In previous articles, I discussed how the civil service was structured and how the Cabinet interacted with the service to coordinate government business. Last week, we examined the Cabinet note as the basis for all Cabinet decisions. We surmised that a decision was only as good as the research that supported the information and recommendations contained in the note. Therefore, a Cabinet can be badly advised, and this will result in poor decisions.
The computer aphorism “garbage in garbage out” is universal. Poor-quality inputs will give poor-quality outputs. “Collective Responsibility” means that all Cabinet ministers are equally culpable/responsible for the decision if it fails or praiseworthy if it succeeds. Since failure is an orphan, in practice the public looks for a scapegoat, and the minister who piloted the note should accept responsibility and resign.
There are some intractable problems for which there is no correct answer, or where all the options are bad and one must make the least bad choice. The results of some decisions take a long time to gestate, and the outcomes, favourable or unfavourable, only become visible much later when those responsible for the decision are out of office.
In those circumstances, the government of the day, or the relevant minister, becomes the “fall guy” for the results of decisions made long before coming into office. A good example would be Basdeo Panday’s announcement of universal secondary education and the abolition of the Common Entrance Exam (rebranded as SEA) on a public platform.
The civil servants did a great job of ensuring that every student was indeed placed in a secondary school, even if the student did not meet the qualifying standard. We are seeing the effect of that disastrous decision in many ways in the 24 years since its “successful” implementation.
Education is a conveyor belt in which students build on the foundation taught at lower levels. Not every child learns at the same pace or at the same age. In effect, the decision to move everyone (those making 30 per cent or more in the SEA Exam) into a secondary school, whether or not they had mastered the primary curriculum requirements, created severe learning gaps.
Rather than improve the teaching standards and outcomes at the primary level, in effect, the decision lowered the bar for secondary entrance. It was a bad decision, in the short and long term.
The result was that students who had not mastered the primary curriculum were expected to perform well in a secondary curriculum. The result has been a high dropout rate in secondary schools between forms one to five and is compounded by low success rates at CSEC.
In 2019, 18,844 students did the SEA exam. In 2024, five years later, only 14,035 students attempted five subjects or more, including Mathematics and English. Only 45 per cent (6393) achieved five or more subjects, including mathematics and English.
As a result, every education minister will be blamed for a poorly functioning education system until the primary school system is fixed. What happens with the casualties who fall out of the system?
This example, simplistic as it may appear, demonstrates the complex nature of government problem-solving and the difficulty of selecting the “right” or appropriate policy choice versus a choice that would be politically popular. Is it a good policy badly implemented, or a bad policy well implemented?
The problem was not how many children were accessing secondary school education. The problem was whether the primary school system was adequate for the task of preparing a base for further education, be it technical, vocational, or academic.
This is an important example. It gives the context and rationale for politicians to be properly advised before making popular public decisions. What did the professional civil servants advise? What should have been the appropriate policy choice? Were the civil servants overruled, or did they simply follow orders? It is an excellent example of a wrong decision successfully implemented.
The point is that after every cabinet decision, the civil service machinery kicks in to begin the implementation process. The follow-up is the same as in any other organisation: who, what, when, where, and how?
Are there resources to make the decision a reality? Is it a priority in the context of the available resources? These questions often lead to implementation delays. Therefore, it is not unreasonable for members of the public to ask why it takes so long for a project or decision approved by the cabinet to be implemented by the government.
Notwithstanding what is said on the political hustings, neither cabinet ministers nor political parties implement government policy and cabinet decisions. That is the domain of the civil service and permanent secretaries who manage the organisational structure. So why isn’t the public service synonymous with effective, efficient, and timely delivery? Who is responsible for ensuring the delivery, measuring performance, and making sure all is in place to achieve delivery? And how is the performance measured? By a standard system or by personalities?
Success can only be achieved if the organisation is designed to achieve success. What was the civil service designed to achieve?
Mariano Browne is the Chief Executive Officer of the UWI Arthur Lok Jack Global School of Business.