Re­cent head­lines raised is­sues about gov­ern­ment de­liv­ery or pro­cure­ment of goods and ser­vices. These in­clude the Life­S­port con­tract, the con­struc­tion of the Beetham Wa­ter Re­cy­cling Plant by NGC, or the award of con­tracts to Chi­nese con­struc­tion com­pa­nies Chi­na Har­bour and Chi­na Gezhou­ba Group In­ter­na­tion­al En­gi­neer­ing Co Ltd (CG­GC) for the con­struc­tion of hous­es. These are not new oc­cur­rences, and cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions in the award of con­tracts abound when an elec­tion ap­proach­es since this is a tried and test­ed means of in­flu­enc­ing an elec­tion out­come. 

Cit­i­zens are out­raged by the al­le­ga­tions; de­tails are scarce, and there is doubt about who is re­spon­si­ble. These sit­u­a­tions oc­cur with suf­fi­cient fre­quen­cy that all gov­ern­ment (the civ­il ser­vice and elect­ed of­fi­cials) should en­sure that the sys­tems and pro­ce­dures work prop­er­ly, there­by re­duc­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty for these “mis­takes”. How are Cab­i­net de­ci­sions tak­en? 

Cam­paign man­i­festos are of­ten adopt­ed as of­fi­cial gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy. This cre­ates dif­fi­cul­ties as man­i­festo promis­es are de­lib­er­ate­ly vague. The cyn­i­cal log­ic for im­pre­cise man­i­festo po­si­tions is to avoid blame when in of­fice. The dif­fi­cul­ty is that civ­il ser­vice pro­fes­sion­als must try to con­vert this im­pre­ci­sion in­to a co­her­ent pol­i­cy ap­proach in ad­di­tion to ad­dress­ing ur­gent and im­por­tant de­ci­sions that arise from new and unan­tic­i­pat­ed de­vel­op­ments.

Cab­i­net ad­dress­es the coun­try’s is­sues and chal­lenges through the pol­i­cy frame­work, which guides de­ci­sions that the civ­il ser­vice must then im­ple­ment. In gen­er­al, Cab­i­net meet­ings are held every Thurs­day for a few hours. De­pend­ing on the grav­i­ty of the cir­cum­stances, the Cab­i­net may meet more fre­quent­ly. What comes to the Cab­i­net should on­ly be im­por­tant mat­ters.

De­ci­sions are based on in­for­ma­tion con­tained in a for­mal doc­u­ment called a Cab­i­net note. Notes are pre­sent­ed at Cab­i­net meet­ings for dis­cus­sion, rat­i­fi­ca­tion or re­jec­tion. A Cab­i­net note is the au­thor­i­ta­tive ba­sis for civ­il ser­vice im­ple­men­ta­tion and fol­low-up. Hence the im­por­tance of post-Cab­i­net brief­in­gs that give an in­sight in­to the Cab­i­net’s think­ing. 

There­fore, how Cab­i­net notes are framed and pre­sent­ed is im­por­tant. Notes can on­ly come to Cab­i­net through a min­istry. Notes are pre­pared by tech­ni­cal civ­il ser­vice staff them­selves or with as­sis­tance from state agen­cies and en­ter­prise per­son­nel when there are com­plex tech­ni­cal mat­ters out­side the ex­per­tise of civ­il ser­vice of­fi­cers.

Min­is­ters will be in­volved in these dis­cus­sions de­pend­ing on the im­por­tance of the sub­ject mat­ter and the de­gree of re­sources re­quired. Every note must be au­tho­rised by the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary and the min­is­ter be­fore it reach­es the Cab­i­net for de­lib­er­a­tion and dis­cus­sion. A min­is­ter is re­spon­si­ble for all the notes com­ing from his/her min­istry and must be ful­ly briefed to al­low them to ex­plain the op­tions to cab­i­net col­leagues. 

A note could be for gen­er­al in­for­ma­tion, ad­dress ad­min­is­tra­tive or pol­i­cy-dri­ven mat­ters, or have fi­nan­cial im­pli­ca­tions. The note will in­clude rec­om­men­da­tions on which Cab­i­net will be asked to de­cide. Each de­ci­sion is num­bered and ref­er­enced for pos­ter­i­ty. Min­utes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing are con­firmed be­fore the cur­rent batch of notes is de­lib­er­at­ed. Hence the im­por­tance of the Cab­i­net sec­re­tary as out­lined in parts 1 and 2 of this se­ries.

Some notes are com­plex and may be de­cid­ed sub­ject to dis­cus­sion or eval­u­a­tion with oth­er min­istries. For ex­am­ple, ma­jor con­tract mat­ters must be vet­ted by the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al. If not done be­fore the sub­mis­sion of the note, it could be ap­proved sub­ject to pos­i­tive re­view and as­sess­ment by the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al’s of­fice. Notes that ad­dress mat­ters not cov­ered by or an­tic­i­pat­ed in the cur­rent an­nu­al bud­get re­quire dis­cus­sion and agree­ment with the Min­istry of Fi­nance and are ap­proved sub­ject to those de­lib­er­a­tions.

A Cab­i­net de­ci­sion is on­ly as good as the in­for­ma­tion on which it is based. There­fore, rec­om­men­da­tions must be clear­ly ar­tic­u­lat­ed based on the avail­able ev­i­dence and in­for­ma­tion and free of tech­ni­cal jar­gon. The pre­sump­tion is that this in­for­ma­tion is rig­or­ous­ly test­ed by the tech­ni­cal ex­perts to en­sure the ap­pro­pri­ate rec­om­men­da­tions are in­clud­ed in the note. The dif­fi­cul­ty with all man­age­ment de­ci­sions, Cab­i­net de­ci­sions in­clud­ed, is that all the in­for­ma­tion is nev­er avail­able be­fore­hand and all de­ci­sions are made on the avail­able da­ta.

Where there is dis­agree­ment over a note, the note is ei­ther with­drawn or re­ferred to a sub­com­mit­tee of the Cab­i­net called the Fi­nance and Gen­er­al Pur­pos­es Com­mit­tee (F&GP) for a more de­tailed ex­am­i­na­tion. F&GP meet­ings are chaired by an ex­pe­ri­enced mem­ber of the Cab­i­net who knows the ropes and com­mands the re­spect of his peers. The rel­e­vant min­is­ters and per­ma­nent sec­re­taries at­tend. Ex­perts are in­vit­ed to pro­vide fur­ther clar­i­fi­ca­tion if re­quired. If the knot­ty is­sues are ironed out in F&GP, the note will be re­sub­mit­ted to the next Cab­i­net meet­ing.

The ma­jor projects to mod­ernise and up­grade the Petrotrin re­fin­ery were all ap­proved by Cab­i­net, as were the de­ci­sions to pro­ceed with the in­fa­mous Life­S­port pro­gramme, AL­NG Train 1, and the Chi­na Har­bour and CGCC hous­ing con­tracts. Many oth­er ex­am­ples raise ques­tions about how the rec­om­men­da­tions were de­vel­oped, as well as the de­ci­sion-mak­ing and im­ple­men­ta­tion process­es.

Is there a stan­dard process for prepar­ing Cab­i­net Notes? Are projects rou­tine­ly sub­ject­ed to rig­or­ous project eval­u­a­tion, analy­sis, and re­view be­fore the Cab­i­net sub­mis­sions? Is there an im­ple­men­ta­tion and mon­i­tor­ing frame­work that re­ports to Cab­i­net, and are there stan­dard re­ports show­ing the vari­ances?

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