 Welcome everyone to this special interview as we look towards Public Service Week 2019. We've got a week of activities, June 17th to the 23rd and with me in studio today to discuss Public Service Week 2019, three ladies who are going to be giving us lots of information that pertain to the Public Service and what we can expect during the week. The process to me is Ms. Shanta Lawrence and she's the chairperson for the week of activities. Welcome Ms. Lawrence. Thank you. And in the center we have Ms. Peggy and Sudat who is the acting permanent secretary of the Public Service. Welcome. And to her right is the director of the National Competitive Productivity Council, Ms. Fiona Hinkson. Thank you. First of all the week of activities, you know this has been going on for some time now Ms. Lawrence tell us some of the activities that we're going to have for Public Service Week 2019. So Public Service Day is really dedicated to celebrating the virtue and value of public service to the community, highlighting the contribution of public officers to the development process, recognizing public officers and as well as encouraging students to pursue careers in the public sector. So to encapsulate all of this we have carefully put together a number of activities which include on Monday a job shadowing day where students from the upper secondary schools are invited into the workplace for the day. So they will have under job experience where they will shadow public officers. On Tuesday we will be having the departmental staff recognition and appreciation day. So across the public sector all of the agencies will be recognizing and praising their officers for their dedication and time within the public sector. On Wednesday we will have the ecumenical service which will be held at the minor basilica of the Immaculate Conception and of course with everything you have to make time to praise God because without him nothing is possible. So we come together as a collective to celebrate, to pray and worship. On Friday we will be having a health fair where we will be having health screenings, free health screenings to our public officers. We will be having a number of health organizations such as Faces of Cancer, the Saint Lucia Cancer Society, the Saint Lucia Planned Parenthood Association. So some of the screenings would include glucose testing, blood pressure, rapid HIV syphilis and so on. So we would like to encourage our public officers as well as the general public to come in and take advantage of this opportunity. Thank you very much Ms. Lawrence for giving us a very good overview of what's happening for the week. Let's see what Ms. Sudat would feel now that the week is being observed and from the administrative point of view and actually looking to get government policy of what is actually various functions of the ministry, the ministry of the public service, something that the public in general can understand what's the actual role of this ministry. Okay, first I would like to take this opportunity to thank all public officers for the work they've been doing, they continue to do and to really encourage them with respect to the work of the ministry of the public service. We serve primarily public officers through the delivery of human resource management, for our human resource management efforts, development of officers. So we offer training, etc., to public officers to build capacity and to help them to really take on the challenges of the job. We also are responsible for public sector transformation and this is a very critical role for us as we attempt to improve our service delivery. Right now a lot more has been, government has been called on to do a lot more, the citizens' expectations of government is increasing, the number of areas that are like technology that is really changing rapidly and assistlessly. So it is very important that we keep up with the changes and the demands in the environment. So our public sector modernization unit attempts to do that or aims I should see to do that. We are also responsible for ensuring that we provide a safe space for employees to work in through our facilities management division and it becomes even more critical now that we have been faced with a number of issues in the workplace. So we are really putting a lot of effort into ensuring that we are able to provide that safe space because if people are not working in an environment that is conducive to work then it will obviously have an impact on productivity. So this is what we are about as a ministry of the public service. Thank you very much Ms. Inkson. She just ended off on the area of productivity really Q&A nicely. What is actually productivity and why does it matter to the public service? So productivity basically measures how efficiently an organization and in our case the public service utilizes its resources. You look at your workers, your equipment, whatever it is that you use in producing a good or providing the service to the population. So productivity matters for the public service for many reasons. One the public service is a consumer of tax resources so it is very important for us to be able to use those resources efficiently. The public service is a major employer of a person's, more than 12 percent of the public of the labor force is employed within the public service. The government provides services, looking at business services, how well the government is able to provide those services for the private sector when we speak about the cost of doing business, also provides social services where you look at the quality of the labor force, education, health care and so on. And the government, there are certain services that only government can provide in terms of policies regarding crime, in terms of policies regarding national security, public infrastructure and so on. So it's very important that we really work very hard in enhancing productivity because of the role that government plays within the economy. How can you know that you've definitely been ensuring that the members of the public service are very much aware of how important that is? Oh, definitely. We've been working, we've been working collaboratively with various agencies of government, especially the public service as well, in putting together productivity seminars where we build and increase awareness around those issues. So this is something that is very important and we have, you know, collaborated with all the public, with public officers suffering and they in terms seem to be on board with the whole issue of productivity. Thank you very much. We're going to have our first break right now. We'll be back on our program. I'm innovative. I'm competitive. I am productive. I'm creative. I constantly improve what I do. And how I do it. I provide excellent customer service. I never stop learning. I give all my best, always. The National Competitiveness and Productivity Council embracing excellence. Thank you and welcome back to our discussion. I'd like to continue with Ms. Lawrence once more. Ms. Lawrence, you really outlined a very lovely program. Can you give us more intricate details of two of these events and how was it, first of all, to put together and to get the students involved in the work of the public service? Okay. So because public service is really dedicated to encouraging young persons to pursue careers within the public service, we felt that it was necessary to allow them to get hands-on experience, to allow them to experience what it is. And so they would be able to make a determination as to whether this is the way forward for them. So we will be having 36 students across the Department of Finance, Equity, Sustainable Development, External Affairs Department of the Public Service, Department of Justice, to name a few. And so these students will be assigned to various individuals within the various sections to shadow them. So they will actually be working for the day. Okay. And the other events that you have, tell us a bit more about them. On Tuesday, the various agencies, as I indicated earlier, will be hosting their staff recognition and appreciation day. So we have allowed them to determine what format or structure it will take. And so based on the feedback that I received from some of the agencies prior to the week of activities, some of them have organized to have staff retreats, some of them will be having a short activity where they will come together as a collective and the HODs will appreciate the officers. So we think this is necessary because when persons feel that they have valued and their work is appreciated, then they will go the extra mile to produce even more. On Wednesday, we have the Ecumenical Service. And again, we would like to encourage all public officers as well as the general public to attend this event. Although we have recognized in the past that the turnout has not been very good, but we want to inform everyone that it is an important activity. It is for us and it begins with us. So if we are to achieve the objective, all of us need to play our part and it begins with the service. So we would like persons to attend that as well. On Friday, of course, this activity will culminate the week of activities and that is the health fair. So we will have the various agencies. We have a number of departments from the Ministry of Health, such as the Environmental Services Department. We have the HIV program unit. We have the community nursing program and they will be responsible for conducting all of the free health screenings. Again, St. Lucia Cancer Society and Faces of Cancer will be on site to offer advice, to offer guidance, to share their stories and experiences with others who might be going through what they have been through. And so we think it is important because a healthy workforce is a productive one. Excellent. Lots of activities we have been given in breakdown. The health fair seems like something that will attract public servants. How has the response been over the years for that event? The health fair actually, since I have been chair of the committee, is the first time that we will be hosting it. Last year, what we had was an open house event where the various agencies depicted what they do as an agency. But this year, with the increased number of cases of chronic illnesses and all of those health issues, we thought it was critical to focus on that and this is the reason for introducing the health fair as part of the activities this year. And what can you do to get the public servants to come out, especially for your ecumenical service? You said that the return home hasn't really been what you wanted in the past. We have been doing a lot of the PR work, public relations work, of course, with the assistance of GIS, with the assistance of the private media as well. And of course, we have a number of the agencies represented on the committee, the planning committee. So we have been trying to put the information out there, ensure that persons are aware of the service because some of the feedback that we got is that sometimes persons were not aware. So we want to ensure that the PR is done and it is done well so that we can expect a good turnout this year. I'm sure that you would have your week of activities also posted within the various ministries to ensure that you get that extra boost when it comes to that. Yes, we do have a number of flyers highlighting the various activities. Great. You did mention the fact that we are looking towards modernisation of the public sector and there are a number of areas that I'm sure that the ministry is thinking of. Can you tell us about any of those and ensure that the continued movement upwards in terms of the deliveries of the services of the public service? Well, first I want to say modernisation of the public service. Some of us would have referred to it over the years as public sector reform has been ongoing and for those of us who have been in the public service for a very long time and even members of the public can't tell you where we came from and where we are now. It is ongoing. It is not based on the demands out there, the expectations from governments, our budget constraints, technological advancements and so on. It is something that we must have ongoing within the ministry of the public service. We have identified some critical areas and some of it is related to digital services and we are currently working on some projects that would allow us to digitise certain government services within the next few years. We are hoping to put some services online by the end of this fiscal year and this would include things like the application for a driver's licence, the birth certificate, the application for birth certificates online, death certificates, marriage certificates, etc. And this has started in earnest so we are certain that by the end of this year we would see some movement with this. But there are a number of services that we would like to put online over a period of time and these are going to be phased out over maybe three years and so on. Reform is happening in a number of areas in the public service. We have some that are very obvious, some that has been dramatic. In some cases we have some incremental changes that have really assisted in the delivery of service to the citizens of St. Lucia and this is very important. It's about delivering value and so public sector modernisation is not concentrated in the ministry of the public service but most agencies across the public service have ongoing initiatives to take us to that point and like I said this is ongoing and it's not something that you can start and finish to do or at the end of this month it is ongoing and it's something that is necessary to take us to the point where we can deliver a better service to citizens. Yes, and I suppose that most of these areas that you are tackling has been determined after some request by the public you must be getting a feedback and some of the services that would like you to really improve upon and make it easier for them. Yeah, well of course governments, the agencies themselves sometimes know based on the experiences and the feedback from stakeholders etc. Where is it they want to go? There are other things that are happening in the environment that push us to that point that this is where we need to go but this is whatever we do however the demand comes from there must be some sort of stakeholder consultation to ensure that we are moving in the same direction whether it be our internal stakeholders our external stakeholders or whatever because we want to know that when we are making the change and we are moving people are moving with us because that is the only way we could sustain it we could make it successful etc. So we kind of just have a second break in a moment but I'm sure that there's room that you get to be able to monitor some of the needs of the public that will help you execute what you need to go forward in terms of modernization. Yes, well as a public service you must be on the ground you must know what the customers want you must be talking to them getting a feel for what they want we have complaints all the time that should be a cue for us that what we are doing or not doing what we should be doing better in terms of having an organized approach to taking on these issues sorry identifying the issues we probably need to do a little better with that but based on our interaction on a daily basis and some agencies may be interacting with the public more than others but based on that interaction that we have with them we get a very good feel of what it is they want bearing in mind that we also know where we want to take that public service too so it goes both ways and at the end of the day after we've made these changes we need to ensure that these changes are sustainable and that is why I spoke about making sure that everybody is on board but more importantly monitoring these changes after they have been implemented Thank you Miss Nabi we're going to take our second break on the program we'll be back in just a moment One of the eight university-recognized rights of the consumer is the right to be heard this means that every consumer who is dissatisfied with a good or service has the right to lodge a complaint to the provider of that good or that service this should be the first point of lodging a complaint ensure that the receipt as proof of the transaction is available Thanks for staying with us we're into our final segment on our program I know there must be certain barriers for productivity how do you see the transformation coming about despite these barriers So like I said earlier we work with the stakeholders both in the public sector and the private sector so for the public sector what we did in 2016 we carried out a survey and we met with public servants both at the managerial level and also line staff and they gave a number of recommendations on how we can transform the public survey so for instance recommendations we forget to establish standard operating procedures so to build more efficiency within the service they need to adopt new technologies and I'm very happy to hear Mr. Dan talk about the ongoing e-government project that is happening and I believe that we will definitely be able to solve this issue also they need to remove unnecessary procedures and systems that create bureaucracy within the service they need to work on our work ethic as a people not just in the public service but in the private sector as well for training and education we also need to begin to work collaboratively with agencies not working in silos anymore in an effort to avoid waste and duplication so these are very important areas to break down the barriers so that we can begin to work more effectively so at the NCPC we see these as very important goals and we try to especially during Productivity Awareness Week we try to highlight some of those issues and we try to get agencies to to display the work especially those agencies that are really doing really productive work showing great initiatives or work towards transforming the public service so we want to work on distance because we have Productivity Awareness Week coming up in October as well so for us those barriers we know that there's hope and we believe that through those efforts from the Department of Public Service we begin to get there a natural barrier would be the same brush that they paint all public service with there's going to be a general tendency that there's a very low productivity and that is something that your council has taken on quite feverishly has there been any improvement as far as that public perception? Yes, so I get that all the time I hear from the private sector well if you need to improve productivity go back to the public sector but I can tell you there are a lot of hard work in public servants I mean maybe they all wanted to spoil it for everybody else but the public servants are working very hard we provide services to the public and we know that their place is where we are very successful you had to get a hard work and doing that but in the area of productivity we need to continue to build awareness around those issues it is not a sprint but it's a marathon we have to continue the work and we believe that people are now more aware if it gets too productive you hear people talk about it more than they used to before and when you look at our levels of productivity on a national basis we see that it is low however we have seen some improvement happening over the past two years thank you very much we can go to some final comments from you what's your feeling now going into the week you've had experience of being part of committees that have organized public service week how are you feeling this year? very good in fact seeing those students excited about coming to the workplace this morning so it's a start of a good week we just want to again encourage our public officers to participate because we can only achieve our objective as a collective I'm sure we will all agree that we would like to see a better public service one of excellence and good governance as our theme depicts and so we all have a part to play and we would like to encourage everyone to come out and support their activities we should add some closing remarks on you I would like to really support Miss Lawrence in encouraging public officers to turn out this week is set aside for the celebration of public officers and we hope that we could get people to recognize and understand the role they play in national development so I would like to support her in encouraging people to turn out and to be part of the activities I know that you started at the beginning of the segment but I'm sure that you would be keen on the activity that you recognize in persons in the workplace and I'm sure that will impact on productivity Miss Lawrence most definitely and I want to also add my voice to encouraging public servants to come out you work very hard during the year this is your time to celebrate your achievements this is the time to celebrate your hard work and to join the activities especially the service and be part of all the fun that has been put together for you okay so the actual day of the observance is the 23rd but the week is actually most of the celebration because it's actually on a Sunday so we are happy that you are able to come in studio today and share with us the program that you have for public service week 2019 so I would like to take this opportunity to thank three of you for coming in, Miss Shanta Lawrence the chairperson of the organizing committee for public service week 2019 they act in permanent secretary in the ministry of the public service Spegyan Sudat and also Fiona Hingson the director of the national competitive and productivity council thank you once more for being part of our program thank you we'd also like to thank you our viewers for being part of our program and we look forward to your support of the public service