Civil Servants Sit Inside The Black Box of Nation Building

There is a big gap between what the public thinks about a civil servant, what the civil servant thinks about him/herself, and what the politicians think about the civil servant. These differences are the result of their level of exposure and interactions with a ‘civil servant’.

The public interacts mostly with civil servants of the ‘frontliner’ variety — at immigration borders, public service counters, clinics and hospitals, at schools, during emergencies. Beyond these direct interactions, the public know very little. The rest of their comprehension about the civil service had to be sourced from the media. They would know that a Chief Secretary is an important figure in the civil service, but vaguely understand their proper role.

Ministers, on the other hand, are exposed mostly to civil servants of the high-level category — Secretaries-General, Heads of Departments, Undersecretaries. Beyond these direct interactions, Ministers know little about the bureaucratic machinery working below these top civil servants. But because they deal with civil servants on a daily basis, they do not need to source from the media to understand the civil service. They only need to solicit information from the senior civil servants, who would advice them accordingly.

Based on the two points of reference, quite clearly civil servants are located within a ‘bureaucratic black box’ poorly understood by both their main stakeholders — the public and the politicians. On the contrary, civil servants makes up the full spectrum of public governance, from the frontliners dealing directly with the public, to those sitting at the highest office dealing with the politicians, and the layers in between. Sitting inside the black box themselves, they have the most comprehension about the hierarchies and the bureaucratic rules and regulations that guide and restrict the work of public policy and administration.

And herein lies the problem. The ‘black box effect’, as I’d call it, obfuscates the complex reality of public administration from the eyes of both the public and the politician. Because of the incomplete information about the processes occurring within the black box, both stakeholders may find themselves feeling frustrated on things they believe could be done in a whiff.

A first-time Minister may become frustrated when they find that developing and implementing certain public policies may take longer than he/she might expect. Ministers do not have the luxury of time to implement changes because the public (i.e. their stakeholders), who are also suffering from the black box effect, would not understand why it would take time to do so. So when a civil servant advises the Minister that a policy change can only be fully worked out in a few months rather than few weeks (based on full knowledge of the processes needed to do so), Ministers may interpret this as inefficiency on the part of the civil servant. When subsequent advises by the civil servant that certain requests by the Minister cannot be met because of procedural constraints, legal limitations etc., some might begin to entertain the thought that the civil servant is attempting sabotage by intentionally delaying/blocking implementation to damage his/her reputation. This is usually the suspicion whenever there is change change of governing political party following a general election.

From here, it is not entirely surprising that some might begin to suggest that ‘deep state’ within the civil service is happening.

It is not. Far from it.

What is actually happening is the constant and dynamic reconfiguration of expectations and understandings between the three interacting groups — the public, the civil service, and the politicians — to find the right meeting point that works for everyone. Rather than entertaining conspiracy theories, a better approach is to focus on making real discourse. A good starting point may well be the attempt to understand what’s really happening inside the black box.