Phurpa Lhamo 

Iron Female Ox year-RCSC: For Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC), the Female Iron Ox year will be remembered for its bold reforms, which came after the Royal Kasho.

In 2021, many of the RCSC’s announcements and decisions shocked and left most civil servants disgruntled.

It began with the removal of around 500 positions in civil service as part of the 12th five-year plan staffing and organisation. While many affected raised their disappointment over the decision, RCSC stuck to its decision.

As part of the civil service reforms, training of over 100 civil servants at the Center of Bhutan Studies (CBS) in research also began last year.

This is to improve research capabilities and further help in better decision-making when the civil servants return to their agencies.

RCSC is also engaged in various programmes to ensure leadership training and workshops.

The RCSC introduced the leadership statement (LS), which include strategies and tasks that are beyond the department or agency’s annual performance agreement target. With LS came the Support Functions Assessment (SuFA) to enable senior management in the agencies to assess areas were they are performing well and learn from it.

This Ox year, RCSC redeployed over 180 civil servants. This year’s redeployment was stringent.

As the year advanced, the public realised these decisions were only a build up towards the assessment of the executives. In the first ever leadership assessment of the executives, of 62 executives in the levels of secretaries, directors-general, and dzongdags, 50 percent failed.

More than the failure rate, it was RCSC’s decision to manage out those who failed which really shocked the nation. The decision meant demotion, change of career path, and moving the civil servants out of the current position.

RCSC’s leadership assessment results came a month after His Majesty The King’s speech during the national day in which ‘accountability’ was a key theme.

When the RCSC shelled out the decision, many welcomed and felt that the decision was much awaited.

After about a month, RCSC assessed the directors and shared that those who failed would suffer similar fate. RCSC also iterated that those who perform well would be rewarded.

RCSC will continue to make headlines and surprise the readers in the Male Iron Tiger year.