Governor Adrian Davis at a press conference
His Excellency the Governor Adrian Davis continues to speak on efforts to improve the civil service process and about the new public administration bill and regulations due to be tabled soon.
At his postponed monthly press conference on Tuesday, September 10, 2013, he introduced the topics in his opening statement. “Along with others, I think, we’re having a push on trying to improve civil service processes and the new public administration bill. The regulations are in an advanced stage of drafting, I’ve given some comments on it, I think the major change is in it as far as from my point of view is, that there is going to be a more strategic role for the public service commission, not dealing with every individual appointment or recruitment; and there will be a more rational approach to sickness absences.”
The Governor has spoken to the issue before, but said this time, “My view on sickness is that if you are sick you do not come to work, but there should not be written into regulations an entitlement to sick leave of a number of days a year because I think that system has been abused in some respects.”
He said that the current regulations, and the draft regulations he has seen, “speak of an entitlement, an entitlement to twenty five days sick leave.” He said, “I don’t think there should be an entitlement. I think there should be a principle that if you are sick you do not come to work. I am proposing that we keep the principle that you can have two days sick without being sick, saying you’re sick without a certification from the doctor, anything after that has to be certified. If the sickness becomes of such a severity that you can’t do your job then this need to be a discussion between you and the line manager.”
The Governor clarified that the idea that you can have twenty five days working days and for some reason at the moment weekend’s are not counted, “so your twenty five days is twenty five working days which seems a bit absurd, because it implies that you are sick during the week and not sick at the weekend,” he said.
He concluded that he would like to see the matter, “treated more rationally, so it doesn’t just speak of an entitlement.”
