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Management control and state organizations The introduction of an actual System of management control within administrative departments can only be envisaged as an attempt to coordinate the existing dissimilar Systems of control. These can be accused of being too meticulous and at the same time inefficient, in part ad-hoc, uncertain and incomplete and allowing too much scope for subjective judgment, yet they cannot be condemned as wholly inappropriate. The only valid solution for a government service is to institute a 3-dimensional System of overall control. The first of these dimensions is one which matches internal control, i.e. the head of an organization's control of his organization, against some form of external control. The second is the dimension concerned with aspects of efficiency and pertinence. The third is one which starts with a System to monitor compliance with the organization's objectives and goes on to measure performance against the objectives and standards set by a higher authority — in this case, the State. A government department's overall System of control needs to be designed with these three dimensions in mind.

The prefectures : an administrative function on the french territory Through their decisions, through their économie action and their impact on employment, the central government services control régional development. The function is essentially urban-based and within characteristically stable geographic limits (in contrast to other activities, e.g. commerce, industry, etc. which are mobile by nature) — it is a fundamental factor which has so far been given little consideration. Every town which houses a Préfecture enjoys a privileged position in the hierarchy of central locations and in the construction of urban networks. Although viewed as a function which is evenly distributed, with little regard to local conditions, it is in fact extremely diverse, remedying the disparities of development in some cases and, in others, aggravating them. Regional structures had therefore to be compared with the effects they produce on the local population's behaviour and attitudes. The administrative areas are in fact a fundamental element in regional consciousness and cohésion, even if the existence of natural ties and geographic links have sometimes been overlooked. This means that developpment is as much dependent on the decisions of government as on its local presence — the decentralization of authority needs to be backed up by a well-conceived decentralization of services.

The office of the secretary of state for universities and the implementation of the guideline law Four years after the establishment of the first university facilities under the provisions of the Guideline Law for Higher Education of 14 November 1968, i.e. the University of Grenoble II (decree dated 27 March 1970), the office of Secretary of State for the University was set up. This governmental and administrative service, separate from the Ministry of Education, has to deal with the problems of higher education. Two years of operation have provided answers to three questions : What kind of structures have been set up by the Secretary of State ? What kind of relationship has been established with the universities ? What has been the Secretary of State's role in applying the Guideline Law ? An analysis of the governmental and administrative organization of the Secretary of State's function reveals that, from the outset, the aim of both the first Secretary of State and his successor has been to develop the most effective structure for creating a new relationship with representatives of the universities and institutions of higher education. Although relations between the universities and the Secretary of State were temporarily strained in 1976, a certain number of conflicts have been successfully resolved as a result of discussions between the Secretary of State's Office and the universities within the various consultative assemblies — in particular, the Conference of University Presidents. The manner in which the Guideline Law's provisions are being applied, both by the Secretary of State's Office and by the bodies empowered to supervise their operation, often appears as a restriction of the universities' freedom of action, which this law recognizes as fundamental principle. The only explanation for this is to be sought in the ambiguous and conflicting aims contained in the Guideline Law itself, i.e. on the one hand, the desire to set up a System of mass education with all the supervision and planning of costs and requirements which this implies and, on the other hand, the desire to grant greater responsability and more freedom to the structures involved. Although the basic reason for creating the Office of Secretary of State for Universities would appear to be to iron out such conflicts, the problems facing the universities should be seen not only in terms of a greater or lesser degree of autonomy, but primarily in relation to the task of adapting institutions and Systems originally designed for the education of an elite to the new requirements of mass education.

The european systems of training for public service A comparative analysis of the Systems of training for government employees, the career conditions in government service and the Systems of education highlights the diversity of historical development in Western Europe and the similarity between the efforts to solve problems which are very often identical. A number of common features become apparent, such as the persistence of the privileged status of lawyers, the institutionalization of training for public service, etc. One of the basic features can be considered to be the conditions favouring the organization of a course of study at university level specifically related to government service. This kind of approach has been recently adopted in European countries — witness, for example, the Universities of Konstanz (Western Germany), Tampere (Finland) and Twente (Netherlands). A change is taking place in the requirements for a broad general education and technical knowledge. The training programmes concentrate on the areas of public administration and policy. These involve a twin specialization — based primarily on the social sciences and secondly on the public service career.

In-service training for government officials in West Germany The Federal Academy of Public Administration was set up on 11 June 1969 to provide in-service training for government officiais. It works in close collaboration with the government and its methods are based on active participation and group work. Its activities have developed in four directions participation and group work. Its activities have developed in four directions : initiation of junior officials in the tasks of government ; training for specific duties ; training for higher posts and training for responsibilities in the international sphere. Links have been established with other countries within the European Communities and in particular with France and Great Britain.

Administrative action in Africa and communication with the governed Government action has destroyed or disrupted many of the traditional channels through which the population made known its needs. At the same time, it has replaced these by a sporadic and often repressive form of communication. There is no longer any contact between the citizen and the administrative machinery. It is as if government services in Africa, instead of reflecting the present-day economic and social conditions in their countries, had become to a large degree the extension of those of the dominating powers. Mr. Bugnicourt is of the opinion that it is only by having those concerned at village and district level elect their local government workers and by providing in-service training to officiais instead of formai education in schools where they learn to copy foreign models, that il will be possible to reconstruct an administrative service capable of communicating with those it is designed to serve and thereby answer the present-day needs of the economics and peoples of Africa.