In order to accomplish its tasks, in February 1953 the Sub-Commission
requested the Council of Ministers to improve the strategy by establishing 24 more members (i.e. to a total of 37 members), and by empowering the Sub-Commission to observe work performance within departments, to interview officials, to request documents or information and to call
the representatives of the Departments for inquiries. The Council of
Ministers approved this request on 11 February 1953. The CSC provided the
names of 24 experienced civil servants to the Council of Ministers, but g
the Council chose to appoint only 20 members.
The attempt to establish staffing patterns failed because it was beyond the government's capacity to ensure the return of the completed
forms which constituted the data base. There were a number of contributing
factor s :
1. The establishment of staffing patterns was based
on the Five Year Plan which was broad and lacked
specific objectives. It was simply an idea and
senior officials who were concerned with its implementation did not know the objectives of
the Plan. Therefore, it was impossible for the
departments to know their new functions and the manpower needed, so they could not accurately
complete the forms. In fact the drafting of the
Five Year Plan was not finalized until 1957 after which it was used for budgetary purposes.9
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.
2. The Sub-Commission contained senior officials in
the civil service who could not afford time for
the special task. They attended two'meetings a
w e e k . It was a case of too small a staff for a
big job. It was not possible to establish staffing
patterns for approximately 90 departments at the same time.
3. Lack of follow-up from the government. The
government failed to enquire about or to evaluate progress by the Civil Service Commission after
giving its initial, broad directions. Consequently,
the Commission was not clear as to what was expected of i t .
4. Lack of sufficient criteria and data. Neither clear
criteria nor sufficient data were available to the Civil Service Commission to enable useful planning on staffing patterns to proceed.
5. Lack of co-operation between the departments and
Sub-Commission; the departments suspected that the Sub-Commission set out to find faults and this feeling inhibited their willingness to provide correct and timely data.
REFORM IN 1956
A second attempt to establish staffing patterns was made in 1956. On 19 September 1956, the Council of Ministers appointed a Committee for Establishment of Staffing Patterns, comprising 21 members, of whom 12 were the Under-Secretaries of State, appointed to encourage the co-operation of the departments; the Deputy Prime Minister was the Chairman, and the Chief of the Civil Service Regulation Division was a member and secretary.
The Strategy Employed by the Committee for Establishment of Staffing Patterns
From the experience of the failure of Administrative Reform in
1952, the Committee this time employed an incremental strategy. A
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.
1. Government agencies which did not have any
staff at all (i.e. newly established agencies).
2. Government agencies which had some staff but not
sufficient to handle the additional work resulting from their special tasks.
Establishment of the staffing patterns was to be based on
standardization of the status of provinces or districts.
The Committee set up 3 procedures for the establishment of
staffing patterns:
1. Inform the departments of the government's policy
of decentralization. Central Administration had
the function of providing technical assistance and
controlling the policy. The Provincial Administration
and Local Administration were responsible for executing the government's policy.
2. Delegate the Under-Secretary of the Ministry of
Interior to determine the need for manpower in each provincial office by expanding plans into specific steps to enable staffing requirements at section
level to be measured. The Committee appointed a
sub-committee with the Minister of Interior as Chairman, plus 8 members, to consider the need for manpower in the provinces, and to co-operate with
the Ministries which performed their fieldwork in
provinces. The sub-commission had to submit its
findings by 31 October 1956.
3. Request Ministries and departments to co-operate
in proposing the numbers of officials which they could transfer to work in Provincial Administration and Local Administration.
These proposals had a deadline of 20 October 1956. Despite this
more careful approach, the attempt met with only limited success. As
a result, the additional number of officials required by Provincial and Local Administrations became known, but there was no further attempt to implement reform.
The succeeding caretaker government of Pote Sarasin abolished this Advisory Committee on the grounds that members had other permanent
120
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did, they failed to prepare themselves for consultation; another basis was that the whole matter was a CSC responsibility."^
Whilst Phibun enjoyed a measure of success in reorganizing the basic structure of national administration, he was less successful at
introducing staffing patterns. Phibun's first attempt to establish
staffing patterns failed. The causes of failure centered on the lack
of clearly understood goals, coupled with the application, in the
earlier approaches to reform, of a global strategy. Other factors
affecting the results were the employment on the advisory committees
of senior officials who could not devote sufficient time to this additional duty, and the failure of departments to co-operate in an
exercise they distrusted. The very limited success achieved by the
second attempt (1956) resulted from acknowledgement of the above shortcomings and an endeavour to correct them by emphasizing an incremental strategy, by advising departments of the basis of the
questionnaire, and by seeking cooperation from the departments. However,
measured against its stated aims this second attempt also must be considered a failure.
Thanom, in 1958, controlled an organizational structure replete with overlapping functions and agencies which ought never to have been
established. His reforms resulted in the abolition of the latter,
the Ministry of Culture established by Phibun in 1952.
Ministries remaining were the Office of the Council of Ministers,
and 12 others: Defence, Finance, Foreign Affairs, Agriculture,
Communications, Interior, Justice, Education, Economic Affairs, Co-operatives, Public Health, and In d u s t r y ^ !
121.
SARIT (20 October 1958-8 December 1963)
On 20 October 1958, the Revolutionary Party under Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat assumed power because of 'internal communist activity'.
Sarit believed that a strong government was needed to solve the problems
confronting the country. He held the views that the Prime Minister was
13
chief executive, rather than first minister. The words 'Office of
the Prime Minister' replaced the phrase 'Office of the Council of
Ministers', the Executive Office of the Prime Minister replaced the Office of the Secretary-General of the Council of Ministers, and.
the Advisory Board and Committee Division was established in their 14
Office. It was obvious that the military and civil bureaucrats were
predominant in the Executive Branch as Sarit's government comprised 15
4 military and 10 experienced civil bureaucrats. Sarit made a
statement of the policy of his government at the Constituent Assembly on 12 February 1959:
12
...the administration in the past had presented
many barriers to the progress of the country. It
is necessary for the government to develop administration
in order to execute policy effectively. The government
considers the reform of the machinery of government
as the first priority. The government also considers
economic development of the country is of the most vital importance...16
Sarit's policy on national development covered a number of areas, the government having taken action on the lines recommended by the
Mission organized by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development during July 1857 to June 1958.^
The purpose of the Mission's report was to help the government plan its contribution to economic and social development, and to advise on the forms of organization which were likely to be most effective in fostering those developments.
122.
...Moreover, as the Government has to provide new services, employees with the needed
qualifications should be transferred from overstaffed agencies or from offices whose
work is of low priority. To ensure that this
is done, it is recommended that a central
office be established to undertake the management analysis necessary to develop a program of
administrative reform...Its most advantageous location would be in the Office of the Prime Minister and its work should be closely tied
with the budget process. The necessary staff,
both for this office and for representatives to be assigned to the different Ministries, would have
been trained. This office should study the re
grouping of government functions, the precise nature of work objectives and the existing assignment of work, and should prepare plans to deal with these matters...18