Public Service Reforms Laikipia’s Journey, Outcomes

From laikipia.go.ke

The discourse on improving the public sector performance, whether in its policymaking form (politics), or within the professional public services themselves are often stated as change, reform and stakeholder management.

All words are easy to say, in an MBA class, or journal article, but much harder to accomplish in practice.

For our team at the helm in Laikipia, it has been a tough slog over the last 30 months. At that time, we have exited for non-performance, over 120 staff including directors, CEOs, and an entire County Public Service Board. We weeded out 27 ghosts that is, names that appeared on the payroll but the supposed staff members could not be found physically.

We did so through performance appraisal and staff audits. Naturally, we encountered some resistance, including court action to stop the staff audit, as well as against the redundancies including individual staff challenging separation.

During that time, we have instituted eight (8) criminal cases against staff over lack of integrity and corruption. Of these cases, we have obtained one conviction while the rest are ongoing. As part of the reform, we declared 172 redundancies and sacked 34 staff who absconded duty. We have been taken to court eight times, emerged victorious on three occasions, while the rest are ongoing cases.

As part of the reform, we declared 172 redundancies and sacked 34 staff who absconded duty. We have been taken to court eight times, emerged victorious on three occasions, while the rest are ongoing cases.

Partner

In addition, we have promoted 267 staff and redesignated 30. Over 450 have attended training in everything from IT skills, management at both operational and strategic levels, enterprise development skills, and project management.

The last two are particularly innovative. First, enterprise development. About 204 staff now have targets to directly support our small businesses. These staff have previously been trade officers, agricultural extension workers, cooperative development officers, ward administrators, and so on. We have en- riched their jobs so that they can now see the direct impact of their daily work on job and wealth creation.

In the ongoing development, the officers are learning how to be better business development officers, capable of providing high quality business advisory services to hundreds of small businesses across the county.

Results Matrix

With our partner Dedan Kimathi University of Technology (DeKUT), we created a post-graduate diploma for our officers involved in project management. This is intended to provide them with skills to better manage the hun- dreds of small projects that are in the development budget each financial year. Tailor-made for Laikipia, this unique postgraduate diploma now has 136 students.

The students and their faculty use live, ongoing projects, making learning real-time! We have also introduced the results matrix, to cascade high-level developmental goals as stated in the county integrated development plan (CIDP) and annual development plans to sectional work plans, and to individual work plans. We have put it all online so that staff use the iComs system to fill in timesheets and supervisors and managers can use it to track project progress.

In addition, we introduced spot awards for both individuals and teams, to encourage amazing service delivery. Each one of us, from the governor on, proudly wears name tags because we are proud of our service.

For these measures and many more, we have been called every imaginable name, threatened with further court action, appearances before the Senate, as well as the Public Service Commission. But we would gladly do it all again. Here is why:

In those 30 months, we have graveled more kilometers of roads than has been done in the previous 50 years combined. We have grown our own-source revenue by 76 percent from Sh463M to Sh815M. Every dispensary has a delivery bed and every health center has a maternity facility with three or more beds. We have the highest life expectancy in Kenya at 72 years and the second-lowest under-five mortality. Second only to Nyeri.

Nanyuki, Nyahururu, Rumuruti, Sipili, Kinamba and Wiyumiririe are all under-going rapid improvements in urban infrastructure. They now have paved roads, improved drainage, and lighting.

Underlying the physical improvements is a people-centered urban planning process, where citizens are directly involved in the planning. The civil works are delivered using labor-based methods, creating much-needed employment.

These improvements, coupled with efforts by the Innovation and Enterprise Development program are attracting businesses into these centers.

Our innovation program is currently supporting over 537 small businesses employing 2,658 people. Spread across all fifteen wards, the majority – 76% – of these SMEs are in manufacturing. This provides one of the most exciting possibilities for the future – the prospect of graduating these SMEs to globally competitive manufacturing enterprises!

The data shows registered businesses have generated an additional 12,000 jobs over the last thirty months.

Laikipia products such as the grain drier are being exported to other African countries. Our flower growers are now selling flowers to US markets.