Wales report ‘is not about executive v. consensus’
Tuesday 26th January 2010, 2:29PM GMT.
DISCUSSION of the Wales Audit Office’s report on the States must not turn into a debate about executive versus consensus government, according to the Scrutiny Committee.
The damning report into the way Guernsey is run, released in September, identified six key areas for good governance and said Guernsey was failing in each, but it is only now being reviewed to make recommendations and reshape the States.
In a letter to Chief Minister Lyndon Trott, the Scrutiny Committee, led by Deputy Barry Brehaut (pictured), said certain arguments would take over debate and result in the project’s focus missing core issues.
‘The committee has raised with the Public Accounts Committee its concern that the lack of any clear direction has prompted an unhelpful polarity of opinion based around the fundamental structure of government and whether a move to an executive rather than consensus model is required,’ it said.
‘Unfortunately, these arguments ignore the governance issues identified in the report and move the focus away from the real problems relating to corporate and strategic direction.’
Deputy Brehaut listed some of these key themes as information and communications, transparency, decision-making, coordination, performance and accountability.
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Whilst Deputy Brehaut is right when he lists “some of these key themes as information and communications, transparency, decision-making, coordination, performance and accountability” this list should not detract from the central theme of the WAO review, that does seem critical of consensus government as practiced in Guernsey, and evidenced by the list produced by Deputy Brehaut.
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He is right that the WAO report does not expressly advocate executive government. In fact, it says that it is not passing judgement on the structure, only on the way in which the government works in practice and the results that it produces.
The report also says that our consensus government is a form of executive government, but to my mind that does not make sense and shows a miunderstanding of what an executive government is in practice – probably because the WAO are not used to any alternative forms of government.
The problem that I have with the report is that while it claims to not be pro-executive, it is quite clear that it was looking for features of an executive government.
That said, some of the content of the report is valid and the current system can be improved (or rather, the manner in which the Deputies work in the current system can be improved) so as to resolve those matters (eg, adherence to a Strategic Plan already agreed, codes of conduct, etc)
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TL said “but to my mind that does not make sense and shows a miunderstanding of what an executive government is in practice – probably because the WAO are not used to any alternative forms of government.
The problem that I have with the report is that while it claims to not be pro-executive, it is quite clear that it was looking for features of an executive government”
Absolutely correct.
The criticism of the WAO of the conduct of its own management behaviour show just of common the Guernsey problems are. “Do as I say n0t as I do”
Doesn’t excuse the Guernsey problems but is an indicator of how common they are in practice.
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Executive government is where a small number of people gather in a room and decide policy while the rest of the elected members of Parliament try to find out what is going on, as they will have had no say in the procedure. I keep saying this but it is worth repeating, democracy is best served when power is in the hands of the many not the hands of the few.
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Dave Jones
Does your buddy Lyndon agree with you? I thought he was in favour of more power for himself, almost to the point of creating a new name for it i.e. Trottocracy.
I find this very worrying, although I do concede that in the hands of somebody more able and trustworthy, a bit more power would be useful. It would enable them to get rid of the tellers of racist “jokes”, those with their snouts in the trough etc……….
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Phil
It is one of the few things Lyndon and I disagree on, although he has said in fairness to him that he does not want a cabinet or executive system,He want improvments in what we have, one other disagreement we have is on the incinerator.
There are two issues here, one is the good governance issue and the other is the system of governance, which I don’t think needs fixing; the administration side of governance is a different matter and could always stand some improvement which I support. One of the things the business community says is that we have to change to get a quicker decision making process and this can only be done with decisive leadership and a cabinet system. Not true as the following will show.
We have been able in the past to make extremely quick changes when needs must, Deputy Roffey’s was charged by the States to oversee the Foot and Mouth crisis and under his leadership the Agriculture & Countryside Board took decisive action without referral to the States and their response to the crisis protected Guernsey in the way that other executive-based governments were unable to do in their jurisdictions;
Depositor Compensation Scheme, Deputy Parkinson was charged by the Policy Council to get on and bring to the States an industry-funded DCS which was pushed through the States in a matter of weeks, while Jersey, with an executive government, was unable to act quickly and was left with the empty gesture of a government-backed scheme barely worth the paper it was written on.
Aurigny – When the States identified a risk to the security of our air links to London, a Billet was produced urgently and within three days the States had purchased Aurigny to safeguard our lifeline air links;
Company tax reform,First time around Guernsey delivered a zero-product company tax system, as required at the time, before Jersey’s executive system; moreover, just recently within days of the island receiving advice that zero-10 was “not within the sprit of the code” in the eyes of the EU, the States had an emergency Billet to debate and took again to commit to reforming company tax, thus removing us from the possibility of the EU announcing there and then that our regime was definitely non-compliant in their view.
Fuel tankers. The Policy Council was required to carry out the purchase in strict confidentiality. It completed negotiations successfully, within weeks, protecting the island’s supply of fuel, and soon after its actions were backed almost unanimously by the rest of the States.
The notion that our form of government by committees and consensus is unable to respond quickly when the need arises is a myth created by those who need to generate these sorts of myths to try and undermine confidence in our system of government with the intention of replacing it with their pre-conceived bias for cabinet government.
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