Title: Modernizing The State: Public Sector Reform In The Commonwealth Caribbean
Author: Paul Sutton
Publisher: Ian Randle Publishers (2006)
Reviewer: Raymond Forrest

If you want to follow the new thrust to reform the public sector in the Caribbean, then this is the book for that information. Written by Dr. Paul Sutton, he tries to place the attempts at public sector reform against the background of the changing role for the state, following the conservatists critique of the over-reaching state.

Split into seven chapters, Sutton attempts to identify where the reform impulse came from, explore the term 'new public management' (NPM), and then present case studies on various Caribbean states - Jamaica (article by Philip Osei); Trinidad & Tobago (Ann-Marie Bissenar), Guyana (Michael Scott), the Eastern Caribbean (his own studies, with the focus on Barbados and St. Lucia) before making a comparative attempt to compare the various countries highlighted here.

Comprehensive analysis

The 232 pages may not be fun reading for all unless you are a change expert, or public sector modernisation consultant, but it is comprehensive in its analysis.

Chapter one looks at the impact of globalisation on the search for 'good governance' in the region, (i.e. the Commonwealth Caribbean). Sutton identifies the threats that being small can pose to these countries in the face of increasing marginalisation from the centres of world dominance.

It has meant a massive shift in how the role of the state is perceived, from the pro-active state dominant role of the 1970s (where the state could actually be said to be head, cook and bottle-washer) to the facilitative role of the first decade of the 21st century, with its role being more limited to core provider for a few areas, regulator for others, and abandonment of others.

The Caribbean, he argues, is unique owing to its tiny size and therefore attempts to transpose other models used elsewhere into the Caribbean environment do not or cannot fit unless certain preconditions or supporting arms exist.

Chapter two is written on the background of this need to build an effective state to carry out this catalytic, facilitating role. One first, however, had to change the existing mode of public sector delivery (which had been operating largely through a tradition-bound civil service).

Public management

More emphasis was how to be placed on a leaner (slimmed down) public sector, with some former services shifted to be delivered by market forces or privatised to private bodies, with the adoption of new management methods. It was these new management methods that he calls new public management (NPM), which is the focus of Chapter two.

Sutton makes the compelling case that this idea emerged from the developed world, with the emergence of the 'New Right', and Thatcher and Reagan conservative government outlooks, with pro-market viewpoints, and also the development of information technology systems that could allow for more decentralised management.

Many developing regions (including the Commonwealth Caribbean) had to copy these ideas of the developed world, and it gradually became disseminated in the form of 1980s structural adjustment programmes (of IMF and IBRD fame) and foreign aid assistance.

NPM was supposed to break up monolithic agencies into multiple autonomous (decentralised) agencies; set out performance contracts, with quantifiable targets for outputs; introduce competition into the delivery of public services; and improve customer service (e.g. introduce Citizens' Charters); and develop a strategic approach to government.

Sutton goes through the Commonwealth model (starting point-Canada 1994) to its adoption from regional to national levels for those who are students of history.

Chapter three to six give extensive case studies on the attempted operationalisation of this NPM model from Jamaica, to Trinidad & Tobago, to Guyana, to Barbados and St Lucia. The findings are interesting. He found that Jamaica was the most successful at adoption (especially its executive agencies), but that there was major failures in Guyana, with moderate or modest success (if it can be so described) in the other states.

Chapter seven goes through all aspects of such policy transfers.

Conditions

Sutton concludes that while public sector reform should be much easier to achieve in the Commonwealth Caribbean, that you need several other conditions for it to be effective, what economists like to describe as necessary and sufficient conditions.

One, there has to be a high level of political leadership pushing and implementing the change. Two, you have to overcome powerful interest groups which will be opposed to reform (perhaps because of fear of loss of jobs, or seniority promotion, or loss of other entitlements under the old system).

Three, one should proceed incrementally to allow adjustment. Four, encompass this reform under a wider agenda for change. Fifth and final, reform should be 'home-grown' rather than 'foreign' in origin and implementation. One must take local ownership of the reform process to make it sustainable.

The book, therefore, throws up the hard data that can make it easier to us to analyse what a reformed public sector should be doing.

What still remains unclear is exactly what role or core processes should the Commonwealth Caribbean state be carrying out in the post-modern world, given declining (in real terms) state finances, reduced foreign aid support, high levels of outflows of human capital migration and a more competitive world. That we still have to grapple with.