About the Administrative & Civil Service Website

The number of hits (i.e., the number of pages accessed and files downloaded from the ACSR site) has increased from approximately 49,000 in November 2000 - our first month of operation - to 137,000 in May 2001.

The most popular pages are Cross National Data on Government Employment& Wages, Data and Diagnostics, Architecture of the Public Sector, Common Problems, and Personnel Management.
The number of individual visitors to the site has increased steadily from 1,159 in November to 3,914 in May 2001.

The number of sessions (the number of times the site was accessed) has also increased from 2,365 in November to 8,205 in May 2001.

New developments on the website:

A new Topical Debates page has been posted to the website through our collaboration with the International Review of Administrative Sciences. The Center of Government page also has been revised considerably with the participation of the Canadian Centre for Management Development (CCMD).

Extensive dialogue with a large number of Bank staff produced a welcome consensus around the content of a new page on Establishment Control & Pay Determination. Through that dialogue, a new framework has been developed to reflect all elements of the total rewards that public officials may receive. For clarity and consistency, this framework has been incorporated in all related pages in the website.

The results of the public officials surveys in Argentina, Bangladesh, Bolivia and Guyana are now available by clicking on the following link: http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/civilservice/surveys.htm. See the newsletter section surveying public officials for more details.

Watch this space:

Pay and employment

In the next ACSR Newsletter we hope to announce the posting of new cross-national data on public employment and pay to the Administrative & Civil Service Reform website. These data were drawn together through a painstaking data-gathering exercise led by Giulio de Tommaso and Amit Mukherjee. As a precursor to these data coming online, we have posted updated definitions of the relevant pay and employment categories to the website page on "Cross-national Data on Government Employment & Wages." Clarity and agreement on the definitions is essential. We welcome your comments or suggestions on these and any other aspects of the site.

Designing reforms

The section on Country experiences with administrative reform has been retitled: "Designing and implementing reforms." This section will soon be developed and expanded to address specific design questions in civil service and administrative reforms.

A major new set of materials on "improving policy management at the center of government" will be introduced in that new section. This will review:

• the technical issues entailed in strengthening the policy management process;
• institutional diagnostics for strengthening decision-making in cabinet governments;
• mechanisms for reducing "collateral damage" from other donor-supported reforms on the policy management process; and
• the use of NGO-led alternative budget analysis to increase public demand for policy reliability.

Other material will also follow shortly on "strategies for pay reform in government."

Bottom-up Changes

The pages on Innovative Locally-Initiated Changes will be crafted into a more comprehensive set of materials on "bottom-up" approaches to larger civil service reforms, building on the emerging cooperation with the Social Funds TG. A new set of pages on "whole of government" reforms will also be developed.

Bank Operations

Ranjana Mukherjee is reviewing the Bank's portfolio of civil service reform projects approved during FY 1999 and 2000. We soon hope to be able to provide you with easy access to details of:

• stand-alone CSR projects
• other components associated with CSR in recent operations
• design of CSR interventions
• regional differences
• total Bank funding in CSR (This is particularly difficult to assess when civil service is a component of a structural adjustment credit).

Other Developments

The Canadian Centre for Management Development and the UK Civil Service College are leading a team of international partners to prepare materials on "career paths and training" and "learning organizations." Details to follow.