Many po­lit­i­cal lead­ers of vary­ing per­sua­sions and na­tion­al­i­ties com­plain of the lim­i­ta­tions placed on their pow­er or ef­fec­tive­ness by the pub­lic ser­vice. There have been many at­tempts in dif­fer­ent ju­ris­dic­tions to im­prove the ef­fec­tive­ness of pub­lic sec­tor in­sti­tu­tions and make them more rel­e­vant to lo­cal cir­cum­stances. It should be not­ed that re­forms bor­rowed from oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions of­ten fail in im­ple­men­ta­tion.

Crit­ics of the mod­i­fied West­min­ster mod­el as prac­tised in T&T of­ten point to the gru­elling ex­am­i­na­tion of Cab­i­net ap­point­ments in the USA as an ex­am­ple of trans­paren­cy to be em­u­lat­ed. Crit­ics have al­so called for a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment to abol­ish the Ser­vice Com­mis­sions and to give politi­cians the pow­er to ap­point per­ma­nent sec­re­taries and se­nior pub­lic ser­vants.

The process to ap­point the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and deputies was legal­ly amend­ed in 2006 to in­clude Par­lia­ment. This “new” process may be mar­gin­al­ly more trans­par­ent but has been dogged by con­tro­ver­sy since its in­tro­duc­tion. The 2006 change has not im­proved the per­for­mance of any com­mis­sion­er or the TTPS.