OAG urges CJ to tackle 3-year delay on court efficiency
(CNS): Judicial Administration has made very little progress over the last three years on recommendations by the Public Accounts Committee to improve the efficiency and value for money of the local court system. Auditor General Sue Winspear has urged the new chief justice to take on the recommendations as soon as possible because only three of the 13 in a 2019 audit by her office have been implemented. Winspear also said that officials have failed to produce a business case for the new courthouse, which is at risk of running up unnecessary costs for the public purse.
“It is almost three years since I recommended that Judicial Administration consult court users to identify their needs, perform long-term demand projections, and feed this information into the Outline Business Case for the new court building,” Winspear stated in a press release as she published a follow-up report on two past audits.
“This has not happened and there is still no Outline Business Case. Without taking these steps, the Outline Business Case for the project will be flawed and result in a court building that is not fit for its purpose. This could result in Judicial Administration incurring additional, unnecessary costs to modify the building later.”
In a follow-up report to see how officials have responded to an audit conducted by the Office of the Auditor General in April 2018 on Workforce Planning and Management in government and one on the Efficiency of Summary Courts in November 2019, Winspear said she was disappointed with the progress on the recommendations made by the Public Accounts Committee on the basis of the work. PAC made 29 recommendations but to date, only a quarter of them have been rolled out and only limited progress has been made on half, with just six recommendations fully implemented.
“It is disappointing that, overall, limited progress has been made in implementing the recommendations in the two reports covered. This is particularly disappointing as some recommendations date back to 2018,” Winspear said.
But she said the bulk of the failings relates to Judicial Administration as the government has made some progress in addressing the management of government. But Winspear said that while the Portfolio of the Civil Service is rolling out a new Human Resource Management System, it will not be in full use until the end of next year and there are still problems with succession planning in the civil service.
Noting that about 13% of all civil servants are due to retire within the next six years, she said, “PoCS needs to identify which of these people are in business-critical posts and train and develop Caymanians to take up those roles in the future.”
The independent auditor also noted that after Deputy Governor Franz Manderson took personal responsibility for coordinating and tabling Government Minutes in response to PAC reports, the government had “made commendable progress in drafting and tabling Government Minutes” and tabling its response to PAC reports.
But she said she was concerned that the lack of regular meetings of the Parliament was contributing to the late tabling of these minutes hampering the accountability process.
Manderson welcomed the comments related to the progress on minutes but had little to say about succession planning problems, which is firmly under his remit, other than to blame COVID-19 for the delays.
“Good governance and the efficient conducting of government business inform and guide all the actions we undertake in the Civil Service,” Manderson said. “We also take the recommendations of the Auditor General seriously and are unwavering in our commitment to translating them into action. This is despite challenges such as the critical response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with its effect on all aspects of government activities. Our goal continues to remain providing improved services and operations so the public gets the best value for money spent.”
See the OAG’s latest report as well as the original audits in full in the CNS Library.
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Category: Government Administration, Government oversight, Politics
This Auditor Generals office works tirelessly to out the wrongdoings here. She seems excellent but gets no support – Stand up and support that office. They are needed
How’s the First Cayman Bank coming along?
They just need a shiny new 100 million dollar courthouse with golden shitters and all will be solved.
I
Ayyayay another monstrous mess . Can the Guv focus in on this after all he is ultimately responsible for the good governance of these islands. Come on Guv let’s have you, leave de pan alone fe ash I.e will ya!
The fact that judicial admin recycles Caymanian juror pool lists, illustrates just how lazy and inefficient they are. That uselessness by extension also impacts voter registration, which is why there is such a low percentage of Caymanians registered to vote. It’s a much bigger price to pay than the typical ineptitude.
Jurors must be chosen by random. You said lazy to do so. The whole judicial department is in a mess. Just try doing simple matters there.
And yet the departed Chief Justice was knighted. The person in charge of Court administration is also out of her depth.
Had a bigger wig than Mac.
The Auditor General wants an agency of the Government to have meaningful communications with the private sector and take account of its views?
That’s funny.
What next? World Peace?
That the Auditor Genral is praising POCS’ new Human Resource Management System – which is an omnishambles – tells every civil servant just how useless the AudGen’s reports really are for affecting actual positive change. To put it in perspective for the public, we might as well have OfReg do these performance audits.
I think the report is saying it’s good that a new HR system that has the potential to improve things is being rolled out not that the roll out of the new HR system has been good. There’s a big difference.
No. you can’t sugar-coat it. the new software is junk and it is being praised by the OAG. Because the OAG is clueless.
Several people have said to me and others that the new HR software package is junk. Could you explain what is wrong with it and why it was chosen, 2:30?
11.30am Because a foreign woman was hired by Franz to oversee HR when a major bank BB got rid of her and she needed another highly paid job.
The software is junk (not fit for purpose) because
a) it will be used by many hundreds of persons;
b) certain deadlines apply to all of these persons at the same time;
c) this means that the software will need to handle several hundred persons logging in at the same time on a Friday evening to meet deadline. While other people are also using the software for other HR purposes.
The software cannot handle this, i.e., it crashes when some unknown number of ‘too many people’ try to use it at once.
The software is junk (not fit for purpose) because
a) it will be used for recruitment by ‘a hundred’ different agencies.
b) for some of these jobs you will receive 50, or more, applications. So thousands of job applications routed through this system.
c) in order to choose good candidates, you might want to be able to read their CV, at least for some of those candidates.
The software cannot handle CVs. There is no way to get a CV of an applicant in the system. The system chosen by HR professionals for use by HR professionals for the HR function of reviewing job applicants and making a decision between them based on … their CV.
Note that this is version 7-odd of the software. Yes these problems might be fixable (even easily so) in a future update. But if the software can’t work for obvious uses out of the box then, its junk.
And this is what the OA want people to emulate. The OA recommendations are as (not) useful (fit for purpose) as the software (implementation) they praise.
So you mean 2:48 if you “interrogate it”, it can’t give you answers? That would be a huge problem if it’s true.
Year after year it’s the same bollocks with the civil service.
Is anyone ever held accountable for their failing to professionally perform their duties?
Just Another Day in Absurdistan
Kaboom 💥💥💥
Manderson is the master of excuses. Nothing will come near to world class under his continued leadership as DG. The time has come to purge the service of his leadership and hand picked failures as senior officers who have no idea about the meaning of value for money.
Agreed, he does not like new or divergent thinking. With such limited talent he surrounds himself with, it is no wonder the Civil Service has lost its way and will never be world class under his watch as he claims it is. With such limited results, is it not a case for him now to go.
The judiciary, like the government and the police are pretty much all in need of an overhaul.
Start with Roper.
What has he done since he arrived to instill confidence?
This is a legitimate question.
He’s mean on the steel pan
the incompetence of the civil service is never ending…