Public Sector Transformation Entity Not a Cutting Unit

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Public Sector Transformation Unit (PSTU), Patricia Sinclair-McCalla, is dispelling the notion that the body is a “cutting unit”, noting that the work of the entity is part of a long-term plan to address public sector issues and increase efficiency.
She was speaking at a Think Tank held this morning (January 19) at the JIS’ Half-Way-Tree Road office in Kingston.
According to the CEO, the work of the body includes determining the focus of the public sector in relation to the priorities of Government, which will incorporate rationalising and streamlining measures.
A key aim of the process, which is being undertaken over an 18-month to two-year period, is to achieve a lowering of the public sector wage bill, in relation to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to below ten per cent.
According to the CEO, a change management strategy is being contemplated to ensure a seamless transformation of the public sector.
“We are going to be working on the policy and legislative framework to make it more applicable to today’s situation, amending existing statutes and regulations that inhibit us from doing what we need to do in a more efficacious manner,” she disclosed.
This, she said, is especially in light of the introduction of the devolution of authority, which means, giving full autonomy to specific entities to manage their entire affairs, including human resources, financial and operational matters.
Chairman of the Consultative Monitoring Group (CMG) at the PSTU, Peter Moses is also dismissing the view that his position and that of the CEO are that of “chief cutters”.
“One of the things we identified very early in the day is to respond to the public perception that we are chief cutters. This project is an efficiency project How we find more efficiencies in the public sector and then let everything after that follow. If you were to say you want to be a chief cutter it would be a very easy task. We could do that in a matter of a month. You wouldn’t need my committee if that was the approach and to be very frank it would be a very short-term benefit that would end up being sort of a disastrous policy,” Mr. Moses emphasised.
He explained further that, “our programme is designed first of all to look for efficiencies in the public sector where there is overlap, where technology can come and play a massive part of what is going to happen. I am not suggesting that there will not be cuts but what drives the cuts will be important”.
The PSTU consists of six professional staff members, based at the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) and drawn from both the public and private sectors.