Dear Sir,

I wish to comment on the Public Service Commission Amendment Regulations 2016 published in Bermuda Government Official Notices — BR 114/2016 (The Royal Gazette, December 7, page 40).

There are problems with the amendment, the most contentious of which is that the amendment extends the role of the Public Service Commission from an “impartial appointing authority” for senior civil servants to a “politicised semi-executive body” that will set performance goals for senior civil servants (clause 22A).

The PSC role becomes “politicised and semi-executive” because it will now intervene between the government of the day and the senior cadre of civil servants who work with ministers to deliver the Government’s political agenda.

The change is so fundamental it raises the question of whether the Governor is stepping beyond the authority given to him by the Constitution. I am aware that the original draft of these contentious amendments was deemed unconstitutional by the Attorney-General’s Chambers.

Major changes to the role of the PSC, as contemplated by the Governor, would properly require a Constitutional Conference. Such a conference has not been convened to consider the Governor’s desire to extend the role of the Public Service Commission.

Civil servants are in a state of disquiet about the implications of the amendment.

The Cabinet Office issued a statement to inform the public that the PSC Amendment Regulations 2016 were prematurely published and that discussions were continuing. We shall see.

Apart from intruding into operational matters of the running of government, the amendment has not been thought through fully, as it does not speak to how the Public Service Commission will manage the outcome of a snap general election that could have an impact on the annual performance goals it has set for senior civil servants.

There are other oversights. For instance, the amendment does not set out the competence requirements of likely appointees to the PSC to discharge the new “semi-executive” function.

Further, the drafting of the amendment was sloppy in that it fails to identify section “22B(1)” in the published text of the notice.

Finally, will the missteps in this process cause Bermuda’s taxpayers to pay more for “support staff” at Government House and perhaps elsewhere in government?

DONALD SCOTT