Revealed: PSC faced with age crisis in civil service

What's worse? President William Ruto's administration has imposed a hiring freeze over the medium term (usually three financial years) to cut government spending.

Fresh details from the PSC show that while the civil service currently has a normal distribution in its workforce age profile, trouble is looming.

More than a quarter of the workforce in the civil service is made up of people aged over 50 years.

“There is a large percentage, of about 26 per cent, of those aged over 50 years, as compared to employees aged 30 years and below,  which are a paltry 13.2 per cent,” PSC says in a call to action.

Records by PSC show that already, 426 civil servants had hit 60 years, at least 10,563 were in the age bracket of 51 to 55 years while another 10,837 were in the age bracket of 46 to 50 years.

“The public service therefore needs to undertake deliberate interventions to develop the younger public servants to take up responsibilities as they are released by the older generation,” the commission said.

PSC data shows that while 14 of the nearly retiring staff are at the policy level, none of the young people hold jobs at that level.

The numbers of those at senior management and middle management are also skewed in favour of those aged 51 years and above.

PSC, in a human resource master plan for the public service covering the next 10 years, warns that the divide may not be easy to close, citing challenges of retaining younger employees.

“There is a moderate challenge in retention of employees under Generation Z who usually join the service at the entry-level,” the Antony Muchiri-led PSC said.

The commission says the mass exits could be attributed to low remuneration and unfavourable conditions of service.

“This is especially given global embracement of flexi-work arrangements and technology and lack of clarity in career advancement,” PSC said.

While this persists, it has since emerged that the government agencies hiring youthful workers never get to find out why they are leaving.

“Exit interviews are not usually conducted to determine the actual reasons for exit (other than natural attrition) to inform policy on retention,” PSC reveals.

Official data (as of December 2023) further shows that more than 30,000 officers were set to exit the public service, overall, in the next three years.

Out of these, about 4,550 officers were above 60 years, hence were serving beyond the set retirement age. The majority were at public universities.

State corporations had 1,081, while ministries, state departments and agencies had 775 serving beyond retirement age.

At least 23 were at constitutional commissions and 91 others at technical and vocational training institutes.

“Further, replacement of exiting staff usually takes unduly long periods of time due to the lengthy recruitment process.”

In what could complicate matters for PSC, the National Treasury recently emphasised the hiring freeze (which has been in force for a while).

MDAs and other state agencies hiring will have to seek the approval of the Treasury (availability of funds), even when filling vacancies.

During this year’s budget speech, CS Njuguna Ndung’u said there would be no employment of civil servants next year to control runaway recurrent expenditures.

"There will be suspension of all new recruitment in the public sector for the next one year,” the CS said.

The government wage bill stood at more than Sh1.1 trillion by June 30, 2023, and is set to grow further.

Budgetary oversight agencies, during SRC’s recent wage bill conference, backed calls for a hiring freeze, further complicating the age crisis in the civil service.

As a result, some MDAs have sought to retain senior staffers.

Auditor General Nancy Gathungu has in many instances flagged staff working beyond the legal retirement age.

The Public Service Commission Human Resource Policies and Procedures Manual, 2016, requires all officers to retire from the service upon attaining the mandatory retirement age of 60 years.

It sets the age of 65 years for persons with disabilities, but with a rider that this may also be “as may be prescribed by the government from time to time.”

The Public Service Commission was among those flagged after it emerged that it had on its payroll five employees who had attained mandatory retirement age.

“They were not people with disability,” Gathungu said, adding that there was no documentary evidence to support management’s take that the employees were appointed due to their rare knowledge, skills and competencies.

At the State Department of Gender, analysis of staff biodata revealed that 96 employees or 46 per cent of total employees, were above the age of 50 years.

“This indicates poor succession planning as services offered by staff in critical areas will be affected as the most experienced staff exit the service,” the auditor said.

At the National Cereals and Produce Board, an audit established that 24 of 32 staff members in senior management were aged above 50 years.

Auditors found that the board did not have a succession plan since most of the senior management staff will retire in the next 10 years.

“Due to lack of a succession plan, retirees are retained on a contract basis to fill essential vacant positions,” the report reads.

At the Maritime department, the appointment of an acting chief executive officer of Bandari Maritime Academy has been flagged.

The officer was appointed though he had attained the mandatory retirement age of 60 years and was still in office when auditors visited the offices in November last year.

At the Environment department, four employees who had attained the mandatory retirement age of 60 years were still on the payroll.

“The employees were serving under local agreement terms of contract for periods ranging from one to three years,” Gathungu reported.

On February 16, 2023, the Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Public Service, Gender and Affirmative Action suspended and revoked all existing extension services and requests.

At the Technical University of Kenya, the management retained 24 members of non-academic staff who had attained the mandatory retirement age of 60 and two members of academic staff who had attained the mandatory retirement age of 70 years.

Last October, Public Service CS Moses Kuria said the government was keen on replacing the retiring workers with the youth—to improve services.

He said the recruitment would be carried out digitally and under the ‘Jobo Bila Connection’ programme to give all applicants an equal opportunity.

A report by the African Union and UNDP about a year ago, highlighted that public sector staffing and capacity building still remained a challenge in Kenya.

The report titled Making the AfCFTA Work for Women and Youth showed that Kenya and other African countries with elderly civil servants, may be exposed to increased costs for duties that could otherwise be done by younger skilled employees.

“A country like Kenya has an aged civil service, many of whom will be retiring in the next few years, yet little has been done in succession planning,” the UN report read in part.