What is the scope of public administrative

Friend today we will know what is the scope of public administrative.

There is no unanimous opinion regarding the scope of public administration. There
are two different views explaining the subject matter of public administration. They are
POSDCORB view and the subject matter view. Broadly speaking, Public Administration
embraces the entire area and all the activity of the government. But by established usage
the term has come to signify primarily the organisation, personnel, practices and
procedures essential to the effective performance of the civilian functions entrusted to the
executive branch of government. Public Administration is in fact the executive in action. It
does not include the study of judicial or legislative administrations, although they too
share in the implementation of public policy. We study in it the actual administration or
the actual administrative machinery of the state.

POSDCORB View

Luther Gulick sums up the scope of the subject by the letters of the word

‘POSDCORB’ by which means: Planning, Organisation, Staffing, Direction,

Co-ordinating, Reporting and Budgeting.

Planning means the working out in broad outline the things to be done, the method

to be adopted to accomplish the purpose.

Organisation means the establishment of the formal structure of authority through

which the work is sub- divided, arranged, defined and coordinated.

Staffing means the recruitment and training of the personnel and their condition of work.

Directing means making decisions and issuing orders and instructions.

Co-ordinating means inter- relating the work of various divisions, sections and

other parts of organisation.

Reporting means informing the agency to whom the executive is responsible about

what is going on.

Budgeting means fixed planning, control and accounting.

According to Gullick, the POSDCORB activities are common to all organisations.

They are the common problems of management, which are found in the different agencies

regardless of the peculiar nature of the work they do. There are several thinkers who are of

the opinion that the POSDCORB view of the scope of public administration overlooks the

fact that different agencies are faced with different administrative problems, which are

peculiar to the nature of the services, they render and the functions they perform. This

view takes into consideration only the common techniques of administration and ignores

the study of the ‘subject matter’ with which an agency is concerned.

The Subject Matter View.

The subject matter view is more or less similar to the integral view of the nature of

the public administration. According to this view public administration studies the sum

total of the entire activities of the government; the executive, legislature and judiciary.

Thus the scope of public administration is very wide.

However, the POSDCORB view and subject matter view are not mutually exclusive,

but complement each other. They together constitute the proper scope of the study of

public administration. Thus Lewis Meriam rightly said, “Public administration is an

instrument with two blades like a pair of scissors. One blade may be knowledge of the

fields covered by POSDCORB; the other blade is knowledge of the subject matter in which

these techniques are applied. Both blades must be good to make an effective tool.”

Public Administration as a discipline consists of five branches:

(I). Organisational theory and Behaviour;

(II). Public Personal Administration;

(III). Public Financial Administration;

(IV). Comparative and Development Administration and

(V). Public Policy Analysis

The scope of public administration varies with people’s expectations of what they

should get from government. Throughout the world the demands made by the people

upon governments have continually increased and in time to come they would further

increase.

So friend this is all about the scope of public administrative.