Government said Tuesday it was taking all aspects of public sector improvement seriously and called on senior public servants in St. Kitts and Nevis to devise a plan for a realistic and workable framework for efficient strategic planning and management in Government.
St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas said as recently as Monday, during the weekly Cabinet Meeting, "an enormously long period of time was spent looking specifically at the developments within the public service and the recent demands that we have received from certain specific sectors of the public service with regard to the improvement in their own workstation."
Prime Minister Douglas told the 100 senior government officials from all ministries and departments that one of the basic tenets of good business practice is the foundation of a reliable roadmap for reaching the desired destination.
"Strategic planning is the hallmark of every successful business model. The Public Sector with its myriad of complex issues and with limited resources has been slow in the past in adapting this process to meet the needs of the Government. I stress in the past because, if there is still this feeling among us in a modern society trying to improve the services and shape a modern public service, then of course we would still be living in the past,"
said Prime Minister Douglas, who further noted that "unfortunately there are many persons in the public sector who see strategic planning as just a fad, or on the other hand there are many who have not taken the time to study the real benefits of strategic planning and therefore have not begun to make use of this very important planning tool.
Prime Minister Douglas said that the position of St. Kitts and Nevis in the global environment with its many challenges demands that the public sector enhances its capacity to deliver goods and services at the increasingly high standards that the citizens and other stakeholders have begun to expect. "This cannot be achieved without proper planning," he added.
Dr. Douglas said it is necessary for each Government institution to have a clear understanding of its destination and the accompanying strategies that are needed to reach it.
~~Adz:Right~~"Strategic planning must involve a cross section of staff in the public service in order to harness the vast amount of knowledge that resides in our people. It therefore means that although this workshop today will only directly reach a small section of the top echelons of the public service, you must every effort to multiply its reach. Your duty when you leave here is to engage your own staff in your departments and the divisions in your units in order to receive their input, to engender ownership of the plan and in general to foster a wider understanding of the purposes and the goals of your respective agencies and of Government in general," said Prime Minister Douglas.
