The announcement by civil service head Mario Cutajar that new regulations are to be drafted by the end of the year on the employment of persons of trust in government employ is very welcome news.

There are over 500 people employed on a trust basis under this administration, including Mr Cutajar himself. When the civil service has over 30,000 people on its payroll, it is incredible that Cabinet ministries need to resort to so many from outside the service. The logical explanation is that positions of trust are simply an excuse to provide jobs for the boys. Mr Cutajar denies that, of course.

According to him, such a large number does not constitute abuse but is the result of unclear regulations. Shoving the responsibility for this on the “previous administration”, Mr Cutajar also said the Public Service Commission is investigating 11 cases where people employed in positions of trust by the previous government received permanent employment just before the last election.

Mr Cutajar thinks there are clear-cut examples, like secretariats of ministers, where people are employed on a basis of trust, but less obvious ones when advisers are engaged. That statement is difficult to reconcile with, to mention just a few examples, Equalities Minister Helena Dalli’s employment of five drivers on positions of trust, former minister Godfrey Farrugia’s recruitment of four messengers or, incredibly, the employment of a dog handler at the Civil Protection Department on a ‘position of trust’.

The problems do not stop there. All members of former home affairs minister Manuel Mallia’s private secretariat were retained on the government payroll after the minister made his inglorious exit over a year ago. So were those of Dr Farrugia. This despite instructions, ‘Engagement of staff for ministers’ secretariats’, issued by the Office of the Prime Minister in March 2013, which said that members of private secretariats who are not civil servants should not continue to serve in government when the minister goes.

True, these former secretariat members are now serving different roles but, surely, this should not be happening and has nothing to do with “unclear regulations”, as Mr Cutajar claims. This is employment in the public sector, albeit temporarily, outside the official structures of public service recruitment for which the Public Service Commission is responsible.

The situation is different with advisers, although also a source of controversy, such as outgoing Labour deputy leader Toni Abela’s multiple consultancies to the government. By definition, advisers are people who provide a particular expertise and are immensely different from members of secretariats within ministries who invariably include customer care officers that are purely political, if not partisan, appointments.

There is another area that the civil service chief needs to address and that is the public behaviour of people in positions of trust. People in such positions are directly associated with the government that appoints them and any comments they make, especially on social media, can never be classified as personal opinions. And yet, again and again, we are faced with offensive, racist or partisan comments from some of these appointees. Nothing ever appears to happen to them, not even a public scolding.

Mr Cutajar is correct in saying that clear rules are required for appointments to positions of trust. However, he must understand that much will also depend on the ministers who make the appointments, on their sense of responsibility, their propriety and on the quality of their appointees.

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