The sector owned, operated and managed by the Government. Industry classification is services. The objectives being management of the affairs of the state for well-being of its people. The orientation being service to and for the people! The funding? From the people it aims to serve!
Why have one? State affairs need to be managed. Affairs like law and order, security, health and safety, justice, education, utilities, infrastructural development and the economy cannot be self-managed. An entity needs to fully invested in these so that the state can function, and the people can feel and experience that it’s working.
And hence, the Public Sector. The sector driven by Governments, elected or un-elected is irrelevant. It’s this need to have a government in place. Any government for that matter. Something needs to be at the helm of all those state affairs so that they are managed.
Clearly therefore, a government is a system, through which affairs of the state or put simply state business is managed. And by virtue of the state, it is the people’s collective business that’s aimed to be managed. A Government is the overarching name of all those component systems put in place to manage each component business of the people. Let’s have a quick glance over these component systems:
- Governing legal framework for law and order
- Defense system for security
- Component laws and regulations, Environmental management system, medical system and public safety infrastructure for health and safety
- Criminal & Civil justice system for dispensing justice
- Education system for providing education
- Energy, resources and infrastructure development for providing utilities and infrastructural support to people and the economy
- And several more!
The thing to understand here is that all these systems make up the government system whole! A non-functioning component system has an impact on that very Whole! Such that the whole government system starts falling apart resulting in civil unrest, strife and an eventual collapse.
This is not something new or unique. These are established theoretical facts brought to life, time and again at any part of the globe. A government without systems is non-existent. There’s no government without systems. And thus, these are not the public sector woes! Systems could be broken and that’s what leads to government failures. But woes are causes and broken systems are a symptom not the cause!
But let’s hold on to this thought for the time being…..no government without systems because government is the system. Let’s come back to this in a while.
So, woes? Mismanagement! by design, by choice, by incompetence, by inability! Outcome? Zero return on investment by the people! Benefits of having a public sector remaining elusive. People’s tax money going to waste, to corruption and into blackholes!
And finally, a broken state.
Mismanagement however is not an end in itself. It’s the means to get to the catastrophic failure and thus the woes have to be something else. So, what are the woes? Well, there’s only one that I have known for and experienced time and time again. Yes! It’s a single point of failure!
Lacking in it in any and every sense is the woe! And it is thus the only answer to all public sector woes!
And it’s high time we unravel it. But merely unravelling it won’t solve the problem. Understanding it, believing in it and living up to it will. And it’s so familiar and household that it is almost easily forgotten like an elephant in the room that we choose to ignore!
In fact, it is synonymous with the government. And both share the same roots. Yes, it is Governance! The verb for the noun, government. Government is the formal system that steers the affairs of the state. That process of steering it, is governance!
The government’s performance is governance. And it is the single point of failure that fails the system of the state and thus the state! So now we have the system and the process running that system. The process means nothing without the steering system and the system can’t operate without the process.
How the two became so distinct that the governance needed to be relaunched or re-emphasized as a modern day concept is unfathomable and nonsensical. A government’s degree of fulfillment of its objectives is through the quality of governance it provides.
And how come even a single public sector entity can function without governance? Only one possibility; it has to remain immune from any accountability for the funds invested within! Because governance is about accountability and lacking it ensures funding continues unchecked. But for how long, is anybody’s guess!
And as I’ve extensively covered the most impactful trigger for governance systems reaching their full potential and evolve further is internal audit!
So, could there be a government without governance? A woeful one surely!
Woe upon the belief that distinguishes governance from government. The belief is perverted!
Woes upon the people who think public sector can function without governance. The people are gormless!
And we held on to the no government without systems thought…… the gormless ones are anti-systems because systems contain naivety and idiocy; they don’t want to be contained!
But why have such people in government, one may think? Maybe because of us the internal auditors. We are predators; they are prey!
Pretty low hanging fruit!