Premier Michael Dunkley has assured civil servants they will continue to be consulted on public sector reform — on the same day the Island’s white-collar union rejected proposals released by Government earlier this year.

The Bermuda Public Services Union (BPSU) issued a policy paper yesterday on the Public Bodies Reform Bill 2014, urging its members and the public to “say no” to plans to set up an Efficiency and Reform Authority to streamline and privatise some areas of government.

The report claims the proposed legislation poses a “threat” to the current terms and conditions of employment of civil servants and is evidence of Government “forcefully driving its agenda of neoliberalism”.

Mr Dunkley, in a letter to all public officers dated October 6 and shared with The Royal Gazette, wrote that Government had accepted some of the recommendations made by the Spending and Government Efficiency (SAGE) Commission in its report released last November but “much more work is required to achieve the detailed analysis needed to make some of the final decisions”.

He said the recommendations accepted by Government included:

* establishing an Efficiency and Reform Authority to evaluate public authorities for the “purpose of privatisation, mutualisation and outsourcing”;

* modifying the leadership structure, evaluation, methodology and contracts for the Civil Service executive;

* reforming human resource policy to improve performance and accountability;

* realigning, merging, amalgamating and/or discontinuing certain departments and programmes;

* strengthening budgetary planning and control systems to increase compliance and accountability; and

* reviewing public sector pensions.

The Premier wrote: “To ensure that assumptions do not contribute to confusion on the matter of public service reform, there will be open, active and ongoing consultation with the unions and public officers.

“Whilst two-way communication is vitally important, it is imperative that public officers refrain from circulating misinformation as we navigate through this process.”

He added: “It is more important than ever that we remain focused on delivering public services with the utmost professionalism as we navigate public service reform.’

The proposed Public Bodies Reform Bill was tabled “for information only” in Parliament in July and members of the public had until August 29 to submit feedback.

The policy paper from the BPSU says Bermuda Trade Union Congress sent a letter to the Premier in August indicating “grave concerns” with the bill but had not received a reply to the questions it posed.

It states: “The BPSU finds the whole exercise of public service reform to be a façade. The Act states: ‘the objective of the Authority shall be to review, evaluate and analyse the operations of public authorities to determine the best structure for streamlining public authorities to achieve the most efficient and cost-effective organisational structure and governing process for the delivery of public services’.

“This is the exact same exercise tasked to the SAGE Commission. The BPSU are of the opinion that the establishment of the SAGE Commission and the Efficiency and Reform Authority is less about true reform of the public service but designed to carry out the Government’s principal methodology of reform: privatisation.

“The BPSU believes that the Civil Service executive, which includes the Cabinet Secretary, Head of Civil Service, Financial Secretary and Permanent Secretaries possess the knowledge and skill sets to drive true reform in the public service.

“The BPSU does not support reform being driven by the private sector in the form of a SAGE Commission or Efficiency and Reform Authority.”

It goes on: “Politicians in Bermuda generally believe that senior civil servants are limited or incapable to implement policies in a timely and cost efficient manner and question if the expertise is within the service to deliver Government policies.”

The union claims the bill gives the Authority “sweeping and almost unlimited powers in relation to privatising government services and changing the functions of other organisations receiving Government funding”.

It says: “It is evident that the Government is forcefully driving its agenda of neoliberalism, an agenda that can be described as shifting control of economic factors from the public sector to the private sector.”

In a separate policy paper released yesterday, the BPSU opposed a plan for mutualisation from Finance Minister Bob Richards, claiming he either “deliberately tried to mislead the public on the success” of such civil service pension schemes in the UK or “was misinformed on the true reality”.

It questioned who was driving the agenda on mutualisation and asked: “Where is the evidence to support the Minister of Finance’s claims that mutuals will lead to a more user friendly, innovative, efficient and economical service?”

Last December, Mr Richards described mutualisation as a “process by which a service that is currently provided by the public sector is spun off into a separate entity, but the staff employed by Government providing the service move over to the new entity, not only as employees, but as shareholders of the new entity with representation on the board”.

The BPSU’s report states: “We are concerned that the Government may attempt to pass off mutualisation as something beneficial when, in fact, that may not be the case.

“The BPSU believes that there is no reason to believe that mutualisation is necessary to achieve a service that is more user-friendly, innovative, efficient and economical. These are all qualities that could be built into and should be a part of the day-to-day work of public service provision.”

The Royal Gazette asked the Department of Communication and Information for comment from the Premier and Finance Minister yesterday but received no response by press time. The Opposition was also asked to provide comment but did not.