The Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission ( FCSC), Prof. Tunji Olaopa, on Monday described the strategic plan of the organisation as a game-changer in terms of of its all-encompassing impact.

Olaopa who spoke at the commission’s one-day Strategic Plan Implementation Planning Workshop in Abuja noted that the plan underscored the significance of the commission to the Federal Government under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in realising the Renewed Hope Agenda.

Reeling off the objectives of the strategic plan for the commission in its transition phase, Olaopa said that it would achieve sustainable performance around six main domains .

He listed these as the restoration of the commission’s preeminent status as the gatekeeper of a valued profession; digital transformation with e-recruitment, computer-based promotion exercises, and
professionalisation of the commission’s secretariat; evidence-based scientific best practice methodology in strategy implementation, change management, and in internal administrative operations and bureaucratic efficiency; institution of disciplinary control and ethical safeguard that challenges unethical and unprofessional conducts, unfair promotions, and any other wrongdoings in the system; and
minimization to the barest minimum in the transition period, and ultimately elimination of all kinds of scams, patronage and sharp practices that have attended employment, recruitment, promotion exercises and the discipline of federal officers over the years.

According to him, the objectives also involve the institutional transformation of the internal operations of the FCSC, which will occur at three levels.

These include the professionalization of the operations and systems in order to strengthen the internal audit; improve resource allocation and articulate a sound financial management system; and concretize the communication and media profiles of the commission to improve its public image and transparency.

For Olaopa, all this entails a strategic M&E system for a continuous tracking of the progress and reporting dynamics across the four quadrants of merit-based recruitment, performance-driven promotion and promotion exercises, ethical and efficient disciplinary process and procedures, and institutional competence and capability development programmes.

“Results and outputs management, with timely adjustments, will depend on such tools like digital dashboard, risk management matrix, quarterly, annual and mid-term evaluations, etc.

The dynamic will involve developing standard operating procedures for any internal functions that do not have them yet. This will enable the FCSC to consolidate the implementation of the performance management system that will ensure that staff who worked creditably well are properly rewarded while consequence management tools are deployed to strengthen regulatory controls”, he added .

Olaopa said earlier that if there was an urgent task for the commission, it was to regain its role as the gatekeeper of the profession and practice of public administration in the federal civil service and in Nigeria.

“The commission indeed needs to regain its gatekeeper status if it will align forces with other critical stakeholders to fully restore competency-based human resource management practices in managing the career of federal civil servants. And a restored competency-based practice is critical to resetting and rewiring the brains of the MDAs and their organizational intelligent quotient (IQ), while at once implementing the much-desired culture change that will constitute the superstructure on which to build a new generation of public managers that will deploy policy intelligence, managerial acumen and unwavering patriotic fervour to redouble Nigeria’s national transformation journey”, he said.

On the efforts that went into the making of the strategic plan, Olaopa said: “A lot of work has gone into the development of the commission’s medium-term strategy. The plan takes off with a solemn acceptance that the commission constitutes a very significant part of the rot and institutional decline that the civil service in Nigeria has witnessed over the years.In coming to that self-indictment, we at the 10th Commission at once acknowledge the incredible pivotal role that the erstwhile Federal Public Service Commission played in building the foundation of the celebrated old civil service in its glorious days of the 1960s to the ‘70s in Nigeria.

“We indeed asked ourselves the question while taking this strategic plan through its visioning state: what did the old commission do differently? The old service commission indeed carefully guarded the gate and reputation of the public administration practice as a profession and the civil service as a value-based institution. In so doing, it safeguarded meritocracy while deferring to the policy objective of the quota system of the time.

It is against the background of this inspiration, that the 10th Commission derived its theory of change. That, for the commission to serve its mandate properly, it must rediscover and reinvent itself through self-introspection and internal reform that properly restructure its gatekeeping capability readiness and its reform credentials.

Now that the strategy has been formulated and it’s a step to roll out, the next critical question for us becomes one of the ‘how?’ ’

He said that this necessitated the terms of reference of this workshop which included getting key internal stakeholders at the commission on the same page in terms of objectives, implementation pillars, and goals of the strategy; reviewing the implementation roadmap, through the commencement of the process of translating the strategy into actionable and ‘SMART’ outcomes; and identifying critical enablers to ensure effective and sustainable implementation and outcomes.”