GENERAL ASPECTS OF ADMINISTRATION

GENERAL ASPECTS OF ADMINISTRATION Bases of Public Administration Administrative Implications of Federalism

Public Administration is organised on two basis - Functional basis, and Geographical basis. From the functional point of view, administrative organisation is based upon your main principles,

Functional Basis Principle of Specialisation: To ensure

efficiency and economy in work, the administration is divided into numerous administrative agencies called departments, although sometimes there are a large number of commissions, corporations and boards outside the department structure.

The question that then arises is, on what basis are the departments organised?

In general, it may be said that the departments are based on some broad substantive purpose, for example, the advancement of education, the development of industries, the conduct of foreign relations or the management of transport.

Each department forms a particular type of function such as department of Home Affairs, the department of Foreign affairs, Railway Board, etc The departments are further subdivided on a narrowly defined purpose or objective such as criminal investigation department or Board of secondary education.

Specialisation continues to work into the lower levels of organisation. Thus a board of secondary education may contain a division devoted to textbooks, another division devoted to syllabus and still another devoted to organisation. etc.

Principle of Integration: While administration is divided into departments according to the principle of specialisation, these departments cannot function independently. The activities of the various departments need to be integrated into a composite whole.

The problem of integration deals with the inter-relations of various administrative units on the same level of government. It is the problem of the relations of different services within the same department or of the different departments within the same government.

The importance of integration hardly needs any emphasis. There can be no doubt that from every point of view, integration is desirable to achieve the purpose of administration, i.e. the general good of the people.

Principle of Hierarchy: The third principle common to the administrative set-up of all the modern democracies is the principle of hierarchy.

All administrative organisations follow the pattern of the superior-subordinate relationships through a number of levels of responsibility reaching from the top to the bottom of the structure.

This form of organisation is called by Mooney and Reiley the “scalar process” under which there is a pyramid-cal type of organisation.

Principle of Permanency: Administration is machinery for the execution of public will as determined by the political authority. Now while the political authority, i.e. the legislature and the chief executive may change with the change of public opinion, administrators continue to remain on their post.

Geographical Basis

Administrative authority may be concentrated or dispersed. Due to the vast size of the modern states, it is generally dispersed.

The country is divided into numerous areas, each area developing its own administration. Thus division of administrative authority is called localisation of administration. In every modern state, administrative life is centred in three

foci of action which may, as De Tocqueville said, be compared to the different nervous centres which convey motion to the human body. These three focifall on a vertical line.

At the highest extreme is the central administration, in the middle is the state, provincial or country administration and at the lowest rung is the village or town administration.

First of all, let us be clear about the meaning of centralisation. A centralised administration is one in which there are close relations between officials responsible to different levels of government as federal -state or state- local.

When much administrative power is vested in the hands of the officials of the central government with a consequent diminution of the authority and discretion of officials in lower

Meaning of Decentralisation In a decentralised system, the government at lower

levels enjoys certain amount of autonomy as given by the constitution or statute. There are many centres of government, local and central, each with a recognised right of independent existence and functions. In this system, the control of the central governments over the local government is restricted.

Limits of Centralisation

“A centralised administration is and tends to enervate the nation in which it operates by incessantly diminishing and crystallising at a given moment or at a given point all the responsible resources of the people, impairing the renewal of these resources. When much administrative power is vested in the hands of the officials of the central government with a consequent diminution of the authority and discretion of officials in lower .

When much administrative power is vested in the hands of the officials of the central government with a consequent diminution of the authority and discretion of officials in lower

Administrative Implication of Federalism Federation is a decentralised form of

administration. The fundamental principle of federation is the division of power between the federal and the constituent governments.

Broadly speaking, the units of federation are autonomous in the field of administration allocated them, but recently there has arisen a practice of exercising control by the central Government over the administration of the states.

The constitution of Nigeria makes numerous provisions whereby the central Government can exercise considerable control over the administrative machinery of the states.

It may be remarked that the tendency in recent years has been towards centralisation even in England and America the central control over local governments has recently increased.

This is the impact of technological developments and the welfare state concept on administration. However, in spite of the increasing tendency towards centralisation, the difference between a decentralised system and a centralised system of administration still persists