Central personnel administration organisation: US and Japan cases and a model proposal for Turkey

As a result of the economic crisis in the 1970s, the New Public Management (NPM), emerged as a result of the search for public administration, became the main approach shaping the reform movements implemented by developed countries. The signs of the recent changes in the Turkish public personnel system are largely in line with the projections of the NPM approach. As a sub-discipline of public administration, public personnel administration has not been able to stay away from this wave of change. In this context, the methods and practices of the traditional approach have been abandoned, and those taken from the private sector human resources management have been replaced. Nevertheless, the public bodies in charge of the central public personnel administration were neglected and thus the holistic point of view has been removed. On the other hand, the establishment of a faultless public personnel system depends primarily on the involvement of a central authority that is well established at the head of the system. When we look at the country practices in this field, it is understood that different model alternatives are preferred. A central personnel body envisaged by the approach of NPM offers autonomy; focusing on functions such as policy-making, general regulation, guidance and coordination, leaving secondary functions to the relevant public institutions. Being in accordance with this foresight, USA and Japan samples are considered to have the potential to be analyzed in this Thesis as the useful samples for Turkey's practice. The State Personnel Office, founded in 1960 as a reform organization, was restructured under the name of State Personnel Presidency in 1984 due to being unable to give the expected. However even this new organization has not provided enough efficiency; moreover, the role that the Presidency should play in the field has been lost to other public institutions, mainly to the Ministry of Finance. Finally, after making itself a "hidden dysfunctional" government institution, the Presidency was finally closed soon after the new government system. Turkish public personnel administration has a "multi-headed" appearance and in order to fix the existing system, it is required to offer a new central personnel administration organisation model in accordance with the NPM projections.