Public services practices are guided by a set of values that help governments maintain good governance practices in serving a dynamic and often very diverse citizenry that often has interests that are not easily reconciled. It is the professional expertise of public servants that often helps reconcile and define the basis for government action in a manner that minimizes conflict and marginalization of individuals, groups and sections of communities in accessing government services.
This the public servants carry as an obligation to impartially serve both the government in its execution of policies and the citizens as the primary source and beneficiary of government policies. In performing its varied duties, including advising political leaders on matters such as policy choices; appointments of top civil servants and general operational commitments of ministries, public servants are expected to observe among others the following values; professional, democratic, ethical and people and/or moral values.
Amongst the known professional values is generally the expectation that public servants will at all times endeavour to put to maximum utility to their competencies and serve both the government and citizens with utmost commitment to excellence. It is also expected that civil servants will maintain levels of efficiency that embodies consideration and respect rationality and objectivity as hallmarks of a public service that respects impartiality and non-partisanship as key values of a modern democratic system that upholds political neutrality of professional public officers. This involves the legal parameters that define prudent, efficient and effective use of national resources all guiding by the zeal to achieve the public good.
Professional values will also speak to the commitment to continually update public service skills and competencies to strategically position the public service to meet emerging challenges. These challenges among others include the need to improve the quality of services, improve citizen accessibility to resources and generally paying attention to processes that define achievements of government’s delivery system. The global commitment to democratic governance require that public servants be at all times mindful and alive to the impact and effect of the advice they render to political leaders.┬á In giving any form of advice to presidents, ministers and councillors, public servants are to be guided by democratic values such as commitment to the rule of law and protecting the public interest against partisan and self-based interests of their political masters. This they do by ensuring that they are indebted to providing honest and impartial advice, as well as, maintaining openness in the information required by political leaders to make key decisions that have a bearing on the enhancement of good governance practices.
The provision of such information should not be tainted by considerations of political leaders’ preferences and interests, whether these are known or merely perceived. Once decisions are made and approved by the political leadership, public servants are expected to lawfully implement these in accordance with sanctioned guidelines and procedures of government. These expectedly, will be designed to uphold democratic values and practices for the good of the nation.
Professional and democratic values are often practiced within certain set ethical standards that define the expected and ways of behaviour amongst the public servants and these rest on ethical values. Ethical values are an embodiment of how public servants conduct themselves in exercising their roles with conscience and respect of the public trust they possess by virtue of holding public offices. It is this public trust that sets ethical standards and patterns of accepted conduct of public servants by both government and citizens. This is a crucial aspect to instilling discipline and cultivating public trust on the public services. The general integrity of a government is often partially defined by the level and degree of trust citizens have on the conduct of the civil service. Unethical practices in the public service almost always are a result of a rotten government system that permeates across public offices in the morality and ethical virtues. The expectation is that actions of public servants should always attract the appreciation and sanctioning by citizens across the diverse social and political setups of a country such as ours.
Lastly, public servants must also be guided by values that protect the humane character of individuals through respecting human dignity and individuals natural rights. In their day to day dealings with the citizenry, other public servants and political masters, public servants are to exhibit and demonstrate levels of respect, fairness and courteousness beyond reproach. As and when they exercise their levels of authority in advising their political masters and when delivering services to citizens, public servants should be alive to the diversity of interest, inclusiveness and remaining open and committed to protecting the public interest. People values often act to re-enforce and give social meaning to both professional and democratic values. They tend to challenge public servants to recognise the human face of rationality and objectivity, which can be at odds with social expectations.
A visible respect, commitment and genuine practice of the above  values in complementarity, creates a public service whose actions and practices resonates well with the expectations of society in upholding desired and morally acceptable practices. It is these kinds of practices that will help retain the merit type of civil service which will eventually create an environment of highly revered professional, ethical and democratic practices in the public service. Practices that will promote integrity, accountability, and an open and trusted decision making mechanism in the public service, including political decisions that are informed by this professionally and ethically based values that aim to promote good governance practices and upholding the public trust and confidence. These are practices that one cherishes to see upheld to the utmost in our public service and the sooner we commit as a nation to these levels of expectation the less we shall hear about issues such as the current debate around the role of the Judicial Service Commission and President as the appointing authority of High Court Judges, among others.
