A picture of the female staff of the Prime Minister's Whitehall Office in Newsday's January 1, 2002 publication, greeting newly appointed Prime Minister, Patrick Manning, set me thinking of what an Executive Secretary to a Prime Minister must go through each time a new dispensation comes into power, which has been happening every five years since 1986, and in this instance after just barely one year. Particularly, when compared with Executive Secretaries in the private sector who work for one boss sometimes for more than twenty-five years; while there are others who may experience a change of chief executive officer but the company and its policies remain the same.
However, one source reports that the time when the Executive Secretary in the Prime Minister's Office was a fixed individual, has changed within recent times, as some Prime Ministers have brought in their very own private Executive Secretary, which in the first place contravenes the public service rules. Whereas, those who served in the earlier Whitehall days, I am told, enjoyed a camaraderie and are still like family, although retired. They were more mature women, not all secretaries necessarily, a lot of whom had been in Cabinet for years and were genuinely dedicated public servants who worked very hard and observed the code of confidentiality by which they were bound. These women took a certain amount of pride working in the Prime Minister's office as at the end of the day they enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing the fruits of their labour, wanting the whole venture to be a sucess, for pride of country.
However, with the ability to cut across the board, personal assistants and Executive Secretaries have been brought in by some Prime Ministers. But there still remains the other staffers, including secretaries, who are answerable to the many new Prime Ministers we have had in recent years and must deal with these constant changes. By definition, a Secretary is an individual who possesses a mastery of office skills, demonstrates the ability to assume responsibility without direct supervision, exercise initiative and judgement and makes decisions within the scope of assigned authority. It is obvious that this does not in anyway equip a secretary to deal with Prime Ministers of different persuasions and attitudes.
But says my source, what comes to the fore at that time are your basic instincts as a secretary wishing to see that your boss is successful through your co-operation. "The important thing is that one must give credit to public servants who whether it is through indoctrination or what, are aware that because you are a civil servant bosses will change, because that is the make-up of the public service." "It is amazing" says my source "no matter how close you have been to your boss, when there is a new boss it also gives you an opportunity, remembering they may come with their prejudices, that you have to prove to them that you are worthy of your position. You are first and foremost a secretary and you want to prove you are a good one."
It appears that one's mothering instincts come up a bit and you almost feel it is a baby and you have to asssist this child over the initial hurdles, even though he is the Prime Minister of the country. Since making comparisons is something one cannot help as it is a basic human trait, to say no comparisons are made in Prime Ministers as your boss, would be wrong. However, what happens along the way is that one must understand the boss has his role to play and he may be very fearful that you are biased in favour of his predecessor but the thing is as long as he can overcome that feeling, he must be intelligent enough to see if somebody is helping him.
My source is sure that you find some of the best people in the public service. "What has happened in the past is that the French Creoles took there children into the private sector and a lot of the bright ones with no connections went into the public service. There is almost a consensus on this that some of the best brains are in the service just that it is not touted because of the basic nature of the public service where bosses get the accolades, but remember the people behind them are the public servants who pave the way for them."
The public servant is therefore prepared to work with his boss and make his boss a success while the private sector relationship between the secretary and boss is different. Also the broad make up of the public service informs your mind that everything could be transient. There are many instances when bosses in the public service went to different ministries and took their own secretaries, and it may have caused rancour. The Prime Minister has to be comfortable with his secretary. whether there is rancour or not.