Good Morning Mr. Speaker,

I rise this morning to remind this Honourable House that a Plan for Government Reform has been finalised and implementation has commenced.

Mr. Speaker, on March 1st, 2019 I informed Honourable Members that the Government Reform Plan had been completed.  On that day I committed to table the Plan following the next phase of consultation with our Union partners. 

Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to table for the consideration of this Honourable House a document that sets out this Government’s strategic intent for government reform.

Mr. Speaker, The Cabinet Office has developed a Strategic Planning Framework that will be used to move the initiative forward. This planning framework serves as the starting point towards the building of a comprehensive roadmap to realise Government Reform.

The Plan highlights the Current State and anticipates a Future State towards a Vision of “A future-forward Government for the people of Bermuda” with the Purpose of “Enhancing the lives of the people of Bermuda”.

Mr. Speaker, given the complexity of this initiative and all of its moving parts, it is imperative that the implementation is well-structured and planned. Thus, a Programme Management approach is being utilized to execute the multi-year implementation to move Government from the current state towards the desired future state.

What this means is that the Government will ensure coordinated management of all of the individual projects and the related change management activities to achieve beneficial change within the public service.

Mr. Speaker, five project management teams, comprising several technical officers have been determined and the Management Consulting Services (MCS) section will function as the Programme Management Office (PMO), as well as Project Managers on each Project Team.   Union partners have also been invited to assist with various initiatives.

Project teams will be supported by technical officers from all levels within the Service.  These officers will complete the various tasks associated with delivery of each of the projects.  Some of the officers will be experts in the specific areas and others will be provided training and growth opportunities or simply have an interest in participating in the change initiative.

The opportunities to participate on the various teams are many and we look forward to more public officers getting involved as the projects are rolled out.

Mr. Speaker, a comprehensive communications plan is being developed to ensure all stakeholders are aware of and understand the implementation plans and regular updates will be issued.

Mr. Speaker, some of the project teams have already commenced work on a number of initiatives in accordance with the identified priorities.   

Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding that all of the work is important, our priorities are the Information and Technology components as well as the People components of the Plan.  To be clear, the People component of the Plan is all about continuing to support the growth and development of talented public officers, empowering these officers through effective talent management, training, and implementation of accountability processes and systems.

Mr. Speaker, the Plan incorporates, and seeks to build on some of the work that was already in progress that is consistent with our Vision and Purpose for the public service. For instance, in our election manifesto, this Government committed to review the SAGE Recommendations as a part of its efforts to reform the public service. 

Recommendations contained in the first section of the Report entitled “Performance: the Critical Paradigm Shift”, which seeks to strengthen leadership and address performance gaps, are of particular importance to this Government.  I am therefore pleased to  report that at least seventy-five percent or more of these recommendations have either already been implemented or are a work in progress.

Mr. Speaker, specifically, under this Administration:

• the hierarchy of the Civil Service has been restructured in accordance with the recommendations; and as a consequence, some of the recommendations peculiar to the functioning of the Civil Service Executive have been implemented;
• the recommendations regarding Government employees capacity for implementing change have been implemented, including the monitoring and accountability for MCS recommendations at the Ministerial and PS level and an accountability structure for monitoring and implementation of Internal Audit recommendations; also
• amongst others, work is in progress to implement the recommendations specific to succession planning and talent management as well as those recommendations specific to performance management and accountability.

Mr. Speaker, this Government has assessed employee readiness for change and identified obstacles, such as being an overly bureaucratic environment with a weak execution model, and deliberately put in place the building blocks to enable the Service to move towards a shared Vision and Purpose.

Mr. Speaker, steps to ensure the integration of the Vision into the public administration work-stream will commence with a planned workshop for Civil Service Executives and Heads of Department, scheduled for June 20th.  During this workshop all senior officers will be engaged in a process to align each Ministry and Department Mission with the Vision.  A subsequent series of workshops will address the establishment of Key Performance Indicators and/or Performance Measures.  The output from these workshops will coincide with the preparation of budgets and will be incorporated into the budget output for the next budget cycle.

Mr. Speaker, this Government has embarked upon an ambitious work-plan towards Government Reform.    Innovation and technology will underpin change as the Government works to achieve one hundred percent paperless processing by 2023.   Ultimately the Public Service will be the employer of choice, where talented individuals are rewarded fairly and valued over the long term for their contributions to enhance the lives of the people of Bermuda.

Thank you Mr. Speaker.