RESTRAINT, RENEWAL, AND THE TREASURY BOARD SECRETARIAT

The Public Service 2000 exercise and the June 1993 government reorgani zation are reviewed in the context of a decade of centrally driven ini tiatives to improve the management and productivity of the federal pub lic service. The work of the Tresury Board Secretariat during these in itiatives is described and the changes in its modus operandi and struc ture are outlined. It is suggested that the most important shortcoming in the PS 2000 exercise was the failure to reconcile the renewal them e with the continuing requirement for reductions in operating budgets, and to set out the implications of expenditure restraint for the size and nature of the public service in the 1990s. What is needed for the next stage of public service renewal is not a high-profile, service-w ide initiative, but a ''realistic management posture'' that takes adeq uate account of continuing fiscal restraint, arbitrariness in expendit ure reduction, impact on services, technological change, limited appli cability of private sector techniques, efficacy of centrally imposed c ontrols, relationship between employment security and renewal, and fin ally, compensation determination.