Managing Europe From Home: The Europeanisation of the Irish ...

encourage mobility across departments and to ensure that appointments to the
upper echelons of the service were based on merit rather than seniority. In addition,
the Secretaries of departments began to hold an annual conference, which in turn led
to system wide discussion of issues and the emergence of a certain esprit de corps
among senior civil servants. The cultural changes of the 1980s, in addition to the
deficiencies highlighted by the budgetary crisis, tribunals of enquiry and reports such
as the Industrial Policy Review Group (1991) placed reform back on the agenda.
Questions about the effective performance of the civil service, particularly in terms of
public sector management became commonplace.
The most significant reform of the Irish civil service began in 1994 with the
development of the Strategic Management Initiative (SMI) introduced by the
government as an attempt to enhance strategic and administrative capabilities in the
civil service. The SMI process must be seen in the context of the spread of what has
been termed new public management (NPM) in the industrialised world. Although
endorsed by the Government, the SMI was in many ways a mandarin led process, a
quiet revolution in the system. Delivering Better Government published in 1996
outlined an extensive modernisation process for the Irish civil and public service and
the Public Service Management Act (1997) introduced a new management structure
in the civil service. The Irish civil service found itself part of a new climate of
reflection and evaluation and the modernization programme envisaged by the
Strategic Management Initiative and Delivering Better Government (SMI/DBG)
represented the outcome of this reassessment. The 1997 Act’s purpose was to
enhance the management, effectiveness and transparency of Departments and
Offices and to put in place a mechanism for increased accountability of civil servants.
The most visible transformation in how the civil service conducts its business came
with openness, transparency and accountability. Each Department is obliged to
produce both strategy statements and business plans. With the Freedom of
Information Act, members of the public, or ‘customers’, are entitled greater access to
documents. In June 2001, a consulting firm, PA Consulting, was commissioned by
the Department of the Taoiseach to review progress achieved under the Public
Service Modernisation programme. A number of its findings, published in March
2002, have a bearing on Ireland’s management of EU business. On a general note,
the review concluded that the Irish civil service in 2002 was better managed and