On the afternoon of Tuesday, February 19th, the Social Security Board presented the public with its five-year strategic plan under the theme: Transformational Social Security.
The underlying thrust of Tuesday’s strategic plan presentation bore the hallmarks of Social Security’s vision for the next five years and beyond. That vision states: “Anguilla has been transformed into a smart, resilient, diversified, healthy, green and inclusive country with universal social security coverage and full employment; enabled by a customer-centric and technology-driven Social Security System.”
Speaking quite extensively to the moderate size audience, Mr. Timothy Hodge, Director of Social Security, said in part: “In any strategic plan, the phraseology used is very important. Over time, changes can be gradually made from one stage to another. But in terms of Social Security’s change, this change is not an incremental one. Incremental change would mean that what exists today will be just a little different in a year from now. However, our strategic plan positions Social Security as making a one-time transformational change.
“Transformation takes us from our current state to a desired future state. The way that strategic plans are presented, they are defined in the present tense. Therefore, in the case of Anguilla, we are seeing now what the image of Social Security will be in 2025, even though we are currently existing in 2019. Our mission is to transformation, and our Mission Statement is: ‘to transform the quality of life in Anguilla by providing meaningful social security, community empowerment and national development.’
“There is nothing really new about the quality of life in Anguilla, because we have always used that in our taglines – to improve the quality of life and living. Social Security exists for the purpose of improving the quality of life in Anguilla by providing that desired transformation.”
“During our first session of presentations of this plan, some asked the question, ‘why should we change Social Security,’ or ‘what is wrong with the quality of life in Anguilla today that requires change?’ Well, there are certainly areas that do need transformation. Social Security must not just be a social security system that exists. Rather, it must be a social security system that is meaningful for our people. There must be community empowerment and national development, and Social Security will be in the center of all these needs.”
Mr. Hodge stressed the importance of Social Security having a sustainable fund for transforming Anguilla’s quality of life. He noted that Social Security is a performance driven organization with a right-fit, an engaged team – the staff – which is poised to execute Social Security’s transformational strategy.
He added: “Our performance driven organization has enabled us to execute this strategy. We have the right information, resources and technology to perform this strategy. We exist in an open, trusting, respectful and customer-centric working environment, and we uphold prudent governance, compliance, risk management as well as financial and investment management.”
Mr. Hodge claimed that Social Security prided itself in having transformational leaders and managers. He said that Social Security is indeed that organization that enables the kind of transformational change that Anguilla needs.
Questions and comments from the audience were invited. These were duly addressed and, overall, the meeting was meaningful and effective.
