St Helena : SHG and Divestment – A Larger Private Sector and a Smaller SHG
Submitted by Saint Helena Herald (Public Relations Information Office) 01.03.2011 (Article Archived on 28.03.2011)
To help grow the private sector and make Government smaller, a new Divestment Strategy has been agreed for SHG. This follows on from previous outsourcing work that started in 2007 and takes account of lessons learnt from that exercise.
SHG and Divestment – A Larger Private Sector and a Smaller SHG
To help grow the private sector and make Government smaller, a new Divestment Strategy has been agreed for SHG. This follows on from previous outsourcing work that started in 2007 and takes account of lessons learnt from that exercise.
Overall, the strategy aims to set Government on a path of concentrating more on the work it must do, while putting other work out to the private sector.
Gillian Francis, Deputy Chief Secretary, said “previous attempts to outsource various SHG activities have not always been successful. However the new divestment strategy will help overcome the problems that were then encountered , as it sets out a different approach to achieving the ultimate aim of stimulating private sector growth and ensuring a smaller and more efficient public sector” .
Gillian explained that the strategy will require SHG to consider different options for divesting it non-core activities. These include privatisation, corporatisation with Government owning various companies that are managed by boards of directors and, contracting work out as was being done under the 2007 outsourcing programme. Also, instead of moving activities to the private sector, other options could include moving them into different Government departments to realise efficiency savings, or perhaps even moving some activities to Non Government or Charity Organisations although this last option is likely to be very rare. A final option is to stop the activity altogether if it is no longer needed.
Gillian stressed that divestment does not automatically mean that people will be made redundant. Affected staff could be moved into other parts of SHG or might even move with the activity to the private sector. Redundancies will only happen as a last resort.
SHG has had discussions with employees who are likely to be affected and will continue to communicate with them as developments take place.
The ultimate aim with divestment is to realise economic growth.
Public Relations/Information Office
Office of the Chief Secretary
24 February 2011
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