On the issue of excessive number and low efficiency of civil servants

Brazhnikov Pavel Petrovich ORCID: 0000-0001-6321-6464 Senior analyst, Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization "Scientific Research Academy of Social and Psychological Systems" 125319, Russia, Moscow region, Moscow, Krasnoarmeyskaya str., 28, sq. 60 br@zhnikov.com Other publications by this author

Introduction

The assessment of the modern state management system of the Russian Federation, expressed in the statement that there are more "officials" relative to the RSFSR, and their effectiveness is lower, is quite common, which has objective reasons. There is also a fairly widespread negative attitude towards the "officials" themselves. These two thoughts will be discussed in a little more detail later.

For consideration, we will clarify what we mean by the term "official". This concept can be interpreted quite broadly, including various meanings as a common name ^[1], however, in this article we will mean the most official definition as civil servants. At the same time, some people who admit such a statement may imply other definitions, but we will consider them formally inaccurate in this article, since the term "class rank" is applicable in our time, which makes the word "official" quite official.

We further admit that the statement about the increase in the number of "officials" is correct, their number has indeed increased more than twice since the beginning of the 1990s ^[2]. We also recognize the relatively low efficiency of public administration ^[3] and, as a result, the low estimated perception of the work of "officials" by the population ^[4].

At the same time, the low efficiency of the state apparatus is often associated with high corruption ^[5-6], which in this article will also be considered as a true statement. Let us now consider some significant causes of these phenomena.

Quantity

To begin with, it should be clarified that the relative number of employees of state organizations in Russia is generally at the level of "developed countries" ^[7], thus, before the collapse of the USSR, the relative number of civil servants was generally lower than many countries with developed economies. And the fact that earlier state structures managed with a smaller composition than in our time has quite objective reasons.

As a result of the collapse of the Soviet system of public administration and the subsequent privatization, the share of state ownership in production decreased several times ^[8], which, of course, reduced the planning needs of civil servants, since the number of organizations controlled by them decreased.

However, the functions of the state remained to control the legality of the activities of organizations, as well as market regulation in order to maintain a balance of interests of citizens and organizations. At the same time, as a consequence of the decline in the share of the state, the number of individual enterprises in the market has significantly increased. In such new conditions, monitoring the activities of legal entities, as well as obtaining from them any important information required to assess the overall picture of the market, requires significantly more labor to interact with them: optimization of legislation regulating activities in a wider range of areas and provision of information by companies, preparation of requests for non-periodic information, collection and processing incoming information, handling appeals from market participants and citizens interacting with them, etc. At the same time, a significant part of this work is not much subject to optimization due to digital technologies, since changing the format from paper to digital has a limited effect on such activities as, for example, writing, coordinating and tracking documentation, as well as a summary of information from incoming correspondence, which is not always in electronic format. At the same time, with an increase in the share of production and other spheres independent of the state, the responsibility of the state increases, since its activities are evaluated by an increased number of market participants. In this regard, it is impossible to reduce the number of various formal documentation regulating and reflecting all actions of civil servants.

In addition, with the development of digitalization, the amount of data requiring analysis within the framework of public administration is also growing, which also reduces the effect of digital technologies on the possibilities of personnel optimization.

The second important factor affecting the number of "officials" is the growth of the autonomy of regional authorities ^[9-11], as a result of which almost autonomous local authorities with full functionality are being created instead of a single center. Accordingly, both the number of structural units of state institutions and the volume of work accompanying interdepartmental interaction are growing, similar to the case of growth of market participants discussed above.

In addition to these two direct factors of growth in the number of civil servants, it is important to mention another one that is secondary to these factors – the growth in the number of employees of regulatory state organizations leads to the need to increase staff in structures that control the activities of civil servants.

Thus, there are at least three of these factors that have led to the need for a significant increase in the number of "officials", which is not a consequence of corruption reasons or a decrease in the efficiency of employees. At the same time, the significance of the three reasons given by us is assumed to be significantly higher than the others.

Effectiveness

It should be noted that due to the factors described in the previous section, the direct influence of the state on the processes in the country has significantly decreased, which, in turn, reduces the impact of the actions of state authorities. However, it is necessary to consider not only the global conditions in which "officials" work, but also their immediate working conditions.

Despite the widespread dissemination of information about the ultra-high salaries of many top managers of state structures and companies with large state participation, ordinary civil servants, for example, holding positions up to the deputy director of the department in federal ministries, receive salaries below the average level of remuneration for similar positions in the commercial sector ^[12].  As a possible consequence, we can point to the ratio of the number of managers and subordinates in the civil service. So, there are 1.5 performers per manager with a normal ratio of 2.5 performers. There may be various reasons for such an increase in numbers: both high corruption, which leads to the hiring of affiliated persons for significant positions, and an attempt to increase the salary of employees through formal promotion. In the first case, additional employees will be required for persons who only formally occupy the positions of managers to perform the tasks of the organization, in the second case, the probability that the lowest vacancies will be competitive in the labor market decreases. Statistics also indicate a significant understaffing of most public institutions ^[13]. There are relatively low qualifications and high "turnover" of employees of the state apparatus ^[14-15]. At the same time, those employees who stay in lower and middle positions have efficiency and motivation to work above average, since financial remuneration is not the main incentive for them ^[16]. The conducted surveys also show the low importance for civil servants of such values as "Creative approach to work" (35%) and "Participation in management" (17%). The latter indicator is higher for employees holding managerial positions, while in groups of positions of the "specialists" category this indicator is noticeably lower – only 10% ^[17], which also indicates a low possible motivation to work in government bodies relative to the market there. There is also a low compliance with the preferences expected for corrupt officials, especially given the fact that most employees do not have opportunities to directly influence the objects of regulation or control.

Thus, there are low opportunities for hiring highly qualified professionals in government structures due to less attractive conditions relative to the market there. The latter cannot but affect the average efficiency of individual "officials", even in the case of high non-material motivation of many of them. Or, in other words, mostly experienced and motivated people have been working in ordinary government positions for a long time, but they have low opportunities to improve work efficiency both personally, due to initially low qualifications, and in general, by reducing the impact of the actions of state structures in market conditions.

Corruption

Low opportunities for corruption and efficiency improvement in most government positions does not at all reduce the significantly higher probability of corruption in those relatively few positions where there is a possibility of influencing the objects of regulation or control, as well as in senior positions at the level, for example, directors of a department of a federal ministry and above. At the same time, the latter also have significantly higher salaries, both relative to the labor market and relative to more junior positions ^[12]. And considering that the estimates of the current level of corruption, for example, given earlier, are quite high, it can be argued that some employees from these groups of civil servants realize their opportunities for corruption. However, it should be recalled once again that among the "officials" the proportion of those who have such opportunities is relatively low, since the activities of decision-making employees must be provided by several employees who do not influence the decisions that are not made.

In the two previous sections considering the characteristics of high numbers and low efficiency, it was pointed out that these phenomena do not depend on the personal characteristics and desires of individual civil servants. When considering the issue of high corruption, with further consideration, we will also strive to show the objectivity of its causes, however, we certainly do not deny the high role of the choice of each individual "official" involved in corrupt actions. Therefore, when we talk about the causes, we will not mean the causes of high corruption, but only its relatively wide possibilities. Let us now consider what may be significant objective reasons for such a characteristic of the state apparatus as high corruption.

The definition of the term "corruption" is currently not unambiguous ^[18], and although the terminology in the further discussion is not essential, for convenience, we will clarify that in this article we will mean by corruption the failure to fulfill their duties, directly or through deliberate stretching in time, as well as hindering the fulfillment of their legitimate rights and duties by others, not only by civil servants, for the purpose of personal gain, financial or otherwise, and, of course, direct embezzlement, by employees of state, budgetary organizations and organizations with significant state participation. Such a definition is partly too broad, but the causes of corruption in such a broad definition will also affect its particular manifestations, since we assume that our reasoning will have no exceptions in the possible range of actions designated by us as corruption.

The available theories do not have an unambiguous explanation of the causes of corruption ^[19], which is expected in the presence of uncertainty in the term, however, we will try to describe the most significant, from our point of view, reasons, as in the previous two sections.

For further discussion, we will need the theory of shared resource management institutions, which has become most widespread thanks to the Nobel laureate Eleanor Ostrom ^[20]. In her main work, she gives examples of common natural resources, such as water for irrigation, forests, places for fishing, and describes examples of regulating their use to maximize the total benefits of users. Also in this article, she describes the main problems of shared resources, which can be formulated as the presence of high risks of excessive consumption by individual participants, reducing the possibilities of consumption by other participants and limiting the reproduction of resources, as well as the risks of participants avoiding the necessary contribution to the reproduction of resources.

Although initially the theory of collective property management considered natural physical resources, later there were examples of its sufficiently justified application to such objects as, for example, a university ^[21] or the financial stability of local authorities ^[22]. There are also justifications that objects such as knowledge and information are strategic resources of society ^[23], which means that the theory under discussion can be applied to them. The examples given show that there are no theoretical limitations for applying the theory of shared resource management institutions to the whole state as a single public resource, which we use in this article. On this basis, the state and its capabilities to perform its functions will be discussed in this article as an example of shared resources.

In general, the functions of the state considered in various works ^[24-27], from our point of view, can be summarized as follows – ensuring the security of citizens and organizations: physical security, security of property, both personal and public property available to them, as well as ensuring the security of other rights, both personal and collective, the total volume which depends on the capabilities of the state. Accordingly, the state itself is a collective institution to ensure such security. The definitions we have given can again be considered excessively broad, but if further reasoning does not concern only a part of the phenomena included in it, then the definitions we have given will allow us to consider the issue on a scale that eliminates the need for many further clarifications.

So, we have determined within the framework of our reasoning that the state and, consequently, the security it provides are a public resource. Further, it is necessary to consider how its public use can be distributed in general and in the Russian Federation. At the same time, the rational use of the resource requires maximum information about the factors on which it depends. But the more complex the resource, the less likely it is to receive significant information about it. Therefore, speaking about the state, it can be assumed that most of its institutions operate in conditions of a significant lack of information.

Any activity requiring decision-making in situations of incomplete information has two possible main risks of error: errors of the first and second kind. They can be described as follows: an error of the first kind is a situation when the desired event is not noticed, whereas an error of the second kind is a situation when an erroneous reaction to a due event occurred. There are enough examples of such risks in the literature ^[28-31], including even an example from criminology ^[32].

 Accordingly, when making decisions, it is necessary to choose either between the maximum elimination of one of these two types of risks, or between some intermediate option. For a better understanding, the following analogy can be given: in the case of searching for criminals, one can either strive to eliminate the error of the first kind, that is, the risk of releasing the guilty, but then the risks of punishing the innocent will increase, or strive to eliminate the error of the second kind, that is, the risk of punishing the innocent, but then the risk of releasing the guilty increases. The same analogy can be given for remuneration, where in the case of a desire to reward only those who deserve, the number of those who did not receive a well-deserved award will increase, and in the case of a desire to reward all those who deserved, the number of those who received an award undeservedly will increase. When choosing a balance between these two extremes in a situation of lack of information, it is also necessary to choose the amount of punishment or reward, for example, reducing them in case of an increased risk of involvement of those not involved and increasing them with tighter control.

It can be assumed that reducing the probability of punishing the innocent and increasing the probability of rewarding the deserving has priority over the individual groups to which this control is directed. Similarly, the interests of the majority suffer due to the lack of punishment of an increased proportion of the guilty and the dispersion of common resources to reward more of the undeserved. In such cases, it is possible to slightly reduce the negative effect for the majority by significantly increasing the punishment and setting minimum rewards for the respective groups. The opposite reasoning is true. Also, for example, an increase in the value of each individual life to the detriment of general security may lead to restrictions on the actions of the military, firefighters, rescuers, virologists, which will reduce losses among them, but increase the risk of deaths of the rest of the population.

Thus, there is always a contradiction between the interests of individual groups of people and the interests of the majority in the allocation of common resources, including State-provided security. At the same time, with the focus of the institute of distribution on individual groups, their resources will grow significantly relative to the majority.

It can also be argued that the poorer the source of resources, the higher the need for cooperation to maintain it, and vice versa, the richer it is, the more profitable the individualistic conduct of consumers ^[33].

Ostrom in his book cites the factors of achieving an overall efficient and stable system of consumption of relatively scarce common resources with a fairly fair distribution of them and their necessary reproduction. It is possible to cite the main factors influencing the interest of participants in maintaining a social consumption system close to optimal, which can be briefly described as: approximately equal dependence on distribution rules, high interest in long-term consumption, low costs for maintaining rules, a small and stable group, high mutual monitoring capabilities. In the case of the analogy with the state, this situation is closer to the priority of the interests of the majority than of individual participants. At the same time, it should be noted that Ostrom criticizes the idea of the need for state control over public resources, but she considers limited examples for which the state is a background factor, and not a public resource.

In the USSR, there was a relatively high share of public appropriation and public contribution to the maintenance of the common system ^[34], which increased the motivation of citizens to comply with the rules and mutual monitoring of violations, to increase common resources. It should also be noted that despite the widespread criticism of a large number of "denunciations" in the USSR, this is an effective and widespread practice of monitoring the implementation of the rules for the use of public resources, both described by Ostrom and actively used in the USA ^[35].

Currently, as already noted, there is a tendency in the Russian Federation to prioritize the private over the general, which is manifested in increased incentives for excessive exploitation of common resources in all forms, including corruption. In addition, regional officials, when determining the directions of spending budget funds, seek short-term benefits at the expense of long-term and general benefits ^[36], as well as other market participants seeking personal benefits without analyzing the damage to the overall economy ^[37].

Thus, the growth of incentives to corruption for those relatively few civil servants who have the opportunity to do so has the same reasons as the growth in the number of civil servants. Such a reason is the priority of private benefit over public. But also, with a high probability, some of the reasons for this increase in incentives for corruption and the reasons for the decrease in the average efficiency of civil servants coincide.

Further development

The shift of priority in our state system from public benefit to private occurred simultaneously with the inclusion of the country in the common economic system with the countries of Europe, the USA and others. Consequently, the Russian Federation has become one of the countries that use such public resources as, for example, a security system for mainly private interests. At the same time, it is expected that appropriate payment is required for the use of other people's resources, the analogue of which was a significant export of capital and technology from the country ^[38-40]. Some researchers of institutional corruption suggest that in the 1990s, during the transition to a new economic system, corruption acted as a means of introducing elements of market relations into the planned economy ^[41].

 At the same time, economic ties with Western economies are currently declining and, accordingly, there is a need either to join the resource distribution systems of other countries that are not related to the main "Western" ones, or to build their own institutions for the distribution of such a public resource as state-provided security. At the same time, it can hardly be argued that there are currently other international state systems that have a universal character, in addition to the Western one. For universality, state systems should be positioned as aimed at the interests of individual groups or common interests, regardless of state affiliation. The current ones most often state the priority of the interests of the state, which reduces their opportunities for expansion to the international level and allows only more limited cooperation.

Thus, there is a high probability of a return to state institutions aimed at public property, since such a system is most familiar to citizens, despite a significant period of dominance of the Western capitalist orientation. At the same time, it is also quite universal, which increases the likelihood of cooperation with other countries. If this happens, we can expect a reduction in the problems of the state apparatus considered in this article.

Conclusion

In this article, we have tried to show the objective reasons for the increase in the number and decrease in the efficiency of civil servants, which are not related to the personal characteristics of the "officials" themselves and are a natural consequence of the changed conditions, and therefore are not grounds for a negative assessment of the employees themselves. The change in conditions primarily implies a significant shift in the priority of the state system from public to private ownership. For this reason, initiatives to reduce the size of the state apparatus (order  The Government of the Russian Federation No. 3731-r of December 31, 2020, Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 1353 of December 11, 2015) ^[42], proposed mainly by departments under the leadership of A. G. Siluanov and A. L. Kudrin, may lead to negative consequences. Negative subjective assessments of the "officials" themselves are more likely to be expected from people who either did not work in public service or worked in leading positions. At the same time, a significant part of those who criticize employees of the state apparatus simultaneously support the priority of private benefits in the allocation of resources, which is the cause of the considered negative phenomena of the state system. The latter is an additional indicator of the low validity of criticism of civil servants. We have also described possible objective reasons for the growth of corruption, among which the change in the priorities of state institutions has the greatest impact, although, of course, it cannot be argued that there is no personal choice of specific employees, however, the proportion of "officials" who have opportunities for corrupt actions is not large, and therefore its generalization to all "officials" also cannot be loyal.