ACC and RCSC come to an understanding on HR autonomy

Tenzing Lamsang/Thimphu

The Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) in the recent past had been at logger heads with the Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC) over the need to have more independence in terms of its Human Resource (HR) options.

In fact the main heart of ACC’s demand for more independence was based on its human resource needs, issues of the staff working in ACC and their future.

Now with a new Commission and ACC Chairperson Kinley Yangzom, who herself was a former RCSC Commissioner the two organizations have managed to reach a middle ground on the issue.

The RCSC has been given three special concessions to the ACC on the issue of HR.

The first is that the ACC will not have to follow the normal rule of a civil servant having to serve for three years before going for Masters. An ACC official can go for masters even in short time after joining service allowing ACC officials to be trained quickly.

The second is that ACC will get freedom in internal utilization of staff. Here again unlike other government organizations the ACC can transfer people around within ACC and assign them new roles and responsibilities more easily. People can be assigned with different types of work or a combination of work etc.

The third concession is that ACC will be allowed to develop its own pool of professionals but the only condition is that the RCSC should be consulted as well. This basically means that the ACC can create new and senior specialized posts like the Executive Specialists (Es) which will call for higher skills and more pay and benefits. This concession will allow ACC to develop various kinds of specialized expertise within the organization be it in investigation, human resources and other core areas. It would not only retain specialized knowledge but also help fulfill the career aspirations of senior ACC officials.

However, the RCSC on its part has made it clear that it will not back down on four key areas of recruitment, administrative action, meritorious promotion and rationalization of positions.

In terms of recruitment ACC will have to follow RCSC systems in terms of announcing a vacancy and getting a proper test done. ACC will have the flexibility to hire contract employees or even specialized ones from the private sector after consulting RCSC.

For administrative action ACC can take many actions but not major ones like termination unilaterally. It will have to consult the RCSC on it.

Meritorious promotion also cannot be given directly by ACC but it will also to come to RCSC with the evidence and then RCSC would look into it.

ACC by itself cannot do its own rationalization but will have to do it with RCSC which carries out its own organization development exercises and rationalizes the need for additional people.

A Memorandum of Understanding is expected to be soon signed between ACC and the RCSC soon.