This article throws light upon the top three advantages of the departmental system of organisation. The advantages are: 1. System Simplification of Machinery 2. Efficiency and Economy 3. Proper Work Programme.
Advantage # 1. System Simplification of Machinery:
The integrated or departmental system is commonly found in the countries of the world. In India we have the same system in the national and state governments. This system, from every point of view, is superior to the Independent system. Its first advantage is that the problem of government is simplified thereby.
The administrative organisations of modern states are quite complex. Anything that tends to lessen this complexity is of great advantage. It gives more time to the executive for the consideration of important executive problems and makes possible more intelligent legislation. The system keeps the “span of control” within proper limits by limiting the number of persons to be controlled and directed.
Advantage # 2. Efficiency and Economy:
Secondly, by grouping the services into departments on the basis of the nature of their work, the overlapping of functions, duplication of Organisations, plant and activities may be avoided. Every department very clearly knows its authority, responsibility and area of jurisdiction. Effective supervision and control is possible. There is proper coordination among the different departments.
In organisations where a proper grouping of services is not maintained there is chaos in administration which leads to inefficiency of work and waste of money, material and energy. Take an illustration. The Education Department wants to construct a college building. Similarly the Department of Law and Justice wants to construct a court building.
Now if the activities are not organised departmentally and there is independent system of organisation, then both the departments will have to undertake the construction independently and order the supply of bricks, cement, sand, wood and other requisites. This will be the case of two men doing the same thing which means naturally waste of time, money and energy.
But under departmental system organisation the work of construction for both the departments will be undertaken by the Public Works Department which will get the buildings constructed for both and thus save the wastage of their time and energy.
Thus it is clear that by a proper grouping of the operating services together efficiency, economy and a far more effective utilization of technical plant such as laboratories, libraries and so on can be secured.
Where services are independent each has to maintain its own complete organisation and installation. Each has to have its clerks, purchasing officer, disbursing officer, supply officer, etc. Brought together in departments under a common direction it is sure to work with greater efficiency and economy and yield better results.
Advantage # 3. Proper Work Programme:
Lastly, the grouping system enables the chief executive to draw a proper work programme and prepare and present a budget to the parliament for its consideration. “In its essence this system calls for the formulation and submission to the legislature at each session by the chief executive, of a comprehensive programme of what, in his opinion, should be the work programme of the government for the ensuring fiscal period and the manner in which this programme should be financed. In this programme he must set forth clearly just what provision in his judgement should be made for the maintenance of law and order and the protection of the public from internal disorder or foreign aggression, what for the promotion of public education, what for the prosecution of public works, what for control of industry and commerce, and what for the advancement of general welfare; in a word, precisely what should be done with respect to all of the varied activities engaged in by the modern government.”
In the words of Willoughby, the advantages of the departmental system may be summed up as follows:
“That it correlates the several operating services of the government into one highly integrated and unified piece of administrative mechanism; that it ensures the establishment of an effective system of overhead administration and control; that it makes definite the line of administrative authority and responsibility; that it lays the basis for, if it does not automatically effect, the elimination of duplication in organisation, plant, equipment, personnel, and activities; that it makes possible the effective co-operative relations between services engaged in the same general field of activity that can be obtained in no other way; that it furnishes the means by which overlapping and conflicts of jurisdiction may be avoided or readily adjusted; that it facilitates greatly the standardization of all administrative processes and procedure; that it permits of the centralization of such general business operations as purchasing, the custody and issue of supplies, the recruitment and handling of personnel, the keeping of accounts, the maintenance of libraries, laboratories, blue-print rooms, etc., and finally, that it furnishes the absolutely essential foundation for a properly organized and administered budgetary system.”
The theorists and administrators are in favour of the integrated system. Integration should be the rule and autonomous organisation, the exception.