BitDepth#1377

MARK LYNDERSAY

AT THE third sitting of the Senate on October 13, the Minister of Public Administration commented on the budget and responded to calls for a work-from-home (WFH) policy for public servants.

In that speech, the minister made several assertions, some of which are sensible, while others skip over difficult facts that don't make for bold, sweeping statements.

Allyson West is correct to note, though, that a WFH policy doesn't start here, it has to roll back to the very foundation of public service operations.

A properly functioning public service receives directives from ministers. These policies can be influenced and guided by public servants, chiefly by permanent secretaries (PS), but Cabinet has the final say on policy.

Public servants carry out Cabinet's policy, reporting to the PS who discusses policy execution with the line minister.

In her Senate contribution, West suggested the Government has limited control over the public service, but that's not true.

The TT Constitution, as established in 1962 and in the 1976 version, states under section 85, part one, "Where any minister has been assigned responsibility for any department of government, he shall exercise general direction and control over that department; and, subject to such direction and control, the department shall be under the supervision of a permanent secretary whose office shall be a public office."

Key to understanding how this sentence affects the operations of the public service is the minister's authority of "general direction and control" and that of the PS who is relegated to "supervision."

The Constitution doesn't assign managerial responsibility to anyone regarding the public service, and efforts to have the role of the PS changed from supervision to management have been ignored for decades.

What happens when permanent secretaries try to run the public service the way it was conceived to function?

In 1975, prime minister Eric Williams launched a rhetorical broadside against an effort by Doddridge Alleyne, Frank Rampersad and Eugenio Moore to build what he saw as a robust public service of qualified technocrats.

These were the leading permanent secretaries of their day and the public rebuff led to a general retreat from PS leadership that continues to this day.

It was here that the death knell of professional meritocracy and the public service as home to the qualified young professional was sounded.

So the minister can comfortably announce, "There is no position called head of the public service,' while promising rather ominously to "address these anomalies."

Since 1962, the permanent secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister was held to be the head of the public service and appointments acknowledged the seniority of the role.

No recent PS in that role has acted in that capacity or acted with that implied authority, so the role has degraded to the point tha