As mentioned earlier, the Announcement of the National Executive Council No. 281 dated 29 September 1972, which replaced the Administration Act 1952, did not change the major features of the administrative organization and still maintained the principal structure of the administration as divided into central-provincial-local as well as the existing structures of ministries, bureaus and departments. Administrative procedural reform was not carried out either.

The administrative organization under the Announcement of the National Executive Council No. 281 was therefore neither sufficient nor effective enough to respond to the increasing problems of development that governments encountered. Under the government led by General Prem Tinasulanon, an effort was made to improve the administration system and the bureaucratic structure. A system reform committee, composed of academics and senior government officers in related fields was set up to conduct studies and make recommendations regarding bureaucratic reform. The committee recommended that the structural adjustment of the country's administration be carried out by shaping a clear relationship between the central-provincial-local administration and by giving the opportunity for local people to establish their own local administrative units when ready. The committee also suggested that adjustment of the administration should be explored in detail.

Moreover, many academics who carried out interesting studies and made recommendations on bureaucratic adjustment such as Dr. Kramol Thongtammachat found that there was a problem of structural overlapping between the inter- and intra-governmental organizations (even though King Rama V had made major reforms to eliminate overlapping areas and duties) In this case, reform had to be conducted on a structural level, inter-ministries, intra-ministries and within departments.

Voradesh Chantasorn's study also found that since the administrative reforms of the King Rama V Era in 1892, the bureaucracy had never been restructured again. Changes that took place were merely the expansion of departments and divisions in order to respond to internal demand as well as the country's developmental objectives. The number of departments increased from 45 in 1933 to 102 in 1969 and exceeded 120 by 1991, while the number of divisions was more than 1,300. The establishment of new departments and divisions was aimed at responding to the increase in the existing work rather than dealing with new issues. Therefore, it often resulted in overlapping of work among divisions and departments.

Pravet Vasi pointed out that overcentralization of power was Thailand's critical bureaucratic problem, discouraging people from participating in the development process. Bureaucracy focused on the regulation of work rather than its accomplishment or outcome. It was therefore necessary to restructure the bureaucratic system by reducing government officials' power and to return the decision-making power to the people.

Amara Raksasat and Thawan Vorathebbuddhibongse et al. conducted studies on bureaucratic reform. In terms of organization, they found that the bureaucratic organization created the major problems of inflexibility in the system and the inability to adapt to government missions in the new society. The structure of decision-making power was centralized and ministries in turn lacked administrative unity and failed to mobilize the integrating force of departments to solve the nation's problems.

The major conclusion from the evaluation of the country's development according to the Fifth Economic and Social Development Plan (1982-1986) referred to the bureaucratic administrative problems which did not support development. The Sixth Economic and Social Development Plan (1987-1991) then paid more attention to the improvement of administration and reviewed the government's role in developing the country. After the National Order Preservation Party seized power from General Chatchai Choonhawan's government on February 23, 1991, there was an amendment of the Announcement of the National Executive Council No.281, proposing the enforcement of the Administration Act of 1991. On 5 September 1991 which had 4 major objectives for solving important problems found in the Announcement of the National Executive Council No.281 as follows:

1. To clearly specify the authority of each government agency to avoid overlapping responsibilities.
2. To create unity of ministerial administration and the ability to follow government policies.
3. To complete provisions on the delegation of powers to perform official duties to eliminate obstacles in the performance of official duties.
4. To specify the authority of governors in supervising the performance of local government officials.

These 4 objectives set up many provisions in Administration Act 1991 that differed from the Announcement of the National Executive Council No. 281 with regard to the following issues:

1. The description of department's authority: To solve the problem of overlapping responsibilities of departments both within and between ministries in many fields such as water resources development and extracurricular education as the studies pointed out, there appeared a provision that specified as follows:
   

   "Article 8, the establishment or dissolution of government agencies according to Article 7 shall follow the ..... Act ........................................................................................................... The division of government units within the office of the Secretary of the minister or other government units equivalent to departments has to be legislated as a royal decree which specifies the authority of each government section."

   "Article 74, Royal Decrees on the division of government units within the Office of the Secretary of the minister or other government units equivalent to departments not specified in paragraph 4 of Article 8 shall be amended within 2 years of this Act coming into force."

2. Enhancement of unity in the ministry's administration: Due to the lack of administrative unity which discouraged the ability to mobilize the integrating force of departments to solve the nation's problems, there was an amendment of provisions on ministry's and department's authority to create unity at both the division and the departmental level according to Articles 21, 23 and 32.
   

   "Article 21, ministries shall consist of a minister, a deputy minister and a permanent secretary who shall have authority as follows:
   

   1. Responsible for controlling permanent government officers within the ministry, guiding the direction and plans of action of the ministry, arranging the priority of annual action plans in accordance with ministerial policies and supervising, following up as well as evaluating the work of government units in the ministry..."

   "Article 23, the Office of Permanent Secretary has authority regarding general government duties and other duties which the cabinet does not assign to any other departments in that ministry as well as the responsibility to supervise, and accelerate work within the ministry in accordance with the policies, directions and action plans of the ministry."

   "Article 32 ............................................................................................... Departments have a Director-General responsible for the performance of government duties within the department in accordance with policies, the direction and action plans of ministry. Should there be any other law that specifies the authority of the Director-General, the exercise of power and the conduct of government duties according to that law must take into account the policy of the cabinet and the direction and action plans of the ministry."

   
   

3. Improvement of delegation of power: since the principles of power delegation specified in the Announcement of the National Executive Council No.281 had limitations on some cases of power delegation which needed the cabinet's consent before it was issued a decree and published in the Government Gazette and which was not transferable, there was an amendment of the delegation of power to consider facilitating the public, speeding the process of performing government duties and decentralizing responsibilities according to the position of people who received power according to the provision specified in Articles 38, 39 and 40.

   The major changes could be summed up as follows:

   1. A change in the method of delegating power by specifying that the delegation of power under any circumstance shall be in written form and that a person may delegate power to another person as specified in Article 38 without consent or publication in the Government Gazette.
   2. More positions of those who could delegate power were added by specifying the delegation powers of the director of the division (in division administration) and heads of provincial government units, District Chief Officers and Assistant District Chief Officers who were the heads of minor districts (in provincial administration). Moreover, the number of positions of delegates was also increased.
   3. Permission to transfer delegated powers to other people: In case that any person delegated power to the governor, the governor could in turn delegate that power to an assistant governor or, with consent of the person who delegated the power, to any other person.

   
   

4. Modification of the governor's authority according to Article 57, specifying the authority of governors to control provincial government officers except military officials, judges, public prosecutors, teachers, university government officials and officers in National Finance Inspection Bureau. Governors also had authority to propose provincial development plan's budgets to related ministries and report to the Ministry of Interior.

   Furthermore, there was the establishment of the "Provincial Committee" (Article 53) which acted as the governor's advisors and approved provincial development plans. The committee was comprised of the governor as the head of the committee, one deputy governor, assistant governors, provincial public prosecutor, Chief Provincial Police officer, chiefs of provincial government branches each of whom was the ministry's representative as committees and heads of Provincial Office and head of provincial affairs departments and secretaries.

   If we consider the important changes of Administration Act B.E. 1991 from the Announcement of the National Executive Council No.281, we can conclude that the four major changes according to the Act's objectives were merely modifications of details of the old structural and procedural administration as set up by King Rama V during his administration reform.