Fonction publique et efficacité sociale

Résumé En

The Civil Service and Social Efficacy. Between the lack of realism of the liberal position and an apology of the State, there is room for clear analysis and proper control of the modem functions of the State as far as the search for social efficacy is concerned - a complex objective which goes beyond the highly limited one of cost-effectiveness. Neither economie assumptions nor multiple-criteria assessment are good enough for deciding or evaluating socially effective action. The public sector should set an example and provide the lead in the search for efficacy. For the public sector is and ought to remain the seat of scientific and technological progress ; a laboratory for the exercise of greater rationality in the choice, management, and evaluation of public policy ; and a place where a high degree of even-handedness prevails in the State’s relations with the governed. It is important to reaffirm and defend the French approach to the civil service, which is today confronted from the inside by social challenges and political criticism and threatened from the outside by the European dimension.