Government and unions meet to advance public service reform and modernization efforts

A meeting held on March 30 brought together the Government’s Union Consultation Team, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Cordel Hyde, along with representatives from the Belize National Teachers Union, Public Service Union, and the Association of Public Service Senior Managers under the Joint Union Negotiating Team.  Key areas of focus included strengthening human resource management within the public service, as well as updates on the Inter-American Development Bank-supported Civil Service Modernization Project. The initiative is designed to enhance efficiency, accountability, and overall service delivery across government operations.  Minister of Public Service, Henry Charles Usher, emphasized the importance of maintaining strong collaboration with unions throughout the reform process, noting that their involvement is critical to ensuring meaningful and sustainable changes. He added that the establishment of a steering committee could help guide discussions and keep all stakeholders engaged.

Henry Charles Usher, Minister of Public Service: “Something that we need to have the Union a part of and from the very beginning I said that that we need the support of the Unions to get this project off the ground and for it to be successful so we had some discussions on that. Recently there was a team from the IDB that came into country and were having meetings with the unions with representatives from the Ministry of Public Service so we discussed the follow-up to those meetings and what’s the next step and we want to put together a steering committee including the unions that would be guiding this project, guiding this process forward and hopefully we can get that started by the summer of this year.”

Reporter:  The meeting that IDB representatives had with the union is linked to the same civil. 

Henry Charles Usher, Minister of Public Service: “So it’s a civil service modernization program but I wanted the unions to hear from the very start what this project would do and for them to have the buy-in, for them to have the support because we will need them to be able to go back to their membership and explain to them what we’re trying to do. It is a comprehensive look at the pay grading system, converting it to from apay scale to a pay grade, looking at how public officers, government employees are compensated. So it’s something that we will need the labor, the employee representatives, the unions to be able to be a part of.”

Usher also highlighted that earlier this year, a consultant from the Inter-American Development Bank visited Belize and held consultations with union leaders as part of the broader modernization effort. He explained that those engagements have helped shape the direction of the reform process.

Henry Charles Usher, Minister of Public Service: “The person who was here from the IDB has already left. He was here in late February and early March. But he has gone back now. He has given a report to the IDB team. The IDB team is now taking it to their board so that the proposal can be approved by their board. Once we get that approval then we have to hit the ground running. There will be a project execution unit established in the Ministry of Public Service that will be guiding this project forward. And like I said a steering committee including the unions that will really be looking at the overall objectives the oversight etc for this project so it can be successful. It won’t be overnight it’ll probably take 18 months or so to be completed and we want to make sure that when it’s over we can explain to all public officers to the public what exactly we achieved by this project.”

During the meeting, participants also reviewed reports from the Committee for Enhanced Efficiency in Revenue Collection and the Committee to Evaluate and Advise on Cost-Saving Measures.