Historical Background

In January 2008, the then Governance Reform Secretariat was transformed into the Public Sector Reform Unit (PSRU), charged with the responsibility of providing leadership, coordination and strategic guidance in the design, implementation and monitoring of all Public Sector Reform Programmes. PSRU pursued its objective of strengthening management and administrative structures, systems and processes in the public service, by using a targeted joined-up approach to reform and consolidating the activities within the various reform components into streamlined and organized pathways. PSRU also provides technical backstopping to MDAs and strengthening engagement with the other policy environments within the public service such as Local Government, Security sector, Health sector, Teaching services and Parliament etc.

The memorandum announcement of 25^th April 2018 saw the PSRU embedded into the Civil Service Architecture as a Professional Department with reporting line to the Presidency through the Office of the Secretary to Cabinet and Head of the Civil Service. However, this re-arrangement of PSRU’s position undermines its utility optimization efforts in the public sector environment. The need to reposition PSRU and redirect its reporting through the Office of the Secretary to the President will give it the advantage and authority to communicate in real time public sector reform challenges, initiatives for strategic decision making.