AN ANALYSIS OF THE ISSUES AND CONTEXT SURROUNDING LOCAL PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION BASED ON THE DECENTRALIZATION PRINCIPLE AND THE MERIT SYSTEM

Abstract

The goal of this research is to provide strategies for managing local staff in line with
the merit system by examining the context and problems associated with local personnel
management from a decentralization perspective. The method used is documentary research,
which is gathering information from documents and examining pertinent topics. This include
scholarly articles from Thailand and outside as well as theoretical papers, concepts, and related
research. To extract information from analysis and conclusions, the data is processed.
According to the research findings, a single local executive exercises personnel
management authority in the framework of local personnel management, which is the outcome
of the decentralization of power to local administrative bodies. This causes a large percentage
of local staff management to be based on patronage. The majority of the time, civil servants
carry out their work to appease local executives. The following are the two main categories of
issues with local personnel management: the lack of employees required to run local
administrative organizations and personnel management that seriously impairs those
organizations' ability to function. The activities of local administrative organizations are
somewhat impacted by problems with personnel management, corruption in the administration,
and elected local leaders, who are chosen every four years. There should be an ongoing merit-
based hiring procedure for both operational and executive public service jobs in order to
guarantee that local personnel management adheres to the decentralization principle. To avoid
local executives having complete control over who gets appointed to executive posts,
recruitment duties should be fairly distributed among the central, regional, and local
administrative entities. To directly supervise and audit local personnel management and help
civil workers who are subjected to unjust treatment in the course of their work, a committee or
agency ought to be constituted. The two-term limit (not to exceed eight years) should be
eliminated from pertinent regulations pertaining to the election of local executives.
Furthermore, it should be mandatory for local leaders to annually encourage civil servants to
receive ongoing training, development, and skill upgrade. In summary, in order to guarantee
that local personnel management complies with the decentralization principle's merit system,
a continuous hiring process for executive and operational roles should be in place, with duties
being fairly distributed among central, regional, and local administrative organizations. In
addition, term limits in pertinent election laws should be removed, a committee or agency
should be established to supervise and audit local personnel management, and local executives
should be mandated to support yearly training, skill development, and knowledge enhancement
for civil servants.