WITH the dust settled on the marathon October States meeting, it’s increasingly hard to understand the split personalities of many of our deputies. A few months ago a majority of them felt sufficiently strongly about avoiding cabinet government to sign an open letter of support for the current system.
Why they needed to do so is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps there were shadowy moves going on behind the scenes that we knew nothing about.
Whatever the reason, it’s hard to reconcile the letter’s message with the decision by the same deputies that all the proposals flowing from the ‘fundamental spending review’ should be drawn up by the Policy Council. This means, for example, that political responsibility for proposing changes in off-island medical treatment will lie with the Policy Council, not HSSD.
Likewise, proposals for changing teacher-to-pupil ratios and farming subsidies will come from Policy Council rather than Education/ Commerce and Employment.
Whether it will work out quite like that is questionable. If the Policy Council has any sense, it will at least make these joint reports. Nevertheless, ministers have clearly been empowered to act alone by the very deputies who were so paranoid about creeping centralisation that they publicly pledged loyalty to consensus government.
So what happened? Have trusting States members been hoodwinked into transferring a large slice of departmental responsibility to a manipulative and Machiavellian corporate centre? Partly so – there certainly are a few power-hungry ministers.
However, equally to blame are weak-minded members who knew that many of the proposals flowing from the spending review would be deeply unpopular in some quarters. They’re opposed to any emasculation of their departments, except in relation to political hot potatoes, where they are happy to pass the ticking parcel to somebody else (excuse the mixed metaphor).
Add to that a few deputies voting ‘pour’ simply because they want to score brownie points by showing how ‘corporate’ they are and the result is a major step towards cabinet-style government. I’m afraid any States tends to get the corporate centre it deserves and if, in this case, that’s an increasingly powerful and rather manipulative Policy Council/T&R, then members have only themselves to blame. The trouble is, it will be hard to reverse.
Talking of manipulation, let’s turn to the other big talking point of the most recent States meeting – the firefighters’ tribunal. It’s very hard to avoid the suspicion that its costs were deliberately set against some irresistible social policy initiatives in the hope it would be dropped. While I accept that there is only one pot of money, and the same pound can’t be spent twice, the way the tribunal costs were presented in the Strategic Plan seemed designed to invite a U-turn.
Now, I was no supporter of the tribunal. Of course we desperately need to get to the bottom of the events surrounding the airport closure and its reopening. We certainly need to ensure nothing similar happens again.
However, I always thought a legalistic tribunal would be too expensive and unlikely to get to the heart of the matter. I preferred the idea of a public investigation by Scrutiny, assisted by expert panellists. This would have been better suited to consider what are essentially political issues, at a fraction of the cost.
I still don’t think an expensive tribunal is justified (particularly while bowel cancer goes unscreened), but it does seem as if some powerful deputies have attempted a ‘double shimmy’. Initially supporting a tribunal, thus avoiding a timely scrutiny inquiry, then, months later, presenting the tribunal costs in a way that invited its abandonment, leaving – hey presto – no inquiry at all into how the Guernsey taxpayer came to pay a hefty ‘ransom’.
Maybe I’m just getting paranoid in my dotage but I do see an emerging trend of growing arrogance and control freakery at the political centre and, even worse, the supine acquiescence of the majority of deputies.
Perhaps this was best summed up by the chief minister claiming he wouldn’t turn up if called to give evidence to a Scrutiny inquiry into the airport debacle.
Of course such a hypothetical boycott might never have happened in reality. It would certainly have made the CM look dreadful, just as it did when he pulled a similar stunt years ago, before backing down. But it’s shameful for the chief minister to even threaten non-cooperation with one of the assembly’s own select committees. Even Tony Blair wasn’t so arrogant or dismissive of parliament.
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A case of pass the (ticking) parcel
WITH the dust settled on the marathon October States meeting, it’s increasingly hard to understand the split personalities of many of our deputies. A few months ago a majority of them felt sufficiently strongly about avoiding cabinet government to sign an open letter of support for the current system.
Why they needed to do so is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps there were shadowy moves going on behind the scenes that we knew nothing about.
Whatever the reason, it’s hard to reconcile the letter’s message with the decision by the same deputies that all the proposals flowing from the ‘fundamental spending review’ should be drawn up by the Policy Council. This means, for example, that political responsibility for proposing changes in off-island medical treatment will lie with the Policy Council, not HSSD.
Likewise, proposals for changing teacher-to-pupil ratios and farming subsidies will come from Policy Council rather than Education/ Commerce and Employment.
Whether it will work out quite like that is questionable. If the Policy Council has any sense, it will at least make these joint reports. Nevertheless, ministers have clearly been empowered to act alone by the very deputies who were so paranoid about creeping centralisation that they publicly pledged loyalty to consensus government.
So what happened? Have trusting States members been hoodwinked into transferring a large slice of departmental responsibility to a manipulative and Machiavellian corporate centre? Partly so – there certainly are a few power-hungry ministers.
However, equally to blame are weak-minded members who knew that many of the proposals flowing from the spending review would be deeply unpopular in some quarters. They’re opposed to any emasculation of their departments, except in relation to political hot potatoes, where they are happy to pass the ticking parcel to somebody else (excuse the mixed metaphor).
Add to that a few deputies voting ‘pour’ simply because they want to score brownie points by showing how ‘corporate’ they are and the result is a major step towards cabinet-style government. I’m afraid any States tends to get the corporate centre it deserves and if, in this case, that’s an increasingly powerful and rather manipulative Policy Council/T&R, then members have only themselves to blame. The trouble is, it will be hard to reverse.
Talking of manipulation, let’s turn to the other big talking point of the most recent States meeting – the firefighters’ tribunal. It’s very hard to avoid the suspicion that its costs were deliberately set against some irresistible social policy initiatives in the hope it would be dropped. While I accept that there is only one pot of money, and the same pound can’t be spent twice, the way the tribunal costs were presented in the Strategic Plan seemed designed to invite a U-turn.
Now, I was no supporter of the tribunal. Of course we desperately need to get to the bottom of the events surrounding the airport closure and its reopening. We certainly need to ensure nothing similar happens again.
However, I always thought a legalistic tribunal would be too expensive and unlikely to get to the heart of the matter. I preferred the idea of a public investigation by Scrutiny, assisted by expert panellists. This would have been better suited to consider what are essentially political issues, at a fraction of the cost.
I still don’t think an expensive tribunal is justified (particularly while bowel cancer goes unscreened), but it does seem as if some powerful deputies have attempted a ‘double shimmy’. Initially supporting a tribunal, thus avoiding a timely scrutiny inquiry, then, months later, presenting the tribunal costs in a way that invited its abandonment, leaving – hey presto – no inquiry at all into how the Guernsey taxpayer came to pay a hefty ‘ransom’.
Maybe I’m just getting paranoid in my dotage but I do see an emerging trend of growing arrogance and control freakery at the political centre and, even worse, the supine acquiescence of the majority of deputies.
Perhaps this was best summed up by the chief minister claiming he wouldn’t turn up if called to give evidence to a Scrutiny inquiry into the airport debacle.
Of course such a hypothetical boycott might never have happened in reality. It would certainly have made the CM look dreadful, just as it did when he pulled a similar stunt years ago, before backing down. But it’s shameful for the chief minister to even threaten non-cooperation with one of the assembly’s own select committees. Even Tony Blair wasn’t so arrogant or dismissive of parliament.
What have we come to?
Article posted on 10th November, 2009 - 4.07pm