Public Sector workers must take ownership of transformation process – Peter Moses

Chairman of the Consultative Monitoring Group (CMG) at the Public Sector Transformation Unit (PSTU), Peter Moses, has said that Ministers and state agencies must take ownership of the transformation programme if it is to be successful.
“This project will not happen, driven by (the PSTU)…the Permanent Secretaries, Ministers and staff have to take ownership of this project. I get a sense so far that everybody we have interacted with accepts that there is an opportunity here to make a difference and (it would be good) if we can build on that and build it into ownership. I think the ownership is spreading beyond the unit because if it only stayed there, we can stop,” he stated.
He was speaking at a Think Tank on Tuesday (January 19) at the JIS’ Half-Way Tree Road headquarters in Kingston.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the PSTU, Mrs. Patricia Sinclair-McCalla, informed that each Ministry and agency has been asked to establish an Inter-disciplinary Transition Team, which should have broad-based representation, and it is this team, which will lead the change process in each entity.
“These are the people with whom we will work very closely and with whom your heads of agencies and Permanent Secretaries should play a central role. It will comprise for example, human resource director, finance manager, communications specialist in your respective Ministry and agency and whomever else you deem fit to be a part of that nucleus, which will manage the change process,” she explained.
Stating that the PSTU is a facilitator in the rationalisation process, the CEO said it is the Permanent Secretaries and their senior managers, who will do the hard work. They, she said, will “look at how best to rationalise the (entities) because they are the ones who will be implementing the changes within their respective Ministries and agencies with us facilitating the restructuring and the modernisation of their respective entities.”
In the meantime, she said that the unit is looking at a number of options in the rationalisation process, including mergers, abolitions, privatisations, and contracting out of services.
“One of the things we have had to do, working with the CMG’s support, is to ask the questions, what should Government do and pay for, what Government doesn’t really have to do but it should pay for, and what Government should not do and should not pay for.
“We are looking at that and the whole streamlining for greater efficiencies and cost savings is just a must. It is an economic and a social imperative if we are to channel funds into more constructive ways for the benefit of the entire society,” Mrs. McCalla stated.
The PSTU has been given 18 months to two years to complete its work.