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Notes on the City Hall’s management structure

Apr 14, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
It is difficult to understand the frequently published evidence of decision-making muddles at the corporate levels. The expression ‘corporate’ is used to stress, in these times of exposure, examination and critical analysis, the explicit need to been seen as effective managers in the most substantive meaning of that word. In the instant case, in which the recent local government elections has at least partially modified the governance structure, stakeholders, and more specifically the leadership, should recognise that they are going through a learning curve, and that revisiting the unfamiliar, but not unrelated, past may not be a bad thing. Local Government has been with us for more than a hundred years; and even if all the records were perchance deleted, there are those who constitute institutional memory that can be referenced.
But there is also the Municipal and Districts Council Act of 1969, by which to abide. For those of us who have waited for generations for lapses in its implementation to be fulfilled it must be cause for wonderment at the current reluctance to honour manifestive promises of democracy and not (in clear contradistinction of the authoritarian style of the previous dispensation) fill the void created by the non-appointment of a legislated Local Government Commission – as if the citizens who believed promises made in apparent good faith no longer mattered.
In the continuance of this broken (democratic) organizational structure, readers of the media are being regaled with the prospect of the wheel being reinvented – with disregard of precedent practice – in the form of a process of consultations with inexperienced and under-informed councillors about the selection of a Town Clerk. Some cynics would interpret this approach as if the intention were to simply select a ‘Clerk’, when in fact the requirement is for a Manager of the Town’s business, operations and the necessary range of relevant skills and competencies. How informed then could such consultations be without focus on an articulate description of the responsibilities, discipline and legal authority, attributable to the position of Town (Clerk) Manager.
The democratic process demands transparency of selection.  It therefore means that the normal organisational principle of advertising for candidates suitable to the requirements of a Manager must be fully observed. The relevant decision-makers must understand that today’s behaviours must not only set a positive foundation for the immediate; but must also recognise that any early misconceived initiatives would haunt the efficacy of the new institution for an indefinite period.
One approach to be preferred would be to invite more authoritative advice on organisation structuring, with particular reference to local government being useful.  Additionally, the Burrowes Report on the reformation of the Mayor & City Council, Georgetown would be instructive – particularly with respect to recommendations on financial and human resources management systems.  In the same breath it is critically important that the most professional system of financial management be instituted – requiring of course careful selection and training.
Indeed closer examination would reveal that the establishment of all relevant management systems should precede or complement the timing of the selection of a Town Manager; supported by a massive programme of education and training. Relevant qualified members of a Local Government Commission could have helped.
Elijah Bijay

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