sto­ries by KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Re­tired Head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Reynold Coop­er agrees with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s sug­ges­tion of re­cruit­ing per­ma­nent sec­re­taries from the pri­vate sec­tor.

On Mon­day, Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment’s works suf­fered set­backs be­cause some min­istries did not have qual­i­fied and suit­able per­ma­nent sec­re­taries. He said that some on­ly got the job be­cause of se­nior­i­ty.

“I agree. In some cas­es, you do not have the best. When I was head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice, I had to jus­ti­fy to the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion why I took some­one low­er in rank on the mer­it list to act as a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the min­istries,” Coop­er said.

It does not ap­ply to all min­istries, as he said the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s of­fice does not need to be a lawyer. In some min­istries, a qual­i­fied per­ma­nent sec­re­tary on­ly needs ad­min­is­tra­tive ex­pe­ri­ence to run the op­er­a­tions.

But in the fi­nance and en­er­gy min­istries, the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary should have a back­ground in these fields.

Coop­er said that in the Fi­nance, For­eign Af­fairs and En­er­gy Min­istries, he en­sured the right per­son got the job in­stead of the most se­nior. He said an em­ploy­ee could be se­nior but does not pos­sess the right com­pe­ten­cy or per­form well.

Coop­er said the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) is re­spon­si­ble for re­cruit­ing a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary. A pub­lic ser­vant has to be a deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary be­fore be­ing con­sid­ered for the top job.

The PSC would as­sess the deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­taries and com­pile a mer­it list. From that list, it choos­es can­di­dates to act as per­ma­nent sec­re­taries for a min­i­mum of two years.

At the end of that stint, the PSC as­sess­es the per­for­mance and de­cides whether the per­son gets the top job. For some­one out­side the pub­lic ser­vice to get the job, he said the PSC would have to change its re­cruit­ment method. He said the leg­is­la­tion is one way, but the Gov­ern­ment would have to con­sult with the Di­rec­tor of Per­son­nel Ad­min­is­tra­tion and PSC.

There­fore, he does not see a chance of Row­ley’s sug­ges­tion bear­ing fruit now.

But an­oth­er is­sue was how the PSC would at­tract the best the pri­vate sec­tor has to of­fer, giv­en the at­trac­tive salaries and ben­e­fits out there. Coop­er said that to the best of his knowl­edge, the salary was less than $50,000 per month.

“The oth­er as­pect of it is the re­mu­ner­a­tion be­cause, in the pri­vate sec­tor, the re­mu­ner­a­tion is much high­er than in the Pub­lic Ser­vice. At one time, years ago when I joined the ser­vice, the re­mu­ner­a­tion was com­pa­ra­ble or even bet­ter than in the pub­lic sec­tor. But over the years, the re­mu­ner­a­tion of a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, even a min­is­ter, be­came way be­low what you can get in the pri­vate sec­tor.”

While Coop­er agrees pri­vate sec­tor ex­perts can make a dif­fer­ence, pub­lic sec­tor ex­pe­ri­ence mat­ters. He said there are laws, poli­cies, reg­u­la­tions and pro­ce­dures in the Pub­lic Ser­vice com­pared to the pri­vate sec­tor or­gan­i­sa­tions. He said com­pa­nies could make uni­lat­er­al de­ci­sions, but there must be a con­sul­ta­tion in the Pub­lic Ser­vice.

On Tues­day, the Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce agreed that min­istries should have the most suit­able peo­ple sit­ting as per­ma­nent sec­re­taries as they are the equiv­a­lent to a com­pa­ny’s chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer. It, how­ev­er, said it does not be­lieve in dis­plac­ing work­ers from their jobs and rec­om­mend­ed the pri­vate sec­tor strat­e­gy of suc­ces­sion plan­ning.

Coop­er said suc­ces­sion plan­ning in the pub­lic sec­tor is dif­fer­ent from a com­pa­ny as the Pub­lic Ser­vice en­com­pass­es all min­istries. A suit­able can­di­date may not nec­es­sar­i­ly work in a min­istry that has a va­can­cy. 

The PSC can trans­fer a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary to var­i­ous min­istries like a gov­ern­ment shuf­fles its Cab­i­net.

Coop­er served as a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary from 2003 and re­tired in 2015. He served as per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice in 2011.

He joined the Pub­lic Ser­vice in 1980, work­ing un­der the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion, Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ments.

Asked if some min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ments af­fect the abil­i­ty of per­ma­nent sec­re­taries to car­ry out their func­tions ef­fec­tive­ly, Coop­er said he learned over the years that if a min­is­ter and per­ma­nent sec­re­tary can­not get along, the per­son who has to move is the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary.