Trust in Public Administration and Management

Trust is in most cases defined by experts as a social force. Public trust which could also be referred to as public confidence is a significant concept in public administrative process. In understanding the position of public trust in the gov-ernance process, a lot of things should be taken into consideration. Like who should trust who? Why must there be trust? In what situation is it more suitable to trust? What factors make the people to trust state actors? Is the relationship of trust reciprocal between the public and public administrative processes (repre-sented by state actors, modes and structures of public policy formulation and im-plementation)?

However, trust in public administration is relativistic in nature, because it could be viewed and analysed from different perspectives. Trust in public organisation is an issue of different faces (Salminen & Ikola Norrbacka 2009: 75), but central to all is that trust in public administration is most importantly tied to performance.

In public administration, public servants act within a set framework and the pub-lic interest is important element in this framework (Lähdesmäki 2010: 65). Pubpub-lic

administration tilts towards the legalistic and compliance mode to meet desired expectations (Geuras & Garofalo 2005: 7).

If there is only one theme that characterised the public sector in the 1990s, it is the demand for performance (Radin 2000). It is also, because of this reason that performance is the most regularly studied concept in the field of public admin-istration and management (Cohen & Vigoda Gabot 2004: 66), where perfor-mance in most instances is substituted for productivity, since the “real world” of the public administrator is a world filled with deadlines, budgets, and clientele to serve (Geuras & Garofalo 2005: xiv). The poor nature of performance by public institutions and agents are what experts have categorized as the development problems in most developing countries (Bashir 2010b). Poor ethical governance will eventually lead to poor performance (Fawcett & Wardman 2008: 130).

Performance is the ability to do what the people expect and it guarantees trust both at the short and long run. Performance is understanding responsibility in public administration and this responsibility is in both subjective and objective forms, because of its accountable and obligatory dimensions (Mosher 1968: 7 8).

Performance then becomes ethical obligations in pure administrative language.

These obligations include responsibility for setting and maintaining horizontal relationship of authority with one’s fellow citizens (Follett 1940: 101 102). This view is sometimes referred to as ethical public administration which is about re-sponsibility, choices, consequences, and it is also about taken ownership of one’s decisions, actions, and relationship (Geuras & Garofalo 2005: 120 121). This position on the part of public servants calls for engaging in activities, which amount to an on-going renewal and reaffirmation of the social contract (Cooper 1984: 344). According to Gardner, in his argument in Brown (1983: 342):

“Our society cannot achieve greatness unless individuals at many levels of ability accept the need for high standards of performance and strive to achieve those standards within the limits possible….We must foster a conception of excellence which may be applied to every degree of ability and to socially acceptable activity.”

Public agencies therefore, must migrate to the culture of performance and a dedi-cation to competence as an ethical standard if the notion of elevating the public good carries any weight among serious public agents; because to manage perfor-mance is the surest way of attaining the desired result (Geuras & Garofalo 2005:

114). Above all, achieving performance must not be by mere talking, but action (Lewis 1991). The ethics of care concept is one concept that goes with perfor-mance, because it is attendance to the expectations of people for whom, we are responsible and being responsible for rooting out corruption and improving the quality of governance (Lehtonen 2010: 32 33). Achieving performance in the

public sector requires the applicability of ethical governance; because ethical governance among many things can set a standard for measuring performance.

Thus, a wider concept of institution building has now been adopted by most do-nors and organizations especially those that focus on anti-corruption crusade.

They now work as facilitators with clients to establish standards and ground rules for public service leaders. Integrity has become a crucial requirement for adminis-trators when filling civil service positions and for voters when comparing candi-dates for elected or political office. Integrity is now sponsored through any avail-able means, including the introduction of leadership codes, codes of conduct, dec-larations and monitoring of personal assets, and transparency in political admin-istration. The awakening that institutions are connected and that reforms must often be guided has also brought forth widening of the meaning of "institution"

and of the list of institutions popularly included in anti-corruption strategies. (UN 2004a: 83.)

Accountability to legislative bodies, taxpayers and program stakeholders is a leading goal of public sector performance; it is based on this fact that accountabil-ity is defined as a relationship in which an individual of an agency is held to an-swer for performance that involves some delegation of authority to act (Romzek

& Dubnick 1998: 6, qtd. in Heinrich 2003: 25). It must be acknowledged that the demands for productivity and performance reforms constitute good governance in public sectors activity from the citizens’ perspective, because the legal basis of good governance is built on laws and regulation to serve the public good (Salminen & Ikola Norrbacka 2010).

Complete ethical standards go with public trust. The OECD report (2000) speci-fies that public service performance means public trust. Citizens acknowledge they will get impartial service, and when the service level guarantees impartial and trustworthy services, trust in public administration is then positively affected.

Trust is an important factor when talking about the successes and losses of organ-isations. (Salminen & Ikola Norrbacka 2009: 79.) The purpose of most Adminis-trative Procedures Act in Finland is to promote good administration and the quali-ty and productiviquali-ty of administrative services in state and in municipal authorities, including state enterprises, associations under public law and private parties per-forming public administrative tasks (Salminen & Ikola Norrbacka 2010). The performance doctrine also states that balanced development of the society re-quires however, that the gap between expectations and reality is not growing in-tolerably to different societal groups. Performance as the articulator of justice has a responsibility to balance inequality (Salminen, Ikola-Norrbacka & Mäntysalo

2009: 12). The universal value of justice is balanced when it yield to the popular will (Cooper D. 2004: 65).

The paternalistic model of professional practice removes so much control from the client, while the agency model of professional practice removes so much con-trol from the professional. For these reasons, a balanced model becomes an im-perative, because it focuses on establishing a balanced relationship that respects the autonomy and responsibilities of both parties. The professional and the client ought to work together as partners to solve the client problems within the frame-work set by profession’s code of ethics. (Cooper D. 2004: 69.) Performance needs strategic planning and review to measure outcomes. Agencies need specific per-formance indicators, in order to assess their activities and make more favourable decisions. Planning, benchmarking, and evaluation are among the essential tools of public managers in this national emphasis on increasing governmental produc-tivity/performance, and accountability (Geuras & Garofalo 2005: 4). Performance is achieved when professional associations are structured to encourage behaviour that is morally required by profession’s code of ethics, because it prescribes how professional practice ought to be conducted (Cooper D. 2004: 58).