Ministers ‘cherry picking’ disruptive for civil service
Government Administration Building
(CNS): The reshuffling of ministries and the various departments under them every time a new administration takes over government has caused a number of anomalies in staffing allocations across the civil service, the Public Accounts Committee heard this week. PAC Chair Ezzard Miller said he believed that ministries should be set down by the governor and that politicians should not be allowed to cherry pick the subjects they want when this was leading to problems for the civil service.
On Wednesday PAC members examined how government is managing workforce problems, where some departments have too many human resource experts while others don’t have enough, an issue identified by the auditor general.
Responding to their questions, Chief Officer of the Portfolio of the Civil Service Gloria McField-Nixon revealed that this has been fuelled by the constant ministry shuffling.
Although there are a number of issues that may have contributed to the fact that one ministry has a much bigger HR function than another, leading to an uneven distribution, McField-Nixon pointed out that not only do departments change but sometimes ministries grow following an election and then require different types of expertise, depending on what departments are merged to form the new ministries.
Auditor General Sue Winspear found that, post election, not enough thought is given to all of the support functions when ministries are moved and departments and units swapped around, as large chunks of ministries and the staff get juggled around, and it is not always well planned.
In her report, “Workforce Planning and Management in the Cayman Islands Government”, she said this leads to not having the right mix of human resource skills where they were needed.
After hearing about the impact ministry shuffling was having on the machinery of government, Miller said the short answer to solving the problem was for government to comply with the Constitution, where the governor sets the make-up of ministries, and politicians take it or leave it.
“It is a preposterous idea that we allow a particular politicians to cherry pick their subjects,” he said, adding that accommodating the wishes of new ministers had become disruptive to the support functions and efficiency of government. He said the reasoning for the governor establishing the ministries was that the civil service management knows where skills are and where they are needed.
“Instead we are trying to a accommodate wishes of politicians with fringe elements that probably has some corruptible value more than anything else,” he said.
In the last two coalition administrations it seems that specific departments have been used to secure support for the government from coalition partners. However, ministries are almost always reshaped under a new government, even when it is not trying to tempt people into the fold. Often ministries are reshuffled and reshaped to accommodate the interests and experience of ministers.
Category: Government Administration, Government oversight, Politics
Alden clearly has it the wrong way round. The Governor should have the right of veto to ministerial appointments, not the Government having the right to veto the appointment of the Governor.
8:08… all I can say is you must be kidding. The Premier is the political leader of the Country. He has constitutional responsibility to appoint his Ministers and thus has the ability to appoint them to the roles determined to be the best. The Governor has no say in this nor should he/she.
CNS, Why does Ron Ebanks appear to have unlimited comments but when I make 2 in a row I get a message saying I’m posting too quickly and I must slow down?
CNS: I’ve not yet been able to figure out what triggers that message, so apologies. If I ever do I will fix it.
Yup. Drives me mad too.
I guess you are going to stay mad too , because I Ron Ebanks are going to continue to correct what he thinks is wrong , and make it right for everyone including you .
CNS , why didn’t you publish all the comments that I replied to anonymous 3 : 03 pm blunder ? And why did you change who I was replying to ? Like I replied to anonymous 9 : 36 pm , look at the time on the reply for that comment . I also noticed that the thumbs buttons didn’t work on the comments that pertained to the blunder , but they worked on the other comments that didn’t pertained to . Why ? IF you are going to be fair to one , be fair to everyone . If you publish this comment , please dont edit it .
CNS: Ron, when the threads descend into bickering between commenters, I delete the comments – I deleted some of yours and a bunch aimed at you. This is in the Comment Policy. I cannot change where the responses are or the timing. The only explanation is that you accidentally replied to the wrong comment. I also don’t have any way to change the thumbs vote even if I wanted to. There may be glitches with that plugin, but that is an IT glitch, not human manipulation. I try to be fair to everyone, but understand that you only see things from your point of view; your detractors probably think I only deleted their comments and am being unfair to them.
CNS , thank you for your reply , but I always try to look at the issues from different angles , not only from my point of view . I have in the past reminded commenters to address who they are referring to , I do follow by example in this issue .
Wont be long before a IT company capitalizes on all banning going on websites like facebook, twitter….
I’d invest in a start-up that promised true free speech without the subjective banning.
Enjoy your 15 minutes CNS.
CNS: You mean like Gab, which allows people to post anything they like, no matter how vile, and has become a hub for violent extremists like the Pittsburgh shooter? By the way, our 15 minutes is now ten years.
I wish you would fix it. I get the stupid thing on one post at times.
Anonymous 3 03 pm , maybe because most of my comments are intelligent, and yours are too derogatory . But I am sure that some of mine gets cancelled when I am like you .
In my experience this message occurs when I type faster than usual and then quickly move to posting the comment. I have been able to avoid this message by waiting a bit after typing and before hitting the post button, that is, slowing down the process a bit.
Anonymous 3 :03 ,why are you referencing me Ron Ebanks in your blunder ?
Anonymous 3 : 03 pm. You coward why did you have to reference me Ron Ebanks in your stupid blunder ? Be man or woman and say .
I rest my case.
Coward anonymous 3 : 03 pm , do you see yet , why Ron Ebanks get more comments published than you do , and he doesn’t have the problems you do . Spend sometime working on your hate issues .
Ezzard, I am so glad you are never going back to a cabinet position. These Ministries should be allocated based on the skills of the Minister. I mean what little skill sets, if they do have any at all.
Ezzard is correct, the disruption is massive on many fronts. It usually takes at least a year for the Ministries to settle down with the huge reshuffle that occurs after every election and some of the swapping of subjects is illogical without synergies and makes no sense. There is no thought to this madness and the cost that occurs. Plus it gives Chief Officers an opportunity to get rid of whom they do not like or feel threatened by. This is not healthy as there is massive dislocation of Human Resources, and it affects efficiency and the development of the Cayman Islands.
Also which CO is, or has been any type of ‘thought leader’ on any topic in their career?
Morons in charge!
Ezzard’s suggestion makes sense, until the governor decides to make John John the Minister of Sports, Horticulture, Industry, and Tourism.
A common feature of Westminster style constitutions is that the elected Leader of Government is consulted on the makeup and assignment of ministries.
On another note goverment, when are you going to give your Authority’s their 5% increase?
Yeah. And gold plated Lamborghinis!
Never, there are too few votes to worry about
You all get paid so much more than core government workers now, even your net salary is still higher so that question is laughable.
Ask some of your Managing Directors to reduce some of their bloated salaries and stop giving themselves massive bonuses and “honorarium’s” and share the wealth with you all.
Maybe you would get paid more if the civil service wasn’t over-employed
And the pensioners their 5 % increase also
So now it’s not cool all of a sudden as Ezzie is not a Minister? Pot, meet kettle, he’s black.
‘Civil service’, ‘skills’, in the same sentence? Which planet is Ezzarrd living on?
What is being done by shuffling around the Civil Servants , is allowing the problems to continue but in a different place . I think what needs to done in the sector is new rules and enforce them with zero tolerance and everyone wake up and show up to work and do there jobs and else but their jobs .
excuse the political in correctness….but lets address the real issue
civil service biggest problem: too many poorly educated locals employed with a poor work ethic.
I am sorry, but your contract will not be renewed.
…and so it is obvious why we need a governor who actually exercises power, and why we continue to prove we are in no way ready to even manage our internal affairs. Tragic.
we had one that was just starting to flex… and then they took him away *sad face*
What about the Ministry with two departments? Does that make sense? Couldn’t they just give each department to another Minister and save on all the Ministry staff which seems to be too many bodies for one Ministry. Isn’t Ministry of Education without a Chief Officer now? They could use that Chief Officer in that Ministry and then you save on having to hire another Chief. Also, the other existing staff can be given to the larger Ministries or placed against other vacant positions they might be interested in.
Sorry @ 7:31 you’re comment makes no sense. They would use almost the same amount of staff if not more if it was 1 minister 1 department. Having 2 departments under one minister means most likely there are staff members that can do the same job for the different departments whereas each department would require their own set of people.
Which Ministry only has two Depts? Is it perhaps because of the size of the Departments? e.g. Education & Tourism would be two-topic Ministry but bigger than any two other ‘normal’ Ministries.