‘Don’t dream, get ready’: Mario Cutajar looks back at nine years at the helm

Walking through Ta’ Qali, Mario Cutajar’s phone rings. “Isma’, Mar… inti ser tkun il-PPS,” Joseph Muscat says. No hello, just a blunt brief message. For a heartbeat, Cutajar hears PBS, a reflex from his brief pre-1987 newsroom days, until the clarification lands: “You’ll be head of the civil service.”

He had just been offered the job of principal permanent secretary by the incoming prime minister. Cutajar replies that it never crossed his mind, nor had he ever dreamt of it. “Don’t dream. Start getting ready and keep me informed,” replies Muscat on the other side of the line.

This exchange comes from Cutajar’s book, Noti (literal translation, Notes). Cutajar rejects the standard political memoir—early on he says not to expect a biography or the “I”, but a series of events, not necessarily in chronological order.

For the sections covering his nine-plus years as head of the civil service and secretary to the Cabinet (2013–2022), he keeps the focus on how government works; the small rituals and the large responsibilities at the centre of Malta’s public administration.

The second part then broadens the frame, turning to other experiences across his life, his childhood, formative years, and episodes set in his hometown, Valletta.

In the first six months of his tenure after the 2013 election, Cutajar says, the vision was set and the path to achieve it was mapped out. By September 2013, he was already saying publicly that in his first five years he wanted government services to move beyond departments, come closer to people, and focus on the client without exception, supported by an unprecedented investment in technology. Under his leadership, attention shifted to a careful review of public service processes. This enabled changes that gave clients a more efficient service that respected their needs. Services scattered across several departments were consolidated, and regional one-stop-shop centres were opened and expanded year after year, each offering around 800 government services under one roof.

Noti was released during the book fair and is on sale in book shops

Planning, he argues, was the hinge. Simplifying processes was already at the top of his agenda as the public service’s top dog, but the changes needed a plan. Yet the public service did not have a strong instinct for planning. In all frankness, he doubts whether Maltese society has a natural inclination toward planning at all, and states that we have not fully shaken off the colonial habit where the ruler decides, and people focus on their daily bread.

The difference between a dream and a goal, he says, is a deadline. In 2014, two directives required ministries and public entities to plan their human resources needs three years in advance, with operational plans covering the same period. For the first time, candidates for leadership posts had to submit a three-year work plan. They called this “3D planning” so everyone could grasp it: Define, design, deliver. His goal wasn’t more bureaucracy, but better service for citizens.

He notes that, in 2013, bureaucracy sat at the top of the Labour manifesto and, once in government, became a programme to deliver—his main brief. He argues that bureaucracy is not inherently bad—it exists in both public and private sectors and is meant to make work better and more efficient. It records what has happened and gives continuity to actions, like a textbook that saves needless re-experimenting. The real problem is excess, especially when the public service looks too far inward; that is where initiative dies.

Office ACs and ministerial cars

Mario Cutajar talking to Dom Mintoff in the foyer of the Workers’ Memorial Building in Valletta towards the end of the 1980s. Next to Cutajar (white shirt) is Lino Cassar

He illustrates the mindset with a small scene. One day, during an early onset heatwave, the centrally controlled air-conditioning in his office kept blowing hot air. Lowering the thermostat made no difference. He assumed disuse had jammed the unit and reported a fault, only to learn other offices had the same problem. The officer responsible for switching the system with the seasons said she had received no written request to change to cooling. He held his tongue. For Cutajar, these are the attitudes the public service must fix if it wants to work properly.

The same attention to procedure appears around elections. Since 1981, Malta has held general elections on a Saturday. On the Friday before polling day, the automatic resignations of persons of trust in all ministries take effect. That same day, ministers’ cars and GM number plates are returned. The police hold the cars, while the Cabinet Office keeps the plates. Once the new Cabinet is announced, the cars are reassigned and the GM plates reissued. The plate numbers show each minister’s seniority in Cabinet. The prime minister sets that seniority when forming the Cabinet, usually based on experience in Cabinet, in parliament, and in the party.

Language of Cabinet minutes

Records tell a story too, including the language used to record decisions. When he is appointed to a post, Cutajar says he always leafs through previous records related to that role. In his role as Secretary to the Cabinet, he noticed a pattern: Under Nationalist governments, Cabinet minutes were written in English; under Labour, they were written in Maltese. This is neither tradition nor rule. He believes it is a matter of instinct, because before even checking what his predecessors had done, he wrote the minutes in Maltese.

From records and routines, Cutajar turns to national mourning, where protocol meets memory. In November 2020, inside the office of Prime Minister Robert Abela, news came that Oliver Friggieri had passed away. Work paused and those present shared their memories of the poet and scholar. Cutajar recalls meeting him at Delimara and cites a photo of Dom Mintoff with Friggieri—Mintoff saying, “Let’s take a picture together... you are the spirit, I am the matter.”

When someone said protocol would not allow a state funeral for Friggieri, Cutajar replied that nothing stopped the State from giving a funeral by the State and a memorial: “He deserved it, and so it was.” He argued for Floriana as the memorial site, not only Friggieri’s hometown but a symbolic route into the capital on Triq Sant’Anna, near Dun Karm, whom Friggieri studied.

Cutajar is just as firm when he turns to culture. Despite his achievements at the helm of the public service, he says maltabiennale.art was the largest and finest project of his public career. As the driving force behind a Maltese biennale designed to sit alongside some 350 biennales worldwide, he set out a distinctive model: Each artist’s pavilion or installation is paired with a Heritage Malta site, using the heritage space itself as the setting for the contemporary art experience. UNESCO quickly recognised how closely this idea aligns with its mission.

Daniela Attard Bezzina, who was entrusted with proofreading this book and who spent two years as a member of Mario Cutajar’s staff, when many of the transformations within the public service described in Noti were actually coming to life, says: “This was not just a major overhaul, but an outright revolution spearheaded by a no-nonsense visionary, and my job at the time was to convey its message to the public in a simple yet effective way. Many years before, I had also worked with Mario Cutajar at the General Workers’ Union. Proofreading and providing other input for this book was therefore an exercise in recollection too, as I knew several of the characters he describes. Cutajar is not just a born leader. He writes exceptionally well, with an excellent grasp of the Maltese idiom and an instinct for great introductions and punchy endings. A man to be reckoned with, a book to grace any library.”