民主國家中，政府及其公務人員所需負責的最高層次就是對公民負責。隨著民主政治的演進，公民對政府與公務人員責任的要求日益高漲，為了確保政府能真正負起對公民之「公民承諾」與「公共信任」之責任，公共服務能確實維護「公共利益」，針對公務人員設計一套有效的「課責」機制，是民主行政不可或缺的策略性管理機制。而如何落實對公務人員的「課責」，從人事管理的作為來看，即在於淘汰制度的建立。在「新公共服務」學說中，「課責」是被廣範界定為包含一系列的專業責任、法律責任、政治責任和民主責任。如果官僚不能體現責任性，那麼必將喪失其公共性及合法性的身分。故淘汰制度應包括公務人員在面對公共回應性、行政作為之倫理性等各項公共期待與組織對績效及行為態度之要求。基於對上述的體悟，本研究將從規範性的角度，討論新公共服務下公務人員的角色內涵與責任，並據以建立落實課責的淘汰機制。同時本研究也認為，對於現狀的理解將有助於未來的發展，因此，本文也將檢討目前相關的法令規章及行政作為，以瞭解考績淘汰制度的內容；並輔以政策變遷的角度，比較民進黨（2000~2008）與目前國民黨政府對此一議題的主張與作為。本文最終目的在對建立符合目前時代所需的公務人員考績淘汰制度，提出政策建議。

Using the theory of the 5th principle: “Recognize that Accountability Isn’t Simple” in Denhardt & Denhardt (2007)’s book “New Public Service”, we think the contemporary civil service should fulfill the concepts like “Serve Citizens, Not Customers” and “Seek the Public Interest”. To reach these goals, the civil service have to Recognize that Accountability. This is not only to concern about the market competition but also the laws, constitution, social values, political norms, professional standard and citizen’s benefits (Denhardt, 2007:42-43). In democratic countries, the government and its employee should take the responsibility of three orders: 1. Responsible to the commander of the administrative organization; 2. Responsible to the elected officer/chief; 3. Responsible to the citizens (Kearns, 1996:9). Among which, the most important thing is responsible to the citizens (Little, 1996:345). By the development of democratic politics, the responsibility of government and its employee required by citizens is increasing daily. To assure that the government can fulfill the “civil commitment” and “civil trust” and public service can maintain the public benefits, the “accountability” for civil service is the effective strategic management mechanism which is needed in democratic administration. From the standpoint of personnel management, to carry out the accountability is to
set up the elimination system. In the theory of New Public Service, accountability is
defined as broadly as professional responsibility, lawful responsibility, political
responsibility and democratic responsibility. The final goal of accountability and
responsibility mechanism is to assure that government will response to the preference
and need of civil (Dunn and Legge 2000:75). The public administrative officers are the
most important part of government responsibility in political system. If officers can not
fulfill the responsibility, they will lose their public and legal identities. Thus, the
elimination system should include the government employee’s response to the publics,
their administrative behavior and ethics and the requirements to reach the public
expectation, the attitude of performance in organization. The evaluation of current laws
and administrative conducts can be helpful to understand the contents of elimination
system. In addition, to compare the advocates and conducts between DPP (2000 ~ 2008)
and KMT (currently) from the standpoint of policy change is also a main topic in this
study.
This study is based on the theory of New Public Service to explore the role of civil
service and the establishment of accountability. We also evaluate the development of
civil service performance law and hope to set up more complete lawful norms in
accountability. In research methods, we adopt the literature analysis and comparative
research methods to put in order of the development of this policy change and to provide
suggestions of setting up a contemporary elimination system for civil service.