A key ar­gu­ment for an ef­fi­cient pub­lic ser­vice is that an ef­fi­cient ser­vice would pro­vide the ba­sis for a com­pe­tent gov­ern­ment to achieve pos­i­tive re­sults. These pos­i­tive re­sults should trans­late in­to im­proved out­comes that would ben­e­fit vot­ers’ pock­ets and be re­flect­ed in suc­cess­ful com­mu­ni­ties. Vot­ers would then vote for the in­cum­bent par­ty since it per­formed well in of­fice. Us­ing this cri­te­ri­on, every po­lit­i­cal par­ty should have a vest­ed in­ter­est in en­sur­ing that the civ­il ser­vice is up to the task of man­ag­ing the gov­ern­ment ap­pa­ra­tus.

The Cab­i­net’s role is to de­ter­mine and ap­prove the poli­cies to be pur­sued by a gov­ern­ment dur­ing its term in of­fice. How­ev­er, im­ple­men­ta­tion of the pol­i­cy is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the civ­il ser­vice. The in­ter­face be­tween cab­i­net pol­i­cy and the civ­il ser­vice is the line min­is­ter through his re­la­tion­ship with the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary. It should be not­ed that a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary has a mul­ti­func­tion­al role. The first is to su­per­vise the op­er­a­tions of the min­istry and is there­fore the chief ac­count­ing of­fi­cer. But this role al­so re­quires the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary to guide and ad­vise the min­is­ter in ef­fect­ing cab­i­net-ap­proved poli­cies with­in the frame­work of the leg­is­la­tion gov­ern­ing the pub­lic ser­vice (eg, Pub­lic Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions, Au­dit and Ex­che­quer Act, Pen­sions Act, etc). The min­is­ter has no pow­er to hire and fire civ­il ser­vants.

Par­lia­ment pro­vides the over­sight func­tion. This over­sight is ex­er­cised through the rel­e­vant par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tees and the ques­tions posed to min­is­ters. In prac­tice, this role is lim­it­ed, and the Ex­ec­u­tive (the Cab­i­net) has a wide lat­i­tude. If the Gov­ern­ment ap­pa­ra­tus is not achiev­ing the de­sired re­sults, there must be rea­sons for this un­der­achieve­ment. There are a few broad pos­si­bil­i­ties that could ac­count for this un­der­achieve­ment.

First, there could be a peo­ple prob­lem. Ei­ther the skill sets of elect­ed of­fice­hold­ers are un­suit­ed to de­vel­op­ing the pol­i­cy frame­work, or the civ­il ser­vice per­son­nel are un­equal to im­ple­ment­ing the pol­i­cy frame­work. A sec­ond pos­si­bil­i­ty could be that the sup­port­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive sys­tems are not cal­i­brat­ed to ad­dress the chal­lenges cre­at­ed by chang­ing cir­cum­stances. Since noth­ing is ever com­plete­ly wrong, the third pos­si­bil­i­ty is that there could be de­fi­cien­cies in the poli­cies adopt­ed, of the peo­ple ex­e­cut­ing the poli­cies, or the ad­min­is­tra­tive sys­tems need im­prove­ment.

Sev­er­al gov­ern­ments have adopt­ed their cam­paign man­i­festos and plat­form promis­es as gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy. Im­ple­ment­ing the pol­i­cy frame­work doc­u­ment­ed in a po­lit­i­cal man­i­festo has in­her­ent lim­i­ta­tions. Of­ten man­i­festo pledges are not sub­ject to rig­or­ous analy­sis to de­ter­mine their tech­ni­cal, op­er­a­tional or fi­nan­cial fea­si­bil­i­ty be­fore com­ing in­to of­fice. Fur­ther, these poli­cies are set in broad terms to give an ad­min­is­tra­tion wrig­gle room in ac­count­ing for the suc­cess or fail­ure of these poli­cies.

Some poli­cies have a long ges­ta­tion pe­ri­od, and their im­ple­men­ta­tion may re­quire more time than one elec­toral cy­cle. In ad­di­tion, these poli­cies will re­quire co­op­er­a­tion be­tween dif­fer­ent min­istries. This adds com­plex­i­ty to the im­ple­men­ta­tion process. One ex­am­ple was a pro­pos­al to pro­vide pen­sions for peo­ple at­tain­ing the age of 60 years. Oth­er ex­am­ples in­clude the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty and the Prop­er­ty Tax. An­oth­er would be the at­tempt to im­prove the turn­around time for con­struc­tion projects (pub­lic or pri­vate) with­out im­prov­ing the op­er­a­tional ca­pac­i­ty of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion.

Crit­i­cal to the suc­cess of any plan or pro­gramme is the ex­is­tence of clear pri­or­i­ties, agreed time­lines, and the align­ment of ob­jec­tives and a mon­i­tor­ing frame­work.

Part 2 of this se­ries com­pared the Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary’s role and func­tion un­der the West­min­ster sys­tem with the role of the Head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice. It con­clud­ed that the term “Head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice” in the T&T con­text has no of­fi­cial co­or­di­nat­ing role and is not an es­tab­lish­ment po­si­tion. It sug­gest­ed that in the ab­sence of such a co­or­di­nat­ing role, there is the op­por­tu­ni­ty for dys­func­tion­al­i­ty, de­lays, du­pli­ca­tion, wastage and in­con­sis­tent de­liv­ery.

No one com­ment­ing on the ar­ti­cle ei­ther dis­agreed or re­fut­ed this hy­poth­e­sis, so it must have some va­lid­i­ty. I am al­so guid­ed by my dis­cus­sions with the de­ceased Regi­nald Du­mas on this mat­ter. He con­firmed that the head of the pub­lic ser­vice may be able to in­flu­ence oth­er per­ma­nent sec­re­taries but has no for­mal au­thor­i­ty to force an­oth­er of­fi­cer to fol­low his di­rec­tions.

It could be ar­gued that the co­or­di­nat­ing role should be­long to the Prime Min­is­ter, who is in ef­fect re­spon­si­ble for the per­for­mance of his Cab­i­net min­is­ters. Who fol­lows up on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of cab­i­net de­ci­sions? How and when are these cab­i­net de­ci­sions re­viewed and their suc­cess or fail­ure eval­u­at­ed? What da­ta is used to per­form these eval­u­a­tions? How is the per­for­mance of a min­is­ter to be judged, and what are the key met­rics that would en­able this eval­u­a­tion process? How of­ten and when should these eval­u­a­tions take place? Is there an ad­min­is­tra­tive struc­ture to gath­er the da­ta and com­plete a ma­trix to make such de­ter­mi­na­tions? Does this eval­u­a­tion process take place in in­di­vid­ual min­istries? These are dif­fi­cult ques­tions. How is one to analyse a gov­ern­ment’s per­for­mance on spe­cif­ic ob­jec­tives rather than broad gen­er­al­i­sa­tions? Since per­ma­nent sec­re­taries are in ef­fect di­vi­sion­al chief ex­ec­u­tives, the ques­tions ap­ply equal­ly to them. There is no of­fi­cial co­or­di­nat­ing role or mech­a­nism at the civ­il ser­vice lev­el. Ac­cord­ing­ly, there will be huge vari­a­tions in per­for­mance as the ob­jec­tive cir­cum­stances will vary be­tween min­istries.

Should there not be a for­mal es­tab­lished po­si­tion or of­fice whose in­cum­bent per­forms, in­ter alia, this crit­i­cal co­or­di­nat­ing func­tion?

Mar­i­ano Browne is the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the UWI Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness.