Government's decision to rotate three Permanent Secretaries to new Ministries is an unfortunate example of a logical idea taken to an illogical extreme.

Under the moves, Permanent Secretary of Health and Social Services Derrick Binns will be moved to Works and Engineering, Permanent Secretary of Works Russell Wade will go to Environment and Environment Permanent Secretary Brian Rowlinson will go to Home Affairs.

The Permanent Secretary of Home Affairs? In the move that apparently started it all, Robert Horton has to go on holiday for four months due to a backlog of vacation time and will return to an as yet unannounced position.

As for Health, long-time Ministry official Luelle Todd will act in that position for an unknown period of time.

There is nothing wrong in principle with senior civil servants taking over other Ministries. David Saul and Mansfield (Jimmy) Brock were Financial Secretaries after being in charge of Education, while Walwyn Hughes did the same after heading Environment. The current Financial Secretary, Donald Scott, was in charge of Health before taking up his current post. And Michelle Khaldun and Mark Telemaque came from the private sector to head Education and Transport, areas in which they had no technical qualifications or experience.

In many cases the civil servant who heads a Ministry needs to first be a good manager and leader and second a technical expert in all the areas he or she will be required to oversee.

Nonetheless, to have a cadre of top managers without any technical knowledge in the areas they are expected to manage is also dangerous.

First, some of the Ministries are by their nature highly technical and there is the risk that even the best manager will be "snowed" when presented with options by subordinates.

Second, there is a risk that civil servants who have studied and worked in particular areas are being sent a message that those qualifications and experience count for very little when the time comes for promotion.

In this particular case, it would seem that these moves were triggered by Mr. Horton's forced vacation. Assuming that there was no senior civil servant in Home Affairs who could act in his capacity, it might have made sense to put another Permanent Secretary there on a temporary basis while that post was filled by another acting senior civil servant from below the Permanent Secretary level.

That would have achieved two things: It would have given the Permanent Secretary exposure to another Ministry and it would have given a potential top civil servant a taste of life at the top.

Instead, Government will have four Ministries headed by experienced managers short on technical expertise and, with the exception of Mrs. Todd, no up and coming Civil Servants will benefit.