Rewards for Being a Senior Public Servant: Principles and Issues

Governments must decide how much to pay their civil servants as well as what sorts of other rewards they should provide to those employees. These governments are faced with the need to attract high-quality personnel to government while also maintaining some frugality for political as well as fiscal reasons. The amount and manner in which public servants are rewarded varies markedly across countries. Some of these differences are a function of economic factors, but a number of other factors such as political cultures and the centrality of the public service to economic management of the country are also important. Public servants receive their pay and benefits while employed, but in many instances a good deal of their lifetime income is received after they leave government and are employed in the private or the quasi-public sector. Further, in some political systems public sector pensions are generous and consume a significant proportion of the public budget. The question of rewards for being a public servant is both empirical and normative. A number of contending principles can be used to guide decision makers when choosing patterns of regards, but politics is often the dominant factor.