Cayman Islands Government Information Services chief Angela Piercy announced Thursday that she’s leaving her post.
We at the Caymanian Compass have always found Mrs. Piercy to be pleasant and professional in her job and we agree with government officials that it is good to know Mrs. Piercy will be taking another post as head of communications for the Financial Services Secretariat. It is our view that Mrs. Piercy is one of several accomplished and talented public relations professionals employed in government who are, unfortunately, struggling in a system that is not working. Mrs. Piercy’s appointment as head of communications for the secretariat begs questions about government’s oft-stated efforts to “centralise” media communications through one office – namely Government Information Services. These “centralisation” efforts for press communications always sound great, in theory. Having a “one-stop-shop” where the press can get all its questions answered seems to be the most efficient way to deal with public communications. What happens in reality is that no one in government wants to go to this “centralised” service. This is shown in the fact that there are separate media relations officials for various entities around Cayman including police, the governor’s office, the Department of Tourism, the public financial services sector (including Cayman Finance), hazard management, the Premier’s office, the Health Services Authority, Cayman Airways, the Cayman Islands Airports Authority, the Civil Aviation Authority, the Water Authority-Cayman, the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, the Postal Service, etc. etc. etc. We’re sure someone here will say “but most of those are statutory authorities and not central government”. To the average person, what does that matter?
To us, it makes more sense for these entities to have their own communications people. But what then would be the job of GIS?
We’re not advocating anyone lose their job. But it not be more advisable to separate GIS and send its current employees to work at individual departments? GIS has simply become an added layer of bureaucracy the media has to fight through to get information. It’s impeding the process and it isn’t working.
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If departments hired individual staff, that would just increase the size of the civil service. That would be another editorial. So that’s not a good option. If government would do as it said it would do and actually give information, the problem of your information block would go away.