Will it be a better, more efficient Cabinet? That is the essential question that flows out of the restructuring hastily announced in driblets on Saturday. The question will be to a considerable extent answered by how the health sector performs. That is the main bone of contention facing Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.

It cannot be said that it did badly in the first year. The problems inherited by the government cannot be solved overnight. Space, beds and personnel do not suddenly appear by some miracle. Godfrey Farrugia micro-managed a macro-problem as best as he could. Where he did not make enough progress was in cutting medicine shortages by enough and in his relations with the unions.

Will the new political management do better? This was one of the more puzzling changes in the reformed Cabinet. Chis Fearne, the new Parliamentary Secretary for Health, may be expected to bring to his job deep knowledge about how Mater Dei does or does not work. He will need to broaden that knowledge as quickly as he can.

From what one hears about him he may also need to soften his exchanges, but the prospects are there. As regards medicines he will need a new approach if he is not to be stuck in the same main pitfall as his predecessors. In that regard he will have to review procurement with urgency to introduce qualified management personnel rather than leave it all in the hands of pharmacists.

The management aspect of the health service may explain the more puzzling of the Prime Minister’s changes. He placed health under the responsibility of the energy minister. What the two areas have in common can only be confidence in Konrad Mizzi’s success in progressing the energy sector towards Muscat’s commitment to improve efficiency and environmental considerations in power production, and cut costs.

He is said to have satisfied all that the Prime Minister has expected of him. He will bring management expertise to bear on the health sector, adding focus to strategy and leaving implementation to Fearne. It will not take much time to see if this difficult twinning is working.

Among the rest of the changes the most astonishing will be the departure of Brussels-bound Karmenu Vella, the most experienced member of the Cabinet. He has been a very successful minister with his name synonymous with his tourism portfolio. His imminent appointment only makes sense if he wanted it, probably for family reasons. Edward Zammit Lewis, his replacement, has no direct experience in the sector. But he has the capacity to learn, with the important backing of a good executive team, and the personality to build strong bridges with the sector.

Current talk is that some ministers depend too much on their civil servants. That has always been true. Ministers are there to direct, to see that the government’s policies are implemented, not to do the job themselves.

The three departures from the administrative team – Vella, Marie-Louise Coleiro and Franco Mercieca – will not be easy to substitute. The new arrivals – Chris Agius, Justyne Caruana, Fearne and Michael Falzon – will be lagging their colleagues by a year and will have to make up for lost time.

I would not say that this is a better Cabinet and managerial team than the one it replaces. But neither do I expect it to be worse. It has balance and should work. Much depends, in reality, on the Prime Minister. He heads the team. He has to coach it where necessary without going into micro-management. He still has to put into proper shape some of those he did not finger this time. The new positions will take priority, but the team has to perform as a whole.

The PM also has to build up his public relations. The way the Saturday news came out, without any facing up to the media, was the most abysmal in a string of weaknesses which seem to be taking over this area.

Muscat is likely to compen-sate by facing the media as early as possible this week. Yet the task does not depend on a one-off repair job. There has to be a system in place which explains to the people not just what is being done, but why.

As Muscat’s early odd wrinkle here and there will tell him, time flies. In politics it flies faster. In even less that Harold Wilson’s famous quip that 10 days is a long time in politics.