Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 17, 1994 TAG: 9410180031
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In the language of quality-management and continuous-improvement initiatives now sweeping the private sector, the report reflects a confusion about who the "customers" of state government really are.
Unlike the private sector, government's primary customers are not those who deal directly with it. And unlike the private sector, government's primary customers - in this case, the people of Virginia - are also its owners.
The ultimate customers of Virginia's criminal-justice system, for example, are not those whose behavior gets them caught up in it, nor even those who are victims of crime. The ultimate customer is the enterprise's owners, the public with its interest in having a well-ordered and secure society. Likewise, the ultimate customers of Virginia's colleges and universities are not students, but again the public, with its interest in maintaining an educated citizenry and work force.
Where the public-private distinction makes little practical difference, the commission's recommendations are in many cases on target. If the delivery of state health and human-resource services can be made more efficient, money that now must go for administration could be spent on actual services. This would benefit both direct clients and the general public, with its interest in building a healthier and more productive society.
Similarly, the commission's inadequate notion of what is meant by "customer" doesn't negate the merits of reducing the "levels of management between the agency head and the customer" to no more than six. Generally speaking, more sensitive service for the front-line customer is a widely and urgently needed reform.
Sometimes, though, the public-private distinction makes a difference. Interests of those in direct contact with government are not always in harmony with interests of the ultimate customer, the public.
In a generally good discussion of privatization, for example, the report gives only slight and opaque notice to the point that certain state monopolies exist in part to make their products less freely available than if those products' delivery were in private-sector hands. The Virginia State Lottery and the state-owned ABC liquor-store system - both mentioned (though not analyzed) as privatization possibilities - aren't in business simply to maximize sales to consumers of their products. Their purpose also is to serve the real customer, the general public, by keeping betting and booze under some sort of rough control.
Another example of the commission's customer confusion is found in its environmental-regulation recommendations. Ridding regulatory processes of needless duplication and delay is an exemplary task. Yet the customers include not only those who are regulated, but also the public, with its interest in protection from pollution and environmental degradation. Failure to recognize this may explain why the commission strayed from procedural-reform efforts into the promulgation of a suspect "takings" theory, which fails to consider that the value of citizens' property (not to mention health) can be "taken" by upstream polluters.
Finally, some of the commission's administrative-efficiency recommendations - for instance, to make the director of the State Council of Higher Education a gubernatorial appointee - entail not simply reorganization but also a devolution of power to the governor's office.
The council's customers include the public - in fact, the owners - as well as institutions of higher education. Centralizing authority in the hands of the chief executive officer may be an unremarkable issue in the private sector. But the public sector's diffuse and wary ownership has throughout U.S. history made a point of limiting executive power in government. Changing those limits, as the commission proposes, is a matter that goes beyond mere reform and reorganization.
by CNB