The Importance of Public Sector Reform

As we approach the implementation of the CSME something must be done to make the Public Sector more efficient or at least change the mode and the pace at which this sector operates.

Nearly every Prime Minister had a go at the Civil Service. The most memorable attack on the Civil Service came from former Prime Minister The Right Excellent Errol Walton Barrow who summed up the Civil Service as an "army of occupation".

Barbados is not the only place in the world with this problem. We inherited it from Britain and as we go through the history of Civil Servants all over the world, we see numerous examples of defiance against the political directorate.

The Civil Servants are career oriented while the political directorate is transient. In the life of a civil servant the political directorate could change a minimum of six times. This has nothing to do with Cabinet reshuffles and changes in Prime Ministers even when the same party is in office.

Each change impacts on the Civil Service as different Ministers and Prime Ministers pursue different policies and styles of government. Some may be liberal and some conservative. Some are also more liberal or more conservative that others.

Some politicians believe that the people should come first and others that "big business" is the answer to the country's problems. All this leads to shaping the Civil Servant who is only human and we all know that human beings resist change at least internally.

To be consistently disrupted from one way of operating to another can only lead to frustration. As a result, the Civil Service seems to beat the Civil Servant into submission; to make him malleable and create a culture of doing what he is told. This robotic mode turns them into what some may call spineless and insensitive people, or so it seems.

To the young lady in the NIS who told an elderly lady trying to inquire about her pension which she did not receive for about two months that the old lady would have to wait until she comes back from lunch, one does not have to wonder what would make her respond in such an insensitive manner.

What about the officer who knows that a poor person is depending on his performance the next day and calls in sick? What about a co-worker who would tell that client, "Oh Mr. X is dealing with that and you will have to wait until he comes out"?

One can only contemplate the dynamics of why people who would ordinarily reach out to lend a helping hand would instead take such stances. Is it accountability or is it sheer inefficiency in the system?

Making systems efficient

Let us take an example from the private sector to show how customer demand and the need to be competitive has shaped efficiency in the private sector. Specifically let us examine the role of the cashier since here is where much accountability, transparency and scrutiny is required at the level of the worker.

In the days gone by stores would close an hour for lunch so the cashier only had to lock away takings safely until he returns. When stores started to open during lunch time it meant that when one cashier takes over from another, money had to be counted and machine read. The same thing had to happen when the cashier retuned and then again at the end of the day.

As technology improved and businesses became more affluent, there was more than one machine and so when the cashier went to lunch he just locked his machine and the interim cashier started up with the other one. This saved time and meant less inconvenience to the customer.

As systems developed with technology each cashier had his own till with a float and it became a matter of removing one till and replacing it with another. Even further is that the machine need not be read as one cashier is logged off and the other logged on.

So the machine need only be read at the end of the day showing the transactions of the various cashiers and allowing each till to be balanced separately.

Public Sector Reform

One of the lessons learnt in politics and government is that the largest recurring bill is wages and that politicians are tempted to find ways of reducing it so that resources could be used for other things. Indeed if you had to wipe away the wages bill, staying in the black would not be a balancing act.

There can be no doubt that under the system as it is practiced, many of the Government Departments are understaffed and under-equipped. This is one effect of trying to keep down the wages bill.

If the system changes, then we may find that the Service is not understaffed but simply under utilised. The Civil Service pays large salaries to qualified workers for them, not to work, but to do as they are told.

Inevitably, work will be there that the worker who may be idle at the time or able to perform, dares not touch because he was not told. The problem with this is that the public sees the worker as not wanting to help or simply lazy.

To the public this is unacceptable and in some cases may end up with verbal abuse being heaped upon the worker. The result is that two people who may ordinarily be friends under different circumstances may become bitter enemies without knowing anything about each other.

If we are talking about public sector reform then we must first start by recognizing that Civil Servants are probably the largest educated group of workers in Barbados . We must also recognise that the work culture must change from "do what you are told" to the fact that the "welfare of the public is of supreme importance" (parallel to what drove the private sector into efficiency, "the customer is king").

If we are talking about producing creative and competitive citizens to take us into CSME, then the public sector needs to move from the position of producing excuses as to "why something should not be done" to finding ways of "how it can be done".

The test of public sector reform must be how efficiently and effectively the public sector handles the empowerment of the poorest citizens; to help themselves and live up to the motto of this country "Pride and Industry". Pray tell us Mr. Prime Minister, when will we address this?

Roosevelt O. King
Secretary General - BANGO
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