Meaning of Public Administration
INTRODUCTION
Public Administration as independent Subject of a social science has recent origin. Traditionally Public Administration was considered as a part of political science. But in Modern age the nature of state-under went change and it became from police stale to social service state. As a consequence, the Public Administration, irrespective of the nature of the political system, has become the dominant factor of life. The modern political system is essentially ‘bureaucratic’ and characterized by the rule of officials. Hence modern democracy has been described as ‘executive democracy’ or ‘bureaucratic democracy’. The administrative branch, described as civil service or bureaucracy is the most significant component of governmental machinery of the state.
Defining Administration The English word 'administer' is derived from Latin word ad + ministrare, which means 'to care for or to look after people, to manage affairs'. In its literal sense, the term 'administration' means “management of affairs”— public or private affairs. Administration is a process permeating all collective efforts, be it public or private, civil or military, large-scale or otherwise, and is thus of universal nature. Administration is a cooperative effort through which the laid down goals and objectives are fulfilled.
Administration means organizing and using men and materials in order to accomplish a purpose or a goal. Administration joins groups of people who coordinate and cooperate in order to achieve the desired goals. In other words, for the achievement of the desired goals and objectives, we need to organize and direct human and material resources. It is a universal process and which can be seen in diverse institutional settings. Based on these settings, administration is divided into public administration and private administration. The former refers to the administration, which operates in a governmental setting, while the latter refers to the administration, which operates in a non-governmental setting, that is, business enterprises.
Different scholars have defined public administration in different ways, which needs to be discussed here in order to get a clear picture as to what actually is meant by public administration. Some of these definitions are as follows:
Nicholas Henry defines the concept in a different way. He says “Public administration is the device used to reconcile bureaucracy with democracy. Public administration is a broad-ranging and amorphous combination of theory and practice, its purpose is to promote a superior understanding of government and its- relationship with the society it governs.”
L.D. White, Public administration is the direction, coordination and control of many persons to achieve certain purposes. These purposes relate to the general management and welfare of the society.
Herbert Simon, a noted authority, defines public administration in the following way: The public administration can be defined as the activities of groups cooperating to accomplish certain common goals. The public administration has also been defined as the combined effect on the part of and trained administrators to achieve certain essential goals.
Presthus defines public administration as the organisation and direction of human and material resources to achieve desired ends. Public administration is also a way to encourage future goals.
Woodrow Wilson “Public administration is the detailed and systematic application of law. Every particular application of law is an act of administration”
Pfiffner defines “Public Administration consists of doing the work of government, whether it be running of X-ray machine in a health laboratory or coining in the mint- administration consists of getting work done by coordinating the efforts of people so that they can work together or accomplish their set tasks.”
Simon- “Public Administration is meant in common usage, the activities of the executive branches of the national state and local governments.”
Waldo - “Public administration is the art and science of management as applied to the affairs of the state.”
Gullick - “Public Administration is that part of the science of administration which has to do with government and thus, concerns itself primarily with the executive branch where the work of the government is done.”
On the basis of the above definitions, thus, it can be said that public administration is concerned with the determination, formulation and implementation of public policies for the welfare of the people. It is the principal agency of the State which delivers the public goods and services in an efficient and economical manner as also provides continuity to the policies of the government.
Willough - “Public Administration in broadest sense denotes the work involved in the actual conduct of governmental affairs, and in narrowest senses denotes the operations of the administrative branch only.”
Nature of Public Administration
There are two important views regarding to the Nature of Public Administration, that is, Integral and Managerial views.
The integral view: Administration is the sum total of all the activities such as; manual, clerical, managerial, etc., which are undertaken to realise the objectives of the organisation. According to this view, all the acts of officials of the government from the attendant to the secretaries to the government and head of the state constitute Public Administration. Henri Fayol and L.D. White are the supporters of this view.
The managerial view: According to this view of administration, the managerial activities of people who are involved in planning, organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling (POCCC- according to H. Fayol) constitute Public Administration.
This view regards administration as getting things done and not doing things. Luther Gullick, Herbert Simon, Smithburg and Thompson are the supporters of this view. The managerial view excludes Public Administration from non-managerial activities such as manual, clerical and technical activities.
The two views differ from each other in many ways. According to Prof. M.P. Sharma the difference between the two views is fundamental. The integral view includes the activities of all the persons engaged in administration whereas the managerial view restricts itself only to the activities of the few persons at the top.
The integral view depicts all types of activities from manual to managerial, from non-technical to technical whereas the managerial view takes into account only the managerial activities in an organisation.
Furthermore, administration, according to the integral view would differ from one sphere to another depending upon the subject matter, but whereas that will not to be included in the managerial point of view because the managerial view is identified with the managerial techniques common to all the fields of administration.
The difference between the two views relates to the difference between management and operation or between getting things done and doing things. The correct meaning of the term administration would however, depend upon the context in which it is used.
Scope of Public Administration
Broad perspective or subject - oriented perspective :- Prof. Woodrow Wilson, L D While are main exponent of this perspective. They have taken a very broad approach about the scope of Public Administration. According to them
(A) Public Administration covers all three branches of the government. Legislative, Executive and Judicial and their interrelationship. Legislative organ makes the laws, Executive organ of the government implements the laws and Judicial organ of the government interprets the laws. There is interrelationship between these three organs.
(B) Scope of Public Administration is like a cooperative group. It consists of all from class one officer to class four employees.
(C) Public Administration is a part of the political process. It has an important role in the formulation of public policy at all levels, from national to grassroot. It is closely associated with numerous private groups and individuals in providing services to the community. It has been influenced in recent years by the human relations approach. However, according to other authors the broad view of the scope of Public Administration is not practical, as it renders the scope of public administration vague. It would, thus the better to accept the narrow view of the scope of public administration.
Narrow view
Some authors, viz., Simon, Luther Gullick etc. Have adopted narrower view of the public administration. To them public administration is mainly concerned with the executive branch of the government. In public administration we have to study organisation, working and method of the government. In fact, today the narrower view is more acceptable then the world are one. This view includes the study of the following aspects of the public administration:
1 Study of Executive in Action. Public administration is that branch of the administration which study the executive in action. By executive you mean the Civil executive branch of the government. Public administration is concerned with all those activities of the executive which are undertaken to fulfill and achieve the desired goals. In fact, the executive responsible for all administration, be in in National, state or local.
2 General Administration. Public administration deals with all problems of general administration. Its scope that embraces administrative policies, fixation of goals, direction, superintendence, and control over the administration.
3 Problem of Organisation. How to organise the performance of different administrative activities - is also a subject-matter of public administration. The subject also includes the study of different organisations of civil services.
4 Problem of Personnel. The problems relating to the recruitment of civil servants, their training, promotions, service conditions, discipline and moral, retirement, employees organisations etc. Also come under the scope of public administration.
5 Problem of Supply of Material. Public administration also deals with the problem regarding purchase of different materials, their storage and supply, working tools and dresses etc.
6 Problem of Finance. It is explict that the above mentioned activities cannot be performed without adequate finance. We, therefore study the questions relating to budget, taxation, legislative control over financial administration and other problems concerning finances.
7 Administrative Responsibility. No study of Public Administration is complete without learning the methods of making administration responsible and accountable. The executive cannot be left irresponsible. How it is accountable to the legislature and Judiciary is also an interesting subject of study in public administration.
To sum up, it can be stated that under the scope of public administration, we study all problems relating to the administration of men and materials
POSDCORB View
P - Planning. Working out in broad outline the things that need to be done, the method to be adopted to accomplish the purpose set for the enterprise.
O - Organisation. The establishment of the formal structure of authority through which the work is subdivided - arranged, defined and coordinated for the defined objective.
S - Staffing. The whole personnel, bringing in and training in the staff, and maintenance of favourable conditions of work.
D - Directing. The continuous task of making decisions and embedding them in specific and general orders and instructions, thus guiding the enterprise.
CO- Coordination. The all important duty of interrelating the various parts of work.
R - Reporting. Keeping those, to whom the executive is responsible, informed about the going on, which this includes keeping the agency itself and its subordinates informed through the records, research and inspection.
B - Budgeting. All that goes with budgeting in the form of Fiscal planning, accounting and control.
The above POSDCORB activities are common to all large scale organisations. Every agency adopt these activities under different. Both Civil and military administration performs these activities at call Central and state levels.
Idealistic view or Welfare view
In the last, there is a welfare view regarding the scope of the public administration. It is also called an idealistic view. The supporters of this view do not differentiate between state and public administration. Today the state is a welfare state, so the public administration also aims at public welfare. Both have the same end, i.e, public welfare, to make people happy by all means. They hold that today public administration is not only the Watchdog of civilized life, but also a great tool of Social justice and social change. This is statement makes it clear that the scope of public administration embraces all activities undertaken for the Welfare of the people.
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