Part one dealt with the his­tor­i­cal ori­gins of the Civ­il Ser­vice as a con­cept, the es­tab­lish­ment of the UK Civ­il Ser­vice, and the ma­jor changes that took place since its for­ma­tion in the 1850s.

To be clear, I use the term “civ­il ser­vice” as the col­lec­tive term for the of­fi­cials em­ployed in gov­ern­ment de­part­ments or agen­cies to con­duct the gov­ern­ment’s busi­ness. These of­fi­cials and the de­part­ments in which they op­er­ate typ­i­cal­ly sur­vive the tran­si­tions be­tween na­tion­al elec­tions. These em­ploy­ees are an­swer­able to the civ­il ser­vice hi­er­ar­chy, not a po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

Elect­ed of­fi­cials are re­spon­si­ble for de­vel­op­ing the pol­i­cy frame­work with­in which the Gov­ern­ment will for­mu­late plans and pro­grammes for im­ple­men­ta­tion. The Cab­i­net is the body that ap­proves the poli­cies, plans and pro­grammes.

Un­der the West­min­ster sys­tem, the Cab­i­net con­sists of the prime min­is­ter, elect­ed of­fi­cials and con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly ap­point­ed min­is­ters. This group is called the ex­ec­u­tive and man­ages day-to-day gov­ern­ment ap­pa­ra­tus through the civ­il ser­vice. Gov­ern­ment is re­spon­si­ble to the leg­is­la­ture and ul­ti­mate­ly to the elec­torate. Hence the term “cab­i­net gov­ern­ment” with­in which min­is­ters have in­di­vid­ual re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their re­spec­tive min­istries and “col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

Col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is the con­ven­tion where­by cab­i­net min­is­ters are ac­count­able for the ac­tions and de­ci­sions of a gov­ern­ment. Cab­i­net de­lib­er­a­tions should be free and frank, but con­fi­den­tial. Once a de­ci­sion is made, all are col­lec­tive­ly re­spon­si­ble de­spite any in­di­vid­ual dis­agree­ment. Since the Cab­i­net is the apex gov­ern­ing in­sti­tu­tion, the mech­a­nism for dis­sem­i­nat­ing these de­ci­sions and any col­lat­er­al in­for­ma­tion is crit­i­cal. Time­ly and ac­cu­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tion is vi­tal to any or­gan­i­sa­tion if it is to achieve its ob­jec­tives.

In Eng­land, this co­or­di­nat­ing role is per­formed by the Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary, who at­tends Cab­i­net meet­ings and may give ad­vice if called up­on but may not par­tic­i­pate in the de­lib­er­a­tion process. The hold­er of this of­fice is the most se­nior civ­il ser­vant and acts as the ad­vis­er to the prime min­is­ter. As Sec­re­tary to the Cab­i­net, this per­son is based in the Cab­i­net Of­fice and is re­spon­si­ble for the day-to-day op­er­a­tional and pro­ce­dur­al mat­ters in ad­di­tion to record­ing Cab­i­net de­ci­sions and com­mu­ni­cat­ing the same to the rel­e­vant min­istries.

The Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary po­si­tion was es­tab­lished in 1916 in Eng­land and amend­ed over time. The per­son hold­ing this po­si­tion is al­so head of the Home Civ­il Ser­vice and is re­spon­si­ble for all the civ­il ser­vants of the var­i­ous de­part­ments with­in the Gov­ern­ment (ex­cept the for­eign of­fice).

This of­fi­cial chairs the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­taries Work­ing Group, the prin­ci­pal gov­ern­ing body of the civ­il ser­vice. This prac­tice varies across the Com­mon­wealth. In In­dia, the Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary is the most se­nior civ­il ser­vant, head of the Civ­il Ser­vices Board, the Cab­i­net Sec­re­tari­at, and the In­di­an Ad­min­is­tra­tive Ser­vices and ranks 11 in the or­der of prece­dence.

By com­par­i­son, in T&T, the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary to the prime min­is­ter is the tit­u­lar head of the civ­il ser­vice and should serve as a link to the oth­er per­ma­nent sec­re­taries. Un­like the Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary in Eng­land, this per­son does not at­tend cab­i­net meet­ings.

While this of­fice is called Head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice, there is no of­fi­cial es­tab­lish­ment po­si­tion by that name and no job de­scrip­tion by that name. While there have been moves to re­view this po­si­tion, no changes have been made. The meet­ings of the per­ma­nent sec­re­taries used to be held reg­u­lar­ly (once a month) and chaired by the head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice, but this prac­tice has fall­en in­to abeyance.

By de­f­i­n­i­tion, pub­lic ser­vice bu­reau­cra­cies and the ser­vices and sys­tems that they op­er­ate are com­plex sys­tems. Man­ag­ing com­plex sys­tems re­quires con­sis­ten­cy, struc­ture and pro­ce­dures.

Stream­lin­ing and in­te­grat­ing these pro­ce­dures to make them more ef­fi­cient is dif­fi­cult. Align­ment and co­or­di­na­tion of these sys­tems are crit­i­cal to suc­cess in any or­gan­i­sa­tion. This is even more im­por­tant in na­tion-build­ing or man­ag­ing a com­plex bu­reau­cra­cy as there are many mov­ing parts. With­out this co­or­di­na­tion, there will be dys­func­tion­al­i­ty, de­lays, du­pli­ca­tion, wastage and in­con­sis­tent de­liv­ery.

To meet or­gan­i­sa­tion­al ob­jec­tives, func­tion­al heads in any or­gan­i­sa­tion must meet to plan, har­monise, plan and mon­i­tor pro­grammes. A de­ci­sion by it­self can achieve noth­ing if the sys­tems and process­es are not cal­i­brat­ed or syn­chro­nised. The com­par­i­son be­tween the op­er­a­tion of the Cab­i­net sec­re­tary in Eng­land and the func­tion­ing of the head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice in the T&T con­text sug­gests a weak­ness.

If there is no cen­tral co­or­di­na­tion, how­ev­er weak, how can we re­al­is­ti­cal­ly ex­pect to ap­proach any com­plex prob­lem and ex­pect a suc­cess­ful re­sult? How can there be an all-gov­ern­ment ap­proach to solv­ing any prob­lem if key func­tion­al of­fi­cers are not co­or­di­nat­ing their ap­proach­es? And by ex­ten­sion, how are per­ma­nent sec­re­taries to be eval­u­at­ed if the peo­ple do­ing the as­sess­ments are clue­less about the re­quire­ments for their ob­jec­tive? In this con­text, per­for­mance re­views be­come noth­ing more than per­son­al­i­ty as­sess­ments.

To sug­gest that the per­for­mance dif­fi­cul­ties of the pub­lic ser­vice are mere­ly the re­sult of hu­man re­sources fail­ings is to over­sim­pli­fy the chal­lenge. The is­sue is more com­pli­cat­ed as there are struc­tur­al and sys­temic chal­lenges that are un­ad­dressed. Nor has there been an ad­e­quate or ro­bust re­view to de­ter­mine the changes and adap­ta­tions that the T&T Civ­il Ser­vice re­quires. It is naïve to sug­gest that dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion or dis­man­tling the ser­vice com­mis­sions will solve the prob­lem overnight. 

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