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After reading this article you will learn about:- 1. Definition of Administrative Procedure 2. Types 3. Criteria.
Definition of Administrative Procedure:
Professor Waldo defines procedure as “the prescribed or customary way of working together with the conduct of an organization’s business.”
Evidently procedure comprises three elements, namely:
(i) Repetition of transactions in a prescribed or customary fashion;
(ii) Coordination of various efforts into a large whole;
(iii) Keeping up organisation in operation and attaining its goal.
The rules of procedure may be construed as a body of standing orders of general application to given sets of cases.
According to Waldo, “it is procedure that governs the routine internal and external relationships between one individual and another; between one organizational unit and another; between one process and another, between one skill or technique and another; between the organisation and the public and between all combinations and permutations of these.”
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The day-to-day work of the government is done through the procedure.
In Public Administration, procedure plays more vital role than in any other large-scale organisation as it is responsible to the people. For all their activities, public personnel are accountable to some superior and ultimately to the legislature and the public. As such, all public acts have to be recorded and kept in files.
Procedure as Institutional Habit:
Viewed internally, procedures constitute habits or modes of conduct of the organizational units. They “are the repetitive acts that in large measure manifest and shape the personality and character of an organisation.”
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Further, they routinize and ensure stability to the daily working of the organizational units. They make a substantial contribution to the achievement of immediate goals and “release energies to deal with what is novel or higher.”
Procedure as Physiology of Organisation:
Procedure may also be described as physiology of organisation. It brings the structures to life. Procedure unites the highly developed professional or scientific skills with an organisation and its purposes. “It does not, however, substantially affect or reach into the skills or techniques of professional and scientific personnel.”
Certain operations, viz., sorting, packaging and loading are fully subjected to well-developed techniques of procedure analysis and improvement.
Procedures as Laws of Activity:
An organization’s procedure may also be construed “as a body of laws applying primarily to its members but also in varying degrees and manner—depending upon the organization’s authority and activities—to persons outside.” If the procedures are prescribed by constitution, statute and court decision they can be described as laws in the full legal sense.
As such they are enforceable. Many of the procedures are only modes of conduct devised by the organisation with a view to regulate the working relations of its members. These modes of conduct must conform with law. They cannot be categorized as law in the technical sense.
The procedures may be written or unwritten. If large-scale organisations having specialized organisational units, for analyzing and changing procedure, provide written procedural instructions, small organisations depend upon unwritten customs. It has been rightly contended by Waldo that standard operating procedure may not be necessarily set forth in a manual.
Types of Administrative Procedures:
Administrative procedures may be classified as written or unwritten, issued centrally or by field offices, institutional procedures and working procedures.
(a) Institutional Procedures:
Institutional procedures pertain to staff, housekeeping service or auxiliary function. Such procedures are prescribed by statute though they vary considerably from agency to agency.
The institutional procedures cover mail and communications, meetings and conferences, travel, internal reporting, preparation, issuance and distribution of documents, space, library service, files and records, clerical services, procurement, clearance and review, budgetary and fiscal administration and all aspects of personnel administration.
(b) Working Procedures:
Procedures meant for accomplishing an agency’s particular objectives are of two types, viz., those publicly issued and those not publicly issued. Publicly issued procedures constitute a body of ground rules for the agency and any individual affected by the statute.
They specify the agency’s sense of the procedural requirements of the law and also its conception of what is customary, fair and expedient where the law is not explicit.
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Ideally, they tell all persons affected “what, where, when and how” of things. For example, how to lodge a report with the police, get a student admitted to the school, make an appeal against tax-assessment, apply for a post under the government, file a suit in a law-court, submit a tender for a contract, apply for a license or other concession, and so forth.
Criteria for Good Administrative Procedure:
What is a good procedure? No simple answer is possible to this question. “Good procedure is that which is well adapted to achieve the desired ends,” what are the ‘desired ends’ and whether the procedure is well adapted to achieving them, pose big problems.
The ends sought by administration are complex and intangible. Hence, it is often difficult to determine which of them is to be served by a procedure and in what proportions.
However, generally speaking, procedure should be simple ensuring prompt decision. It should not be too rigid as to leave no discretion in exceptional cases. Its language should be unambiguous and clear easily understandable by a common citizen.
It should try to cut short the channels so far as possible. It should help rather than hinder the progress of the work. It may not be even forgotten that procedure is a means to an end and not an end in itself. Too much insistence on the letter of the procedural rule leads to red-tapism and many other concomitant evils.