The Anguilla Public Service is considered to be inefficient and ineffective. Why? Because many public officers are inefficient and ineffective. Institutions and systems are usually only inefficient and ineffective because the people managing or functioning within the institution or system are inefficient and ineffective.
In the Anguilla Public Service when an email or letter goes unanswered for weeks and months, public officers have simply forgotten about it or deliberately ignored it. When calls go unreturned, a public officer has determined whether they will or will not return your call. When an office is not open to the public at the scheduled opening time, an officer has failed to arrive on time or having arrived on time has been slow to prepare to engage with the public.
Public officers, whose function it is to answer the phone, often transfer calls and disengage without waiting to ensure that the intended recipient of the call has received the call. One would think this could be solved by issuing clear instructions and those clear instructions being followed. This inefficiency is a poor reflection on the officers answering the phones and those officers charged with managing/supervising them. They contribute to the inefficiencies in the Anguilla Public Service.
Public officers are being inefficient and ineffective when members of the public present themselves at the Immigration or Labour Department with a query, and it is obvious what their concerns or difficulties are, and public officers constrain themselves to only answering the questions asked and fail to provide information that they should realise would be helpful to the individual. Too often, officers choose to be unhelpful while being unnecessarily authoritative.
When a public facing government department does not ensure that its services are available to the public during what is commonly viewed as lunchtime (12:00 to 1:00 p.m.) it is a failing of the management of that department and of the Public Service. Why are persons, despite the constant call for such services to be made available, still unable to access customs services during the lunch break? One would think that simply staggering the lunch hours for the staff would solve this issue. The failure to make a decision that addresses this issue and to implement and monitor that decision lies with the management of the Customs Department and the Public Service.
One of the greatest inefficiencies spoken of recently in relation to the Anguilla Public Service is the reluctance or outright failure of public officers to think. Yes, to think. Senior public officers appear afraid to be guided by legislation and policies intended to guide them in the execution of their duties. Despite being possessed of bachelor’s and master’s degrees many of them resort to seeking direction from the Attorney General’s Chambers, a minister, or the Executive Council rather than interpreting and applying the law which is intended to govern their departments. This leads to significant and unnecessary delays in progressing business transactions, all because a public officer was reluctant to read, understand and follow the applicable laws and policies. The absurdity of this situation is compounded when it appears that despite similar situations having occurred in the past there was no effort to obtain a general direction as to how such matters should be treated so that similar matters would not have to be subjected to the same long referral process before a decision can be communicated. This is clearly a denouncement of the officers involved, which in turn reflects poorly on the institution – the Anguilla Public Service.
When people fail, the institutions and systems they manage and operate will inevitably fail. The failings of the Anguilla Public Service must be attributed to those who manage and operate the institution and/or system.