Mar­i­ano Browne

A fun­da­men­tal premise of democ­ra­cy is that elect­ing a dif­fer­ent po­lit­i­cal par­ty will bring about the changes re­quired to move a coun­try for­ward and cor­rect what­ev­er ills or mis­takes the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion made. This al­lows an ad­min­is­tra­tion to stay re­spon­sive to pub­lic needs and de­liv­er re­sults. It al­so al­lows course cor­rec­tions, so that the new ad­min­is­tra­tions can im­ple­ment fresh strate­gies to ad­dress eco­nom­ic or so­cial prob­lems.

This premise is based on three as­sump­tions. First, the new ad­min­is­tra­tion has a co­gent plan which is ei­ther dif­fer­ent from its pre­de­ces­sor’s or will be bet­ter im­ple­ment­ed. Sec­ond, the in­com­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion has the nec­es­sary man­age­ment skills or can re­cruit them to im­ple­ment the nec­es­sary changes. Third, the gov­ern­ment’s bu­reau­crat­ic or­gan­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture is suf­fi­cient­ly ro­bust to im­ple­ment those plans suc­cess­ful­ly. Fourth, if ex­ist­ing sys­tems and process­es do fa­cil­i­tate de­liv­ery, the nec­es­sary changes will be made.

Many “mod­ern” strate­gic man­age­ment con­cepts have been bor­rowed from the mil­i­tary to make or­gan­i­sa­tions more ef­fi­cient and pur­pose-dri­ven. How­ev­er, while every­one will agree that or­gan­i­sa­tions need to plan, sea­soned mil­i­tary cam­paign­ers will ac­knowl­edge that few plans sur­vive first con­tact with the en­e­my. The ob­jec­tives may re­main the same, but cir­cum­stances change, and the en­e­mies’ re­ac­tions may not be as an­tic­i­pat­ed. There­fore, ad­just­ments must be made. The un­der­ly­ing prin­ci­ple is that adapt­abil­i­ty and readi­ness are far more crit­i­cal than strict­ly stick­ing to the script.

One cur­rent ex­am­ple of an ini­tia­tive to make gov­ern­ment more ef­fi­cient was US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s De­part­ment of Gov­ern­ment Ef­fi­cien­cy (DOGE). This ini­tia­tive was de­signed to fun­da­men­tal­ly re­struc­ture the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment by dis­man­tling bu­reau­cra­cy, slash­ing fed­er­al reg­u­la­tions, elim­i­nat­ing unau­tho­rised pro­grammes, and cut­ting tril­lions in “waste­ful spend­ing”. How­ev­er, this ini­tia­tive fell apart long be­fore its sched­uled ter­mi­na­tion date and had very lim­it­ed re­sults and pri­ori­tised cost-cut­ting rather than sys­temic changes.

Pub­lic con­sen­sus and fi­nan­cial ex­perts wide­ly con­sid­er the unit a fail­ure, ar­gu­ing that bil­lions of sav­ings were based on ex­ag­ger­at­ed ac­count­ing tricks with­out re­duc­ing ac­tu­al spend­ing. The New York Times, “How did DOGE dis­rupt so much while sav­ing so lit­tle “and the Brook­ings In­sti­tu­tion Met­rics (https://www.brook­ings.edu/ar­ti­cles/how-will-we-know-if-doge-is-suc­ceed­ing/) pro­vide de­tailed ev­i­dence for those who may dis­agree with this con­clu­sion.

The key take­away from the DOGE “ex­per­i­ment” is that or­gan­i­sa­tion­al change, par­tic­u­lar­ly in large, com­plex or­gan­i­sa­tions, is nev­er easy and can­not be achieved by slash-and-burn tac­tics. It re­quires deep sys­temic analy­sis and process-dri­ven change. This can­not be achieved overnight, re­gard­less of aca­d­e­m­ic or en­gi­neer­ing bril­liance (Elon Musk). How­ev­er, the DOGE ini­tia­tive is an im­por­tant les­son in change man­age­ment as it demon­strat­ed the im­por­tance of process­es and sys­tems, and that change can­not be achieved sim­ply by slash­ing costs.

T&T faces a com­plex de­vel­op­ment path. There is a deep­en­ing fis­cal chal­lenge. Suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions have in­creased re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture, lead­ing to per­sis­tent fis­cal deficits and an in­evitable bal­loon­ing of the na­tion­al debt. Re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture is grow­ing faster than the coun­try’s rev­enue base. This, cou­pled with a grow­ing de­mand for the state to do more, is demon­strat­ed by the con­tin­ued growth of sub­si­dies and trans­fers. This is un­sus­tain­able and is erod­ing pol­i­cy flex­i­bil­i­ty.

There are sev­er­al chal­lenges, and these can­not be achieved by fi­at or talk, ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est or re­quests for pro­pos­als. The first is to build a sus­tain­able econ­o­my. This means re­con­sid­er­ing plans to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my and de­ter­min­ing the nec­es­sary bud­getary and oth­er sup­port need­ed to achieve these ob­jec­tives. The sec­ond is to im­prove pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors. Co­op­er­at­ing with labour is not sim­ply about im­prov­ing wage rates. This means build­ing ca­pac­i­ty, which means hu­man de­vel­op­ment. The ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem must be vis­it­ed and strength­ened. The third is to re­duce gov­ern­ment ex­pen­di­ture on sub­si­dies whilst en­sur­ing ad­e­quate pro­tec­tion for the vul­ner­a­ble.

The fourth chal­lenge is to nav­i­gate a com­plex geopo­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment. The war in Ukraine and the on­go­ing war against Iran are ma­jor desta­bil­is­ing events, the full ef­fects of which have yet to play them­selves out. The en­er­gy shock has been mut­ed be­cause en­er­gy re­serves in the large OECD coun­tries are be­ing de­plet­ed. In­fla­tion has been mut­ed as a re­sult. But gov­ern­ments in both high- and low-in­come coun­tries are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing struc­tur­al deficits, with Eu­ro­pean coun­tries fac­ing both high­er en­er­gy prices and age­ing pop­u­la­tions, thus cre­at­ing sys­temic risks.

Man­ag­ing a coun­try and ad­dress­ing pub­lic ex­pec­ta­tions is an ex­ceed­ing­ly dif­fi­cult task which re­quires a high­er lev­el of pol­i­cy and in­ter­min­is­te­r­i­al co­or­di­na­tion. Last week, I not­ed that there is no cen­tral co­or­di­nat­ing agency at the Cab­i­net lev­el in the T&T civ­il ser­vice struc­ture. This is crit­i­cal to project-man­ag­ing the gov­ern­ment’s key pol­i­cy ob­jec­tives and keep­ing them on course. In re­spond­ing to the ar­ti­cle, a for­mer se­nior per­ma­nent sec­re­tary (PS) not­ed that the Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary is not un­der the purview of the tit­u­lar Head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice in T&T (HOPS). The for­mer PS not­ed that, de­pend­ing on the na­ture of the is­sue, the Sec­re­tary to the Cab­i­net would dis­cuss and seek ad­vice from the PS to the PM and the HOPS.

It is note­wor­thy that in the UK, the Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary is the most se­nior civ­il ser­vant, en­sur­ing the ef­fi­cient run­ning of gov­ern­ment. Many of the UK Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary’s func­tions con­sol­i­date those of our PS, PM, and HOPS. Co­or­di­nat­ing the work of min­istries re­quires a more for­mal, less ad hoc ap­proach than is cur­rent­ly prac­tised, with less de­pen­dence on the per­son­al­i­ty of the in­cum­bent PS. Tim­ing, tone, and tem­po are func­tions of lead­er­ship. Do­ing noth­ing has a price.

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