Mrs. Hyacinth Bradley and Dr. Bonnie Richardson-Lake
On Friday, January 19th, a press conference was called by the Ministry of Social Services to announce the coming on stream of a government facility called “The Community Desk Outreach”. This project is meant to sensitize the public on the way government works, and it is essentially an initiative to interface with the community by providing departmental information so that the public would be enlightened as to how government executes its tasks.
In introducing the project, Minister of Health and Social Services, Hon. McNeil Rogers, said: “This is an all-inclusive outreach and public engagement initiative which is the brainchild of Mrs. Hyacinth Bradley, our Community Services Planner. A lot of work has gone into this, and it is supported by Executive Council as well as the elected officials of government.
“These community desks will help us to educate the public with respect to the services that are provided in every ministry and every department within the government. There is the notion out there that once you are elected, you should know everything in every department of government. But this is not necessarily true. As ministers, we do not know everything about every department. There are some issues that occur in Health, for example, about which other ministers would call me, and then I would have to get on to the technical individuals to find answers. This information desk, however, helps us to take such answers directly to the communities.
“Therefore, as opposed to having informative meetings centrally in places like the Teachers’ Resource Center, for example, this initiative would reach into the communities and provide information for every sector of the island community, whether it be in Island Harbor, Blowing Point, North Side, Rey Hill or anywhere else. We are going out there so that we would be able to educate the public in general.”
The Minister commended Mrs. Bradley, for initiating the desk, by saying: “Mrs. Bradley has put together a very comprehensive program. The information desk has a particular schedule of dates for particular communities. It will address the services of education, social development, social security, health, inland revenue, customs and immigration, labor etc., and relevant authorities will be at the desk in all the various communities to educate the public, and to answer any questions that they may have with respect to how government operates.”
Mrs. Bradley was on hand to give a synopsis of the program. She began by saying, “This project shows that we are listening to our stakeholders, and those who are not public servants, and we are prepared to take into consideration their recommendations. We realize that at times persons are oblivious to the due diligence and the normal process required to acquire certain services. Persons sometimes complain about being sent to one department, which may not be the correct department they need to be at, so they are then sent to another department, and this takes up their precious time.
“The idea is to find how to make the community more conversant, and how we can ensure that they have further input in what policies and programs we have within the departments. We need to be able to further inform the public and decide what medium can be used to reach them at their level. So we are making information about government services more ‘people friendly’. The key idea here, therefore, is to decentralize public servants by taking information and education about government services out into our communities.”
In referring to the first stage of the program that was rolled out in North Hill, recently, Mrs. Bradley continued: “The community desk project is a two-fold initiative. The first presentation of a department to any community will be a ‘Who We Are” presentation. This would give the community an awareness as to who the department is. This is like an introductory presentation. Social Security, for example, made their ‘Who We Are’ presentation in North Hill lately.
“Then the second stage of the initiative will take the form of service where officers from the Social Security Board will be actually working in the community from the hours of 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. on dates that will be announced. So we would encourage persons who need to know about the due diligence process in obtaining Social Security benefits to be present at this second stage session as well. We have key public sector ministries and departments, as well as quasi-government bodies such as the Health Authority, Social, Security, Anguilla Development Board etc., who will be coming on board.”
As for as education is concerned she mentioned: “Similar presentation processes will be done by the Department of Education, as well as all other departments. In terms of education, what is going on now is that soon all exams will be done via computers. Now that we are hearing about this new trend, the question is, how informed are the parents of fifth-formers and sixth-formers about the new development? So now the responsibility of the Education Department is to go to the various communities and inform the parents about such matters. They would be able to relate to parents what the specific emerging policies now are, in education, so that parents would be more adequately informed.”
Mrs. Bradley mentioned that there is a schedule for the various communities which will be followed closely. She said, “Following the North Hill community, the schedule calls next for Island Harbor, West End, Sandy Ground, Blowing Point, Stony Ground, East End, including Pond Ground and Sandy Hill.” She mentioned that for this cycle the program will also be providing free legal advice. The Anguilla Bar Association, represented by Mr. Don Mitchell, will be on hand at every desk to provide public legal service.
In stressing the outcomes of the initiative, Mrs. Bradley stressed: “The key benefits of the community desk initiative would be to provide opportunities to promote public services and to gather information and feedback from citizens to improve public service delivery. As a result, public servants would not only be telling the public what they do, but if they are working on any policy within that department, they would also be informing the community of such. The desk will also increase accessibility to government services, providing avenues for the underserved persons to access such services.”
In complimenting the initiative, Chief Minister, Victor Banks, said: “I am very happy about this initiative. From the time the Ministry brought it to government, as a project, the entire cabinet was very enthusiastic about its implementation. In terms of the longevity of the program, the important aspect of such a project is the way it is managed. I know Mrs. Bradley is at the forefront of putting the plans and the program in place but the question is [as a new initiative]who is going to run it and manage it properly? This is a critical concern for its longevity. I am sure that this question will be answered as we do the postmortem and as we move along. But somebody has to be the ‘go to’ person to make this work. I think that this is something that must be taken on board.”
The Chief Minister continued by saying that this effort should be totally separated from politics. He noted: “I agree that politicians from both sides of the House may be involved in the process of sharing information with the public from time to time, but this information desk should be owned by the public service. The public servants have to play a community role and so, as part of their work, they should be responsible for reaching out to the public. This is a very important part of their duties. It’s good for them as public servants for it will increase their acceptance within the community.”
Questions pertaining to the functioning of this new community project were asked by media personnel, and were aptly answered by Minister McNeil Rogers and Mrs. Hyacinth Bradley.
