Dr Christoph Demmke

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For a leng thy period, European societies believed that civil servants were linked to the authority of the state and could not be compared to e mployees in the private sector. This group of public employees were seen as agents intended to uphold the rule of law and to impleme nt government policies. Consequently, civil servants had to have high standards of integrity and be entrusted with a single task: wo rking for the common interest. In this conception, where the state was separated from society and citizens, it was inconceivable tha t civil servants should have the right to strike or the right to conclude collective working conditions agreements.

After the Second World War, the tasks of the state evolved (especial ly in the social and education sector) and more and more people were recruited as civil servants. Consequently, public employment re ached a new peak in the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, as a consequence of the broadening of the public sector, it also became also less clear why civil-service positions in the field of education, research, and social security, for example, should be treate d differently to those in the private sector.

This e xpansion of the civil services and – in many cases – the preferential treatment of civil servants (especially as regards job security and social security provisions) have improved the attractiveness of public service employment but not necessarily the image of the public services. In fact, citizens, media and politicians have expressed more and more dissatisfaction with the public sector and with civil servants in general and campaign against the bureaucrats and expensive, slow, inefficient, and unresponsive bu reaucracies. As a result, it has become more and more difficult to argue why certain features of the traditional public services, su ch as pay, social security, working conditions, working time, the right to strike and social dialogue, etc., should be distinct from those in the private sector.

Today, one of the most important challenges f or almost all European public services is budgetary constraints. Often, public services are considered too expensive, inefficient, o ver-regulated, and ineffective. The Lisbon agenda, in particular, plays an important role in this discussion. Consequently, solution s should aim at greater efficiency, effectiveness and fewer – or better – rules. The downside of this discussion is that positive features of national public services may not discussed sufficiently and civil servants are seen as cost factors and less a s positive contributors to effective public organisatio

time, pay and pen sion systems have been reformed and – more generally – alignment trends between the public and private sector have been pursued. To this should be added the impact of the European integration process on the public services and liberalisation and privat isation in the field of the public services (audiovisual, post, railways, electricity, telecommunication and gas).

These ongoing reform measures encourage the change, deconst ruction and decentralisation of the civil service on all fronts. In addition, public policies are now administered through increasin gly complex networks, decentralised governance structures, public-private partnerships and cooperative ventures between NGOs, consul tants and government. As a consequence, the traditional concept of the public service as a single, unified employer is slowly disapp earing. Instead, the introduction of individual performance schemes and the decentralisation of responsibilities in Human Resources Management (HRM) make the public service a somewhat heterogeneous body.

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Integrity