Antagonism between government agencies and officials

Mutual opposition or ill will on the part of agencies and officials is found more or less everywhere, and it aggravates the difficulties any central organ has in taking action, even where it is backed up by a coherent civil service policy, government support, and a satisfactory legislative framework. The reasons for this opposition are at times somewhat specious. Ministries and agencies often cite their autonomy and their responsibility for personnel matters in order to cover up wrongdoings. Civil servants frequently have misgivings, with some justification, about rationalization of personnel management and the institution of controls. Measures taken at the centre - when the centre is not responsible for direct management - sometimes meet with a manifest lack of good will. Rules are either not applied or are misapplied; requests for information from the central organ for, say, the establishment of central files and dossiers, post classification or evaluation of duties, etc, are left unanswered. Some central organs are confronted with a wall of antipathy or even hostility, to the point where centralization of personnel administration, in spite of its drawbacks, seems in the long run preferable to any other solution. On the whole this opposition must perhaps not be exaggerated; but it does exist everywhere in varying degrees: it is an obstacle to collaboration with ministries and agencies; it puts a brake on action by the central organs.