No database of assets or asset distribution kept – Public Service COI hears

Sep 24, 2015 News

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…calls made for reintroduction of merit system

 

By Sunita Samaroo

Before an attentive audience workers who have been employed for years in the Public Service Department, formerly known as the Ministry of Public Service, made several starting revelations. They said that the Ministry was void of a database to keep track of its assets or their distribution.
Workers told Commissioners that copyright violations for software were being encouraged at the level of the Ministry. New staffers in all Ministries were not treated to orientation and training programmes available at various Ministries were exclusive to those selected.
Statements were also to the effect that a number of recommendations for improvement in the public service from specialists, unions and even staff  upon their return from foreign training programmes, were ignored.
As the second day into the Public Service Commission of Inquiry got underway, its Chairman, Professor Harold Lutchman along with Commissioners Sarah Jones and Samuel Goolsarran heard calls for in-depth job analysis to guiding job descriptions, a performance appraisal system, reviewing of public service rules as well as the mandatory retirement age.
They were told that motivation was lacking in the public service and training and development were areas that should be addressed.
First to testify was Gail Williams, a Senior Personnel Officer attached to the Department of Public Service, within the Ministry of the Presidency. Williams stated that she has been trained in Industrial Relations, Commonwealth Training in Public Service Administration, Human Resource training in Japan, among others.
From her training in Japan, Williams prepared a paper seeking to advise the former People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) administration on approaches that can be adopted seeking to reintroduce performance appraisal in the public service.
According to her it was never implemented. The training, she affirmed, was useful but its impact was never realised.
At this juncture, Professor Lutchman queried whether it was a commonplace for persons to be sent on training and despite successfully completing them and returning to these shores with a slew of ideas; the implementation aspect is met with a certain level of resistance because the hierarchy may be ignorant of the new concepts.
She said that various consultants made recommendations to have the performance management appraisals reintroduced into the public service.  A similar approach, she said, exists for promotion but not for merits.
“We don’t have the merit increment system…I know that representation has been made to the then government time and time to have it in place,  but I do not know what is the mechanism that is holding it back,” expressed Williams.
At present, she said there is no incentive for those public servants who would go beyond the call of duty. They were under a system where those are given annual increase, the same as those whose performance is bare minimum.
Williams recommended the reintroduction of performance appraisal which will merit persons for performance between the minimum, mid and max scale. The practice has been abandoned but Williams recalled that initially there were different percentages attached to each merit level.
“We should have a proper appraisal system, with a proper merit increment scheme,” said Williams.
Merit, she highlighted,  was only part of the appraisal system. The system should pave the way for improvement to public servants in need, in form of development training, inter alia.
“My dream for the public service is for a more strategic-driven public service: set our goals, set our plans that we have for the public service and we work towards that,” expressed the Senior Personnel Officer.
Williams is a member of a department of key functionaries in the personnel department, keeping an eye on all personnel functions in every ministry across the country. She said that they keep an inventory of authorized position, evaluate and grade those positions, examine allowances and make recommendations.
Williams was questioned on the benchmark system inherited in 1994 that catered for 75 positions across the public service. She explained that with the advent of new job titles, they evaluate and graded the position based on the “family” in which it may fall.
The system, she suggested, should be reviewed as some of the positions listed have been made obsolete because those functions are no longer required or carried out in the manner prescribed as well as technology replacing some functions.
“There is a performance appraisal system but there is no merit for performance so what happens in most cases, prior to 2013, persons who are in the system ten years ago and persons who are now employed were in receipt of the same remuneration,” she said.
She stated that they have had requests from agencies and the unions to have increase in allowances for persons living in far-flung areas, addressing market-price and the realities of spending a dollar in the city as opposed to far off areas, among others.
She said though it was presented to the then administration and reportedly considered, it never came to fruition.
Kemo Benjamin, Junior Human Resource Management Consultant, attached to the Personnel Department in the Department of Public Service told Commissioners that there are peer-to-peer discussions among peers as it relates to job dissatisfaction.
To this end, he is suggesting efforts be made to motivate employees. “I don’t think persons are as motivated as they need to be.” For current staff, he pushed for training, stating that development was necessary.
He said that many have entered the public service but were never exposed to training or orientation so they became stagnant.
Benjamin, himself, said that he had never been exposed to management training but will soon be given an opportunity to do so.
“There isn’t any orientation. They are introduced to the staff and they tend to orient themselves,” Benjamin said in response to question by the Commissioners. He said there are various training programmes that are run off by departments within the various ministries but it is offered to select persons.
Benjamin is a member of a team that creates reviews and updates job descriptions; manage and update the database, among others. The consultant stated that there needs to be more job analysis before job descriptions are crafted for jobs at a certain level.
He advocated for a review of the Public Service rules, which he said are rigid. He said a review of the rules was done during the Public Management Modernisation Programme by the Chief Personnel Officer at the Ministry.
He said a review was suggested by him with intention of formulating HR policies, seeking to shift from a rule-based approach to a modern policy-based approach. It was never accepted, Benjamin said.
Benjamin advocated too, for the age of retirement to be changed, since in his view persons reaching 55 are oftentimes fully functional and mentally agile. The consultant said  that systems should be in place for public servants to interact and provide feedback and suggestions as it relates to areas they think need to be improvement to upper management.
Fair treatment, he said, was needed across the board.
Assistant Development Coordinator within the Department, Ryan Cumberbatch, was the last to take the stand. Cumberbatch oversees the ICT infrastructure, maintaining the network, assists in inventory preparation, among others.
He said that PSM has one human resource database and it never had any for assets and distribution. He spoke to the need for such and added that these are areas they are currently exploring.
From an IT perspective, Cumberbatch took umbrage to the fact that the finance department does not issue money for computers. “That hampers us a bit,” he said. Cumberbatch told Commissioners that the department is using computers as old as nine years old. They would have to ship parts into the country when repairs are necessary.
“More emphasis should be placed on ICT (Information Communications Technology) in terms of budget. Things like software are not catered for so what you find is, you have to hack and crack so maybe if they budgeted for legal stuff it would help our copyrights issue.”
It was said that information technology has advanced to the point where even video calling is possible.

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