Twenty-five senior public officers will participate in a five-day training aimed at strengthening the policy development process across Government beginning this Wednesday.

The Cabinet Office has partnered with the Royal Institute of Public Administration (RIPA) International in the United Kingdom to deliver the workshop entitled, ‘Developing Effective Policy:  Analysis and Use of Evidence’. 

Cabinet Secretary, Ms. Sandra Ward said the Cabinet of the Virgin Islands has the constitutional mandate for the formulation of policy. She added the Cabinet Office has identified this training as one way to assist in strengthening the policy development process throughout Government. 

The primary objective of the workshop is to enable participants to make critical judgements about evidence from research and evaluation, and learn how this fits with other factors that influence and inform policy-making. The training is also intended to support better decision-making throughout the different stages of the policy process by placing the best available evidence from research and evaluation at the heart of it.

The workshop will be facilitated by Dr. Philip Davies, a leading figure in the development of evidence-based policy in the United Kingdom.  Dr. Davies has lectured and consulted in this area across the world. He was a senior civil servant in the UK Cabinet Office and Her Majesty’s Treasury from 2000 to 2007 with responsibility for policy evaluation and analysis.

The workshop targets senior public officers with responsibility for drafting Cabinet policy papers, and representation will come from all Ministries, including the Governor’s Group. The training will commence with an opening ceremony on Wednesday, September 30 at the Public Service Training Centre in the Betteto Frett Building at 9:00 a.m. 

His Excellency the Governor, Mr. John S. Duncan, OBE and Premier of the Virgin Islands, Dr. the Honourable D. Orlando Smith, OBE will deliver remarks.  Cabinet Secretary, Ms. Sandra Ward will chair the proceedings.

The Developing Effective Policy: Analysis and Use of Evidence workshop is the first in a series of training sessions to be organised by the Cabinet Office that will focus on various aspects of policy development. It is part of Government’s commitment to enhance the policy capacity of public officers through training and professional development.