The Urgent Race: Learning from the Challenges of the Public Service—Toward a Pathway for Reform

Federal workers implement nearly every policy priority. Placing the right people in the right roles is therefore essential to responsible, effective government. As Professor Kettl’s report makes clear, the current civil service system—as it has
developed over time—often does not promote progress. Reform commissions have called for change for decades, yet the system remains, in the author’s words, “trapped in obsolete models”—built for a different era and straining under the weight of 21st-century demands.

As the report documents, personnel management shortfalls sit at the core of many of the federal government’s highest-risk problems, from disaster response and tax administration to veterans’ health care and food safety. When agencies struggle to hire, retain, or manage the people needed to perform their vital missions, talent challenges often lie at the root of the problem.

Professor Kettl provides insights that draw on his multi-decade record of scholarship and hands-on experience with government reform. The report frames the problem in terms that directly connect government service to public outcomes: Who cares, and why? What stands in the way of change? And what should policymakers do?

The report identifies five roadblocks that have stalled reform for many years—disagreement over what accountability means, the loss of mission as the civil service system’s organizing purpose, the erosion of merit by process and compliance, the need to clarify roles of government employees and contractors, and the persistent difficulty of managing performance effectively. Professor Kettl treats each roadblock as a genuine dilemma requiring careful tradeoffs, resisting the temptation to reduce complex problems to simple fixes.

The report takes a practical approach to addressing these seemingly intractable issues. Rather than proposing another sweeping legislative package, Professor Kettl offers a practical agenda that distinguishes between reforms agencies can undertake now and those only Congress can resolve—an approach grounded in the recognition that comprehensive civil service reform has not succeeded since 1978.

This report joins a long line of research projects from the Center, the Niskanen Center, and the Academy examining how government can build the capacity to serve the public well. It is also the first of several reports that the Center will release in the coming months on workforce reform, including a second report from Professor Kettl that looks to the future in greater detail.

We hope this report proves useful to a wide audience: members of Congress and their staffs, agency leaders and human capital officers, and the broader community of scholars and practitioners who share Professor Kettl’s conviction that public systems should serve the nation effectively.