Senior executives and the majority of staff members of Social Security spent some five days in retreat and workshop sessions, at La Vue Conference Centre, with two visiting facilitators, examining strategic plans to better serve the people of Anguilla while developing the organisation itself.
“We are preparing a strategic plan with a vision of where we want the social security system to be,” the Director of Social Security, Mr. Timothy Hodge, told The Anguillian. “We want to be transformed and we want to transform life in Anguilla to where we would be in 2025. The first part of this exercise is intended to take us through the next three years, and we consider it a very important exercise for this institution and its future.”
Mr. Hodge, who has been with Social Security since its inception at the turn of the 1980s, and oversaw its development by leaps and bounds into a booming, well-ordered and financially sound institution, continued: “We are working on the creation of a strategic map, performance indicators and enablers and other things which will assist us to achieve those strategies and accomplish the goals we are setting for ourselves.”
Asked how the new approach to improve the social security system would filter down to benefit the ordinary man on the street, Mr. Hodge, who is pursuing a PhD degree in Creative Leadership For Innovation and Change at the University of the US Virgin Islands, replied: “We are looking at affecting and positively transforming the lives of every individual in Anguilla by 2025. So it will filter down and will of course involve more directly those who contribute to the Social Security System and the beneficiaries. We do not live in a vacuum and all around us the economy affects what we do and need to do. That is why we need to sit down and discuss these matters in this type of setting, and often it is best to have someone who is independent to help us to provide the right answers to the right questions. It is for this purpose we have brought in Mr. Robert Wynter of Strategic Alignment Ltd. of Jamaica, and a member of his staff, to consult with us on this exercise.”
& Ms. Nicola Campbell
Pressed on social security changing the lives of its varied contributors and beneficiaries, Mr. Hodge went on: “We intend to transform lives by helping to transform Anguilla. In the Budget Speech, this week, the Chief Minister presented a vision of Anguilla ‘green, smart, resilient and inclusive’. We want to see Anguilla being that and to enable that. In that sense, we want persons to have meaningful jobs; meaningful social security coverage; universal coverage which includes national health insurance and perhaps unemployment benefits. We want to see our people in a position where the economy has grown to such an extent that there are new job opportunities for them – and we also want to see a happy and satisfied population.
“We recognise that we are not there today. There is a gap: how do we get from where we are now to where we want to be? This is what we are now meeting about. When we say that we want to transform the lives of our people directly, it is that we want to have a country where the citizens enjoy their lives fulfilled with good jobs, proper social security coverage and other well-needed opportunities.”
The Anguillian next spoke with Mr. Robert Wynter, the main retreat and workshop facilitator who was accompanied by Ms. Nicola Campbell, the company’s Client Services Manager for the Anguilla Social Security Board. Mr. Wynter was asked what he would bring to the table to enable the Anguilla Social Security System to achieve its new strategies.
“Social Security has been one of the major contributors to the growth of Anguilla as to where it is now in providing universal social security coverage, but at this point and time the Board now wants to transform itself. In other words, even though the Board has performed well so far, it wants to go to the next level and even far greater than where the organisation was before – and that is to create opportunities for everybody to work and to contribute to their quality of life. It is about transforming the organisation first so that it becomes a transformer of lives in order that the people can have a better quality of life.”
Mr. Wynter further stated: “The world is changing and as things change around us, we have to change or be left behind – and so the Social Security Board has to constantly look at itself to see whether it is organised in the best way to serve the people. As the world change, so do the needs of the people served by social security – which has to satisfy those needs.”
Questioned as to the specifics of the proposed changes, Mr. Wynter responded: “We are going through the process right now so I can’t pre-empt anything. The Management and Board are establishing the goals of the organisation as to where it wants to be. Over the past few days they have been working exactly on what you ask: how do we get there and what we need to do to get there? That will come out at the end of the process.”
Mr. Hodge made the point that he was open to change. As Mr. Wynter said, “the world around us is changing.” Anguilla is changing. It was changed by Hurricane Irma several months ago so we have to respond to changes. We cannot operate the way we operated in 1982 when Social Security started and continued in the ensuing years. We have to be prepared to transform our organisation to deliver the kind of social security coverage that is relevant – not just to the persons who pay contributions and benefit thereby, but to everybody who makes up the Anguillian community.
“By way of an example, if we forget about law and order and orderliness in the society, then our tourism economy is in trouble and persons would lose their jobs. We have to be concerned about the whole and that is what we are doing here. We are actually coming up with a new vision which is more encompassing than our previous vision which was a little more restrictive. We are serving our beneficiaries; providing socio-economic development and other services through investment and so forth. We are now saying that we want to help enable transformation in Anguilla – that is, we want to transform ourselves so that we can support our communities, invest in national development and be much more proactive than being passive investors in our national development.”
Mr. Wynter was asked how his company would provide follow-up assistance with the eventual implementation of the new social security strategies. “We are prepared, and have committed our support to be available for follow-up, especially when the game change initiatives are undertaken,” he told the newspaper. “We want to ensure that the transformation strategies are not put on the backburner, but will be actively pursued.”
Strategic Alignment Ltd. is now its 9th year and focuses on strategically transforming organisations and assisting them to develop their own strategic plans “in a facilitative, interactive and very inclusive manner.” Mr. Wynter first worked with the social security system in another capacity. Mr. Wynter was in St. Lucia and Grenada before coming to Anguilla last week.
