Bermuda has been and is well served by its Civil Service as evidenced by the lack of corruption at senior levels and by the range of excellent services provided by Government via the Civil Service. Without this level of public service and public infrastructure, in conjunction with the products and services provided by the private sector, our standard of living, quality of life, our tourist product and the international business sector could not exist.

Concerning the recent cases of theft within Government, in my opinion, these have been due to a lack of due diligence by a few senior civil servants or due to recruitment of private sector individuals into senior civil service positions, who chose to ignore both the Civil Service Code of Conduct and the Civil ServiceFinancial Instructions.

There are two tenets observed by all senior civil servants:

1. The job of a senior civil servant, in particular, a Permanent Secretary (PS), is to advise the Minister, be it the relevant statute, policy, procedure or practice; then to implement whatever decision the Minister takes, whether or not he/she has chosen to follow the advice given.

2. All civil servants, particularly senior technical officers and Permanent Secretaries, serve the Government of the day to the best of their ability and put their department/ministry at the Minister's disposal.

Over and above the individual's professionalism is his/her knowledge that in the long run, to act in any way but impartially, would be counterproductive. If a Minister or other politician has reason to believe that a senior civil servant is not acting in an impartial manner, it is that Minister's responsibility to discuss this impression with that PS, then if necessary, with the Cabinet Secretary. To do otherwise would be counterproductive, would not be a 'win-win' approach and would show extraordinarily poor leadership on the part of that Minister. It is my perception that individuals from both political parties have occasionally chosen to ignore at least one of the two above-mentioned tenets.

I refer to the RG editorial of April 12, 2006 one important phrase is, '—at least from the outside looking in'. Unless one has worked in the public and private sectors at least close to a senior level, one's viewpoint is handicapped in terms of breath of exposure and possibly also in terms of depth, in reviewing public sector performance.

Salary is a problem in the public sector with recruitment and retention, locally and relating to staffing from overseas. Further, there is a brain drain away from the public toward the private sector because the public sector is an ideal training ground for the private sector.

With regard to access to studies done within the civil service, many non civil servants for whatever reason, seem not to take the time, or do not do the groundwork, in order to grasp the difference in public and private sector organisational structures, nor to analyse the performance constraints imposed on the civil service, nor to note the different strategic planning perspectives adopted by the civil service, verses private industry. This tends to explain why one might feel that only pay increases to judges and magistrates are justified. It would also explain the lack of understanding by some in the private sector of the demarcation point at PS41, which is where substantial financial, human resource and operation responsibilities start in the civil service.

Considering exemplary leadership traits, competence levels, the pursuit of excellence, ethical conduct, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and personal accountability, the Bermuda Civil Service, if compared with the Bermuda private sector, would fare favourably. Further, if we benchmark the Bermuda Civil Service with its international counterparts using impacts, outcomes and performance, I think we would again find a justification of the recent civil service increases.

I would however throw out the following challenge to both 'The Cabinet' and to the leaders of the private sector to improve Bermuda's global competitiveness:

Accepting that there are certain external costs, such as fuel oil, that are not directly under local influence: "How could private sector leaders and The Cabinet, separately or together, approach how Bermuda could create a vision, then address measured increases in national productivity (in the private & public sectors), in a sustainable way, in order to incrementally decrease costs and as far as practicable, hold down prices?"

This could not be achieved by some quick fix such as re-engineering, nor by some other flavour-of-the-month management technique.Clyde L. Symonds is a Chartered Electrical Engineer (CEng) registered in the UK, he is a European Engineer (Eur Ing) and is registered in Bermuda. He has worked in the private and public sectors as a Senior Professional Engineer. Mr. Symonds holds a BSc (Hons) in electrical engineering and an MSc in engineering management. His specialties are electric power generation, project management controls, public sector management and Total Quality Management (TQM). He is a member of the UK Association for Project Management (MAPM). He can be contacted at smartinn[AT]ibl.bm