What is restructuring?

It is a deliberate process of changing the formal relations between the components of the organization, and this means a set of strategies, plans, programs, and policies developed by the senior management to reduce costs and improve its performance efficiency. It is also known as a set of activities and processes that are designed to increase the efficiency of the organization and raise and improve the competitiveness of the organization by reducing the number of employees and restructuring depends on improving and developing the capabilities available to the organization.

What are the reasons for restructuring?

1. Globalization:

• The role of global institutions whose decisions and laws affect the state and its administrative systems.
• Increasing reliability among modern countries, such as addressing regional and international issues.
• Countries acquire the benefits of the revolution in information technology to be used in all governmental and administrative functions locally and internationally.
• The growth of the role of governments as partners and support for the private sector.
• The role of the public administration has shifted from having a luxury to a participating state or a contracting state.

2. Internal reasons:

• Organizational reasons, such as the inflation of government agencies, the overlapping of activities and tasks, and the weakness of organizational relations within the state’s administrative components.
• Stagnation, failure or financial failure of the public organization.
• Low efficiency and effectiveness and low level of quality and quantity of services and products provided.
• Weakness of the legal framework governing public administrative work.
• The deterioration of the organizational environment, the low level of cooperation, coordination and understanding between departments, and the weak provision of data and information necessary for decision-making.
• The spread of administrative and financial corruption in the public administration of the state.
• The prevalence of negative conflict between the components of the government entities.

3. External causes:

• Change in laws, regulations, and government policies, and change in methods of work.
• Economic developments, global competition and the global trend towards privatization.
• Technological developments and development in production systems and services.
• Global pressures, especially the pressures of the supporting or donor countries and the pressures of international organizations and international funds.
• Scientific development in public administration, especially in the field of organizing.
• Local pressures represented in increasing pressure on the public administration by citizens.
• The growth of private sector organizations and civil society organizations leads to a redistribution of roles between the three sectors.
• The political reasons represented in the redistribution of power and the level of democracy in the state.

Goals of restructuring government agencies:

1. Organizational and Administrative Objectives:

• Access to a government agency of an appropriate size and compatible with the activities and tasks it performs and controlling inflation, which drains resources at a rate that is not commensurate with its achievements.
•  Raising the level of efficiency and effectiveness in government agencies.
•  Reaching an appropriate level of decentralization and delegation of powers.
•  Achieving flexibility in organizational structures and speed of response to environmental changes.
•  Raising the level of coordination between government agencies and their sub-components.

2. Political Objectives:

• Excluding sums of expenditures from the budget (reducing spending in the state’s general budget).
• Elimination (exclusion) of undesirable employees.
• Transferring a subject or competence from one authority to another.
• Protecting a program that does not receive sufficient political support.
• Avoiding employees’ dissatisfaction with the organization’s conditions.

3. Economic and Financial Objectives:

• Improving performance (application of efficiency and effectiveness).
• Optimal use of resources).
• Focusing on the roles of the private sector in development.
• Rationalization of government spending.

The process of restructuring:

First: The process of organizational restructuring (the importance and dimensions of organizational restructuring):

1. It is the main determinant of the distribution of resources, power and information among the various organizational units.
2. The significant impact on the capabilities of managers and units in making decisions and defining responsibilities and duties.
3. Determining the capabilities in monitoring and following-up activities and determining the scope of supervision.
4. Continuity of environmental indicators, which leads to a decline in the efficiency of organization and organizational structures, and thus the constant need for restructuring and regulation.
5. The continuation of technological progress, and consequently, the effectiveness and efficiency of organizations on the degree of technology used.
6. Restructuring is a continuous dynamic procedural process by virtue of the openness between organizations and their environment. Therefore, it is necessary to provide information on a continuous basis with the required accuracy and speed.
7. The efficiency of performance is estimated in creating adaptation to the environment, organizational effectiveness, and the ability to face external change.

Where restructuring takes place in governmental agencies?

1. (Organizational Restructuring) Making changes or modifications in organizational

There are several dimensions of organizational structures, which are: (the degree of centralization, the degree of formality, the degree of contractility). There are some indicators by which to identify the existence of problems in organizational structures, namely:

• Delays in decision-making and low quality.
• The organization did not respond in an innovative way to the changes in the external environment.
• The emergence of conflict between organizational units.

Considerations to be taken into account:

• Determining the basic tasks and activities that the government agencies manage, especially in light of the new role of the state.
• Determining the administrative units that will undertake these activities and tasks according to the criteria of specialization of work, then defining the relationships and connections between the sub-components to achieve the best level of coordination between those government agencies (integration).

2. Making changes and modifications in work systems and procedures:

• Review the basic administrative systems and evaluate their feasibility and effectiveness in facilitating the work of the organization.
• Taking measures to train human resources and complete the necessary material and technical requirements in order to put new technologies into practice.
• Add flexibility and mobility to the systems.

3. Making changes and modifications in the prevailing organizational patterns:

This is because some of them are characterized by characteristics that may not be compatible with the modern requirements, such as centralization, and therefore the need for more modern patterns characterized by flexibility, decentralization, speed of adaptation, and response to the surrounding environmental conditions, such as the expansion of self-managing work teams and the spread of the concept of empowerment as an organizational pattern that provides a wider field of freedom authority, as well as reducing administrative levels, expanding the scope of supervision, and shifting towards the electronic government.

Second: Restructuring of human resources: –

The approaches and strategies for restructuring human resources focus on achieving the appropriate size of the public service (human resources) and in achieving the efficiency of those resources as follows:

1. The marketing approach: by expanding the provision of goods and services and what it includes of increasing the volume of activities and tasks.
2. The optional incentive approach: to leave the service by granting incentives to leave the service in the government.
3. Compulsory entrance: to terminate the service for employees who are surplus to the needs of the job or when some administrative units are canceled.
4. The privatization approach: This leads to the transfer of labor from the government sector to the private sector.
5. The reorganization approach: Developing the performance of service introduced to the citizens.
6. Empowerment, rehabilitation and training.

Third: Restructuring the financial systems:

1. Reconsidering the legislation, regulations, instructions and rules related to the financial dimension of the components of the government accounting system.
2. Reconsidering the uses of government budget resources and developing them to comply with the government financial statistics manual issued by the International Monetary Fund for the year 2001.
3. The shift from the philosophy of reducing government spending to rationalizing government spending.
4. Development of public resources either by reconsidering laws and legislations or by raising the efficiency of public resource collection capacity in the budget.
5. Working with the full accrual basis system in measuring the expenditures and revenues of the government sector as an alternative input to the basic monetary system
6. Applying international standards for measurement, disclosure and accounting transparency as the core for preparing and implementing the general budget in an objective manner.
7. Shifting from an inventory measuring the size of the government’s public debt to the philosophy of managing this debt.

Who is in charge of restructuring the public sector?

Entities in charge of designing and implementing restructuring operations (institutional arrangements):

1. Specialized agencies: usually a ministry, a central agency, or several central agencies linked to the prime minister or head of state, and there may be more than one party that manages this process.
2. Specialized units: they are often at the level of organizations and take several names, such as administrative development units, organizational units, or administrative and financial affairs units. Often, these units are linked to the top of the organization’s administrative pyramid to gain adequate support.
3. External consulting centers: they are sought from outside the administrative body to carry out restructuring operations, and specialists from the administrative body may participate in it, and this is used at the state level and at the level of the organization.
4. Specialized committees: These committees are formed to supervise the drawing up of restructuring programs. They are usually at a high level of representation. They used to be a ministerial committee composed of members of the specialists to carry out the restructuring operations. The committees may be from outside the administrative body, from within, or from both. Together with full coordination between the members of the committees.

Stages of restructuring: The scientific methodology for restructuring government agencies:

The first stage: preparation for the formulation of restructuring programs and policies for government agencies, including the following:

• Collection and analysis of data and information:
• Defining and analyzing the roles and objectives of the government agencies.
• Determine the gap between realistic and desired performance.
• Determining the factors and variables affecting individual and institutional performance.
•  Study the capabilities of the private sector
• Studying ways to empower civil society and the private sector.
• Obtaining the appropriate support for the proposed programs and projects.

The second stage: designing and preparing restructuring programs or alternatives:

• Designing a set of programs or alternatives for restructuring operations based on the information obtained in the first stage, taking into account the possibility of implementation.
• Preparing the appropriate arrangements to ensure the effectiveness of the application through participation, preparing for the acceptance of the alternative that will be chosen.
• Identify the main obstacles that may prevent the implementation of programs.
• The necessity of identifying those responsible for the implementation, defining a timetable, the needs required for implementation, and the resources required for that.

The third stage: the stage of implementing the restructuring program through the following procedures:

• Implementation of the alternative according to the plans set in advance.
• Follow up the implementation and provide feedback in order to take corrective measures.
• Focus on the participation of all relevant parties to ensure effective implementation.

The fourth stage: the stage of follow-up, evaluation, and correction of deviations of the restructuring programs and policies for the following:

• Identifying evaluation bodies and motivating them to carry out evaluation processes during implementation and beyond.
• Determining the shortcomings and deviations in implementation by comparing what has been implemented and the plans set.

Main factors for the successful implementation of restructuring policies:

1. A correct and accurate understanding of public policies to ensure their proper translation into reality.
2. Adequacy and provision of resources to achieve the objectives.
3. The compatibility and harmony of all the elements and the participating parties.
4. The presence of political and legal support for the restructuring process.
5. Availability of a supportive social environment for the implementation of the restructuring policy.

Constraints of restructuring in government agencies:

1. Political constraints:

• The preponderance of political goals and desires over administrative goals and desires.
• Linking restructuring programs and policies to certain parties or personalities in developing countries, which weakens the work institution.

2. Economic constraints:

• The economic conditions surrounding the organization.
•  The capabilities of the private sector affect the definition of roles.
• The nature of the state’s economic resources.

3. Social Constraints:

• The level of social and cultural development of the country.
• Collision of some programs with social reality, which results in a change in the volume of employment and the level of prices.
• The nature of social conditions in the country.

4. Administrative constraints:

• Resistance of the bureaucracy to restructuring processes.
• The extent of the efficiency and development of the administrative entities and its organizational culture.
• There is a negative view of restructuring operations because of the changes that may happen to the human element.
• Resisting change because of the inhumane view of restructuring.