Dear Editor,
Early this past week, SN (Feb 29) published an editorial which ruminated on the ambitious prospect of a Public Service Staff College, pronouncements on which were highlighted after the President’s visit to GuySuCo’s Ogle Head Office compound on Friday 26 February last.
It is uncertain how many public servants could recall a similar initiative, modestly named the Public Service Training Centre which was founded some decades ago, and prayerfully operated just across the road from St Sidwell’s Church in Vlissengen Road near D’Urban Street, Georgetown.
Its ambitious objectives were gradually, if not quickly, diminished by subsequent administrations which simultaneously reduced the Public Service Ministry’s responsibility and authority for managing the operations of the centre, to minuscule proportions. The ministry’s role became increasingly deformed by the ‘malfunctionaries’ of the Presidential Secretariat in particular. In 2016 it remains an emaciated department with just a whimpering ‘centre’ to manage. The prospective revitalisation of a training and development capability within the public service may well take account of the history of the wheel that was originally invented.
At this watershed juncture in the history of the country, and with the public service’s role in particular, being examined by an expansive inquiry, some may wonder about the preemption of its findings in relation to, amongst other things, the re-founding of a staff college for existing and prospective public servants.
These very persons must wonder whether there could be any consistency in the announced approach to negotiate with unions about public service salaries, again ahead of the CoI’s findings, and the decision made about public service training – without any published discussion, with not only the identified target groups, but also existing institutions which might have been delivering programmes of same or similar content to those now being promoted.
It seems not unreasonable to examine the efficacy of those programmes, the related delivery capacities, towards making a judgement regarding the justification for designing and implementing future developmental interventions.
Those who study the concepts, and practise the principles of organisation, would assume that the product now being promoted would have been based on a well-researched green paper, that would have explored fairly comprehensively the ramifications of such a revisionary undertaking, and of its sustainability, through the application of the relevant resources, most critical of which would be the human resources.
When the SN editorial drew reference to existing IT delivery capability at the University of Guyana, one quickly reflected on the scores of other similar providers, of different capabilities of course, and was forced to pursue the question of what performance standards would be required of target groups in the public service, and the total quantum of such categories of workers; and further, what would be the future of the relevant programmes when the absorptive capacity of the various public services had been satisfied – that is of course if a proportion of ‘graduates’ took up careers in a public service where they would not illogically compound the economics costs of the exercise, by seeking larger compensation packages for the upgraded skills and competencies.
(Perhaps it is only at this new entry period would the National Estimates change the current job title of ‘steno-typist’).
But quite apart from such tongue-in-cheek remarks, is the fundamental organisational challenge to be confronted of new or revised job descriptions (and titles) for the profusion of graduates from the respective disciplines, and of course, the related job values to be computed in relation to the same jobs/positions occupied by purported ‘non-graduates’ working alongside.
These are compensation management issues to be contemplated, and which cannot be perfunctorily dismissed, certainly not from the union’s viewpoint.
Which brings one to the not totally irrelevant question of the training and development of the human resources management capacity existing within the public service. Strictly speaking, there is none. What again the National Budget displays are levels of ‘Personnel Officers’ – in the following promotional order:
- Personnel Officer I
- Personnel Officer II
- Senior Personnel Officer
- Chief Personnel Officer
- Principal Personnel Officer
Needless to say the incumbents are basically ‘clerks’ who move up the hierarchy essentially through years of service (which have not been formally appraised for more than a decade), rather than through the achievement of relevant qualifications and training.
There is urgent need therefore for the transformation of this routinised pedestrian activity into the dynamic and proactive function which the human resources management is expected to discharge in comparator organisations anywhere in the world.
As one reflects, a wider dimension of the problem emerges, from the announced future focus on ‘Public Administration’. Not only the literature, but active governance institutions – internationally and even regionally – have been moving (and have moved) to adapt to the more proactive approach to management, in that in their public governance structures there is the established position of the Chief Executive in place of that of Permanent Secretary.
It is an approach that should not be dismissed lightly, particularly when one takes into consideration the plethora of regional and international institutions, procedures and practices with which the national government and its public service cadre of managers are increasingly required to comply. So that the practice of management currently embedded in a bureaucracy of seniority needs to be raised to the level of more dynamic leadership (not the uniformed type) that demands consistent inputs of creativity and imagination. It would appear therefore that a legitimate case can be argued for a wide-ranging discussion regarding the construct, context, inputs, outcomes and the relevant resources that must go into realising the vision for relevant public service training and development institution.
One other passing thought is about whether the lecturers at the new college would fall within the purview of the public service or the Teaching Service Commission. The principals of Cyril Potter College, Queen’s College and the like would be justifiably concerned if the former were better paid.
Yours faithfully,
E B John
