Salary Uniformity in public Sector Transformation

Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Andrew Holness, says uniformity in pay scales across ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) will be a key feature of a transformed public sector.

He points out that 100 pay grades and scales currently being used in the sector create confusion, inequity and opportunities for arbitrage.

The Prime Minister was giving a policy statement on the public-sector transformation process, now under way, during a meeting at the Office of the Prime Minister on January 5.

Transformation will eventually aim to standardise scales across the public sector so that the engineer, for example, or the accountant at a particular level, receives the same pay, whether he or she works in Ministry X or Ministry Y or in an agency of government,” Mr. Holness explained.

The Prime Minister said this will lead to public-sector employees choosing jobs based primarily on what they enjoy doing, resulting in greater job satisfaction, greater rates of retention and better service and performance.

He noted that a Public Sector Transformation Implementation Team has been appointed to carry out a slew of measures to transform the sector towards efficiency in the push for economic growth. These include the implementation of shared corporate and human-resource services, mergers and divestments, public-service reform and compensation reviews.

The Prime Minister said the Government is also pursuing a merit-based performance system where the best performers are rewarded appropriately.

Mr. Holness added that the public-sector transformation process will also include a rationalisation of private-sector rented office spaces, some of which are not retrofitted for the purpose and negatively impact productivity.

“Tackling public-sector transformation will lead to entrenching macroeconomic stability, and we can’t underestimate the value of that. Our growth strategy heavily relies on the transformed public sector. We want the public sector to see themselves as the important instrument of growth and equal and critical partners with the private sector in bringing growth and prosperity to Jamaica,” he said.

He added that technology will be used to improve productivity as part of the transformation of the public sector, by employing telecommunications advances to share services and reduce costly replication.

Mr. Holness said it would also be utilised to develop a government-wide communications network for the seamless transfer of information between MDAs and other stakeholders; and to implement a centrally hosted website to provide a single gateway to information, data, systems and processes to enhance the ease of doing business with the Government.