In the wake of the outrage over the Prime Minister’s unilateral declaration last month that the public sector is not ready for a work-from-home policy, various Cabinet members have been trying to present a more forward-thinking face on this issue.

Trade and Industry Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon commended a private manufacturer for its work-from-home policy which allows 40 per cent of its staff to operate remotely. Earlier this month, she also said a digital society is the Government’s “foremost priority.”

On Monday, Planning and Development Minister Pennelope Beckles-Robinson said $1 million has been set aside in the budget to look at the feasibility of a work-from-home policy. Public Administration Minister Allyson West said her ministry was seeking to implement and enhance digital technology in aspects of its operations.

Despite these efforts, however, there is a feeling that the mask has fallen.

[caption id="attachment_980327" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Traffic jam on Frederick Street, Port of Spain. - SUREASH CHOLAI[/caption]

Indeed, the PM himself effectively stuck to his contentious claim that the public sector was not ready for remote working in a media interview last week.

And Ms West on Monday spoke of the need for certain “kinds of equipment” and a plan to engage someone “to investigate” the situation going forward.

Though the Cabinet wishes to appear pragmatic and forward-thinking, its policy distinction between the public and private sectors on a practice already accepted as standard (the public sector itself had to adopt work-from-home at the height of the pandemic) is highly impractical and embarrassingly backward.

We cannot hold the public service to different standards from those that apply in the real world. Indeed, this is the very problem so many people have with the public sector, the fact that it is not willing to implement changes needed to make it efficient.

The claim, too, that certain infrastructure is required to implement work-from-home policies has also been met with scepticism.

Jonathan Cumberbatch, vice president at the University of TT, observed, “I cannot speak to every job being laptop-based or what have you, but we do know that so much of the tasks can be done at home with a minimal IT infrastructure. I watch that traffic every morning and I cannot comprehend how someone would do this every morning.”

Saving workers from a lengthy, stressful and wasteful commute alone is enough rationale for this policy.

But as commentators such as technology writer Mark Lyndersay and others have often pointed out, remote working also allows greater productivity. There are many tools in place to allow employers to gauge how workers are spending their time and to monitor them even more effectively than if they were at an office.

Billions are spent annually on public-sector salaries, as often pointed out by Dr Rowley.

At a moment when even President Paula-Mae Weekes has been driven to complain publicly about the need for the public sector to do better, it makes no sens