The Cayman Islands Government paid CI$248,706.94 for a three-day Harvard course for 25 senior civil servants.

The figure comes from a Freedom of Information response dated 28 September 2026, sent by the Portfolio of the Civil Service (PoCS) to The Caymanian Journal. It covers a Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education programme delivered at the Grand Cayman Marriott Resort from 25 to 27 March 2026. Harvard was paid US$270,000, which PoCS converted to CI$226,125, and the government spent a further CI$22,581.94 on accommodation and hospitality at the hotel.

That is CI$9,948.28 for each of the 25 participants, or CI$3,316.09 per participant per day, by The Caymanian Journal's calculation from the PoCS figures. PoCS said it holds no breakdown of the Harvard fee into tuition, faculty, design or administration, and it withheld the names and positions of the 25 as personal information. The names of the government's chief officers, whom Harvard described as the participants, are published with photographs and office email addresses on gov.ky.

What the money bought

The US$270,000 was a single custom-programme fee for the design and delivery of the course, PoCS said in its 28 September letter. It was not invoiced as separate charges for faculty, tuition, programme development, consultancy or administration, so the government does not hold a cost for any of those components beyond what is in the contract and invoices.

The fee covered the nine-month design process described in Harvard's account of the programme. There was no separate charge for that work, PoCS said, and the Civil Service College's contribution was done as part of its normal duties. Travel for Harvard faculty and staff was inside the fee. No airfare, per diem or transport costs were paid separately for Harvard personnel, and none for the Cayman participants, because the course was held on Grand Cayman.

The CI$22,581.94 spent at the Marriott was described as "local delivery costs", covering "accommodation and hospitality associated with programme delivery". The letter did not say how many rooms were booked, for whom, or for how many nights, and did not separate the hotel's room charges from catering or meeting-room hire. The FOI request had asked for venue costs, meals and accommodation as separate items.

PoCS said there are no continuing financial commitments to Harvard from the engagement. Follow-up activity was included in the original arrangements, though the letter does not say what that activity is or when it takes place, and any future work with Harvard would need a separate decision, approval and contract. It said it holds no other records of spending on Harvard University, Harvard Kennedy School or Harvard Business School from 1 January 2015 to the present.

The programme ran as three one-day sessions: Leading Through Complexity and Change; Driving Change Through Power, Influence and Resiliency; and Building Effective Teams, according to the Harvard Kennedy School article of 28 July 2026 that prompted the FOI request. The two lead faculty were Nathalie Laidler-Kylander, who chairs the school's Senior Executive Fellows programme, and Hannah Riley Bowles, the Roy E. Larsen Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Management.

Samal Nauhria, the Civil Service College's project lead, told Harvard that Laidler-Kylander taught a role-coaching model and Bowles presented research on women in leadership, including a case study on former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and a set of survival exercises, which participants rated highly.

For comparison, the school's own four-week Senior Executive Fellows programme, chaired by Laidler-Kylander and taught on the Harvard campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was priced at US$26,600 per person on the Harvard Kennedy School website on 13 October 2026. That fee includes tuition, housing, course materials and most meals. The Cayman programme cost US$10,800 per person for three days of tuition, with the government paying separately for the hotel. The two are not the same product: the Cayman course was designed for one group and delivered on the island, with faculty travel inside the fee.

Who went, and why PoCS will not say

PoCS said 26 senior leaders were invited and 25 attended. One person who had confirmed a place nominated another senior leader to go instead. Harvard's article had said more than 25 officials were invited.

The Caymanian Journal's request was sent on 31 August 2026 and logged by PoCS as received on 1 September. The Portfolio answered on 28 September, inside the 30 calendar days the Act allows. It granted partial access: nine of the ten questions, covering cost, dates, venue and commitments, were answered; the one on who attended was not.

The Portfolio withheld the participants' names and positions under section 23(1) of the Freedom of Information Act (2021 Revision), which exempts a record whose disclosure "would involve the unreasonable disclosure of personal information of any individual, whether living or dead". It added that participant data is protected third-party personal data under the Data Protection Act (2021 Revision), and that under section 23(5) of the FOI Act, where that Act does not permit disclosure, the public interest test in section 26(1) does not apply.

The Freedom of Information (General) Regulations (2021 Revision), made under the same Act, set out what "personal information" covers. Schedule 1 says it does not include, for a person who holds or has held a position in a public authority, their "name and official contact details", nor information about the position or what it does.

Harvard's 28 July article said the full group of chief officers had taken part together, with every part of government represented. It named one participant: Gloria McField-Nixon, then Chief Officer of PoCS, who was sworn in as Deputy Governor on 8 July 2026, according to a Cayman Islands Government press release of that date. On 13 October 2026 the gov.ky Chief Officers page listed 14 chief officers by name, title, telephone number and email address.

The request asked not only for names but for official positions and the ministries, portfolios or departments represented. PoCS withheld those too. Section 5 of the FOI Act requires every public authority to maintain a publication scheme, and the Act's Schedule lists among the information to be published the title and business address of the principal officer and other key officers of the authority.

The Regulations also define "public interest" for the purposes of the Act. Their list includes promoting accountability for public expenditure and the more effective use of public funds, and providing reasons for decisions taken by government. PoCS's position is that this test does not arise, because section 23(5) removes it where the Data Protection Act does not permit disclosure. The letter does not say which provision of the Data Protection Act it relied on.

The FOI request asked for names "where disclosure is permitted" and for the remaining information to be released with any exempt material redacted. PoCS released the costs and withheld all participant information. Its letter says the decision can be taken to internal review within 30 calendar days and then to the Ombudsman, who supervises FOI in the Cayman Islands.

How the course came about

The government's account of why it chose Harvard is in the Harvard Kennedy School article of 28 July 2026, written by Susan A. Hughes. The Caymanian Journal found no Cayman Islands Government release giving the cost, and the article did not give one either.

Franz Manderson, who retired as Deputy Governor on 7 July 2026, told Harvard that a civil service could not call itself world class without first checking how it was performing and accepting criticism. The Civil Service College, a department within PoCS, identified the need for a tailored programme, and the government sought proposals from business and policy schools before settling on Harvard. "I thought who better than Harvard?" Manderson said. The article described the course as his parting gift to the chief officers ahead of the handover to his successor.

Monique Malcolm, the Civil Service College's director, told Harvard she had doubted a university of that standing would adapt a programme to Cayman's needs and had been pleased to find it would. Deb Iles, who retired in July as the school's senior associate dean for executive education, said the school runs about 70 programmes a year, 20 of them built for a specific client, with past government clients including India, Pakistan, Kuwait and the Crown Prince Court of the UAE. Shana Yansen, who led programme development, said it was her first overseas programme for the school, and the article said Harvard viewed the Cayman course as a model it could offer to other small island states and territories.

McField-Nixon, who attended before her appointment as Deputy Governor was announced, told Harvard the course had brought the chief officers together, that they would reconvene, and that each would be personally accountable for how they had applied what they learned. She traced the ambition to an enterprise-wide strategy adopted in 2018, when the civil service set itself the goal of becoming world class.

What the record leaves open

The Harvard article gave no cost. Neither the article nor the PoCS letter sets out what the programme is expected to produce, or how the government will measure it. McField-Nixon said the chief officers would reconvene and account for how they had applied the course, but the article gave no date for that meeting.

PoCS did not say which schools responded to the requests for proposals, how many bids were received, or how Harvard's price compared with the others. The FOI request did not ask those questions.

The CI$248,706.94 is the figure held in Civil Service College records, PoCS said. The CI$226,125 conversion of the Harvard fee was made "at time of writing", on 28 September 2026, and implies a rate of CI$0.8375 to US$1. The letter did not say when Harvard was paid or at what rate.

The letter also leaves the substitution unexplained. One of the 26 people originally confirmed did not attend and nominated a colleague in their place. PoCS did not say who withdrew, who went instead, or whether the replacement was a chief officer.

The participants' names remain withheld. The FOI Act gives the applicant 30 calendar days from receipt of the decision to seek an internal review, after which an appeal lies to the Ombudsman. Whether 25 senior public servants attending a publicly funded course in their official roles are protected by section 23 is a question the Portfolio has answered one way and the Regulations' Schedule 1 addresses in different terms. The internal review and the Ombudsman are the bodies that can settle it.