The Foreign Service Journal, April 2003

are already engaged in the process of shaping and implementing American foreign policy. Twin Systems The report’s section on operational effectiveness in government makes a compelling case for more flexibility in developing personnel management systems and for permitting agencies to set compensation levels related to cur- rent comparisons with the private sec- tor. State Department employees are currently locked within the twin GS and FS pay and performance evalua- tion systems currently mandated by the Office of Personnel Management and the Foreign Service Act. Both systems are vigorously defended by their respective unions, the American Federation of Government Employ- ees and the American Foreign Service Association, and any changes of the kind approved for employees of the Department of Homeland Security would meet with instant opposition from Civil and Foreign Service employees alike. Yet a case can be made for similar changes at State. Foreign Service officers should not continue to cam- paign to keep civil servants out of FS positions. Lengthening grievance and disciplinary proceedings denies management needed flexibility. “One size fits all” should be the rule, not the exception. If the General Schedule system were abolished or, at a minimum, reformed into a “broadband” sys- tem, the FS system would also come under great pressure. That would present a golden opportunity to establish a single State Department- wide service, without the invidious distinctions which now exist between GS and FS. While Civil Service officers would undoubtedly welcome such a change, Foreign Service officers would be more resistant, pointing out that their con- ditions of service are often more arduous and demanding and that the unique requirement for worldwide availability makes a separate person- nel system essential. Nonetheless, the CIA has managed to combine its domestic and overseas functions within one excepted service and the State Department could do the same. In addition, pay in such a new system could and should be linked to market forces as Recommendation 13 suggests, without eroding long- held merit system principles. In summary, the Volcker Commission, while not focusing on the foreign affairs agencies, has pro- vided many recommendations which would enhance the management and bureaucratic effectiveness, as well as morale, of the Department of State. Employees in both the Civil Service and the Foreign Service stand to gain from the proposed reforms. A new mindset, however, is necessary. Foreign Service officers will have to give up the disdainful elitism of the past. They will have to accept that government service in the future will be more permeable and less based on caste and career. Personnel policies will have to be more agile, more mar- ket-based and more flexible. This, as the commission report’s title pro- claims, is the “Urgent Business for America.” Anthony C. E. Quainton was a Foreign Service officer from 1959 to 1997. In addition to ambassadorships in the Central African Republic (1976-1978), Nicaragua (1982-1984), Kuwait (1984- 1987), and Peru (1989-1992), he served as Coordinator for Counter- terrorism (1978-1981), Deputy Ins- pector General (1987-1989), Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security (1992-1995), and as Director General of the Foreign Service (1995-1997). He is currently president of the National Policy Association. A P R I L 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 17 S P E A K I N G O U T