why inertia still remains) according to public officials and experts. According to a survey conducted in June last year targeting 2,967 public officials from central and local governments and public institutions, the reasons why public officials do not engage in proactive administration (multiple responses allowed) were perceived as environmental factors such as public service culture (33.7%) being the largest, followed by institutional factors such as unreasonable or unrealistic procedures (26.2%), personal factors such as lack of responsibility awareness among public officials regarding proactive administration (20.9%), and organizational factors such as authoritarian and coercive leadership or internal control operations that hinder proactive administration (16.6%).

By rank, higher-ranking officials tended to perceive personal factors of public officials more highly and environmental factors less. Conversely, for grade 8 and below, environmental factors were perceived more than personal factors. The report concluded that while frontline workers (grade 6 and below) who directly handle tasks see environmental issues such as internal culture and organizational atmosphere as major obstacles to proactive administration, managers who operate the organization tend to view it as an individual public official’s problem.

Civil servants who responded to the survey cited factors hindering proactive administration such as "public officials’ reluctance to take responsibility and lack of responsibility in passing problems to the next person instead of handling them themselves," "increasing responsibility and burden the more one acts, negative perception of having to deal with such obstacles every time, and thinking within fixed frameworks," "laws and procedures that do not match the field and reality," "lack of time to consider proactive work due to excessive administrative tasks," and "difficulty in promoting proactive administration when disagreeing with superiors, refusal of differing opinions, and being ordered by higher-ups to do things that should not be done."

Additionally, comments pointed out "a conservative and closed public service culture, widespread perception of job security (cheolbapttong), and tendency to assimilate individual personalities to existing employees," and "habitual conservative administration, precedent adherence, complacency, minimal work, and lack of willingness to work proactively with difficulty." These views of civil servants were largely similar to those found in surveys of experts.

The Board of Audit and Inspection stated in the report, "To bring change to public organizations, it is essential to improve obstacles to proactive administration such as enhancing professionalism and openness in the civil service, improving public service values and culture." Specifically, to reduce side effects such as lack of expertise due to rotational assignments, it proposed improving recruitment and personnel systems including job-centered assignments and career management, as well as expanding diversity among public officials. It also emphasized the need to create a culture tolerant of innovation through education that fosters public service values and improves a culture of avoiding responsibility. Along with strengthening incentives based on performance and rewards, strict punishment for conservative administration and misconduct was also demanded.