A senior government official has advised managers in the public and private sectors to cut out wastage and re-organise their operations by applying modern technologies to their management strategies.

This suggestion has come from Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Carson Browne, as he addressed the Productivity Council’s tripartite stakeholder consultation at a seminar entitled: Moving Barbados Forward: Pricing Sector Re-positioning and Productivity. The event was held at the Savannah Hotel, recently.

While acknowledging the current economic crisis called for effective resource management, he said: "What we do not want, at the end of the day, is to be doing the wrong and appearing busy, instead of adopting processes and resources, that are both efficient and effective for the kinds of outcomes, that are required by government and the country as a whole."

The senior official also called for an end to the "piecemeal" approach to planning across the public sector. "The day must come soon when strategic planning, performance budgeting and matching job functions to strategic outcomes, must become the modus operandi of government.??

I know that some of these efforts are taking place in a "piecemeal" fashion across the public service.?? But, I am of the view that more needs to be done in a concerted way."

So, I am confident that the Productivity Council can take the charge in developing strategic plans and key performance indicators to guide the work of Ministries and statutory boards," he emphasised.

Mr. Browne further stated that a renewed emphasis on productivity required a buy-in to the concept by children; employees; employers; public institutions; large private companies; micro-enterprises and self-employed entrepreneurs as to how this could enhance the country’s development.

Meanwhile, former Central Bank Governor, Sir Courtney Blackman, also made an appeal for an urgent management shake-up in the public sector and in the operations of some statutory corporations to boost productivity.

While delivering a lecture on Strategic Planning for Productivity Gains, he stated: "All the activity that you [Productivity Council] would need to improve the returns from workers would come to nought unless our national productivity increases.

And it will not increase unless we drastically, significantly, dramatically enhance the quality of management in the Civil Service and in statutory corporations," he declared.

The seminar examined the findings of a study on: The Cost of Living: Determination, Duration and Frequency of Price Changes in Barbados, by Drs. Roland Craigwell and Winston Moore of the University of the West Indies (UWI) and The Popularity and Benefits of Performance-Improvement Strategies in the Private Sector, by researchers Cheryl Fitzpatrick Payne, Senior Manager, Advisory Department, at KPMG and head of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute for Social and Economic Studies at UWI Cave Hill Campus, Professor Andrew Downes.

Dr. Downes also presented the results of a probe on The Efforts and Strategies Needed to Reposition the Manufacturing Sector in Barbados.

jwilson@barbados.gov.bb

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