The Bhutanese Leading the way.
One of the most regular features of the Cabinet was that it met every week to take important executive decisions for the government, and also for giving the final green light for policies, rules and even Bills.
However, after the creation of the Committee for Coordinating Secretaries (C4CS) the Cabinet has decided to meet every alternative week to give time to the C4CS to look at matters and make recommendations.
The idea is that when the cabinet meets in the second week there is always an agenda for the Cabinet on the decisions taken by the C4CS.
Prime Minister Dasho (Dr) Lotay Tshering said, “We used to meet every Tuesday but now that we have C4CS or four coordinating secretaries, I told them that if they can take the responsibility up and try to study all the cases. Whatever approval they can give they can give with information to the Cabinet or even everyday if the Cabinet Secretary being the head of the C4CS and myself being the head of the Cabinet agree.”
“If the two of us agree she has to convince C4CS and I have to convince my cabinet and from my side there is absolutely no problem,” added the PM.
He said certain levels of decisions making has been delegated to the C4CS, otherwise there is no use to have it. The PM said the majority of the decisions of the C4CS will be around implementation and coordination.
“I would say the number one role of C4CS is coordination and that is what is actually lacking,” said the PM.
Lyonchhen said for them to coordinate they also must have a decisions making authority.
“They don’t need to ask the cabinet for everything. I said certain things you can decide,” said the PM.
The PM said the government needs efficiency and they cannot wait and now that they have C4CS the cabinet has given them the responsibility and authority and if they want to they can even approve things. “We have no problems with that.”
“Even on information I told them if they don’t want to inform then I don’t mind but if there are any complications they will have to bear the consequences. That is called responsibility and accountability. If they want responsibility, then they must be accountable,” said the PM.
He said we don’t lack much on ideas and are all experts at identifying problems, but we
lack solutions and implementing the solutions that have been identified.
“If we have implemented around 50 to 60% of what we have talked about we will be a much better society.”
The PM said the limitation on giving the C4CS eve more approval powers is that most of the decisions that needs cabinet approval are coming from major agencies where C4CS may not be able to decide and those ones will go to the cabinet.
“Where legally it has to be endorsed by the Cabinet I also have no authority,” said the PM.
He said for what legally does not have to go to the cabinet his cabinet friends have given him 100 percent authority to accord approval so that way the need to meet has reduced.
“Whenever, required we will meet and when not required we will wait for the second week,” said the PM.
C4CS roles
The Committee for Coordinating Secretaries (C4CS) has the four Coordinating Secretaries heading the four clusters of Governance, Economic, Social and Security.
RCSC intentionally handed over a broad Terms of Reference (ToR) to the C4CS to not limit its functions and roles and the C4CS is further fine tuning it to meet all kinds of situations.
It is supposed to be central coordinating body within the Civil Service for five year plans and resource allocation for submission to the Cabinet, coordinate implementation of national plans and policies, and cabinet directives that require cross sectoral coordination.
It will resolve cross cutting or implementation issues amongst agencies and manage performance of agencies assigned to them and ensure alignment of respective cluster outcomes to national goals.
It will identify policies and programs for evaluation and review evaluation reports for submission to the Cabinet.
The C4CS will ensure that the communications, accountability to performance results chain, and reporting accountability along the results chain are made clearer and sharper within the Civil Service.
The PM and Cabinet Ministers can look to one Secretary accountable for policy outcomes by cluster.
