See-saw ministers brush off Hadley’s call for them to quit
Friday 26th March 2010, 1:00PM GMT.
Chief Minister Lyndon Trott has been accused of a lack of leadership. (Picture by Peter Frankland, 0937412)
MINISTERS who changed their mind over the incinerator have been called on to resign.
But the Policy Council members in question dismissed the call out of hand.
Deputy Mike Hadley said the lack of leadership displayed by Chief Minister Lyndon Trott, Public Services minister Bernard Flouquet, Culture and Leisure minister Mike O’Hara and Treasury minister Charles Parkinson made their positions untenable.
‘By vigorously pursuing the adoption of the Suez proposal and now ditching it, the Policy Council has wasted millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money and shown that they are not fit to hold office,’ he said.
Deputy Flouquet had shown a lack of faith in his own policies, he said, and Deputy Trott had exhibited an inability to lead.
‘The Treasury minister, Deputy Charles Parkinson, has lectured us on good governance and the need to be careful with the States’ money and has now approved a change in policy which completely ignores the principle that he espoused.’
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Mr Hadley
That’s Democracy or ‘mob rule’as you so nicely put it
Time to stop digging your hole before it gets too deep to ever have a chance of making it onto the Policy Council
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I think all those that voted for the requete should be forced to resign, due to bad governance. I also think Trott and Flouquet should join them.
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I cannot believe Deputy Hadley’s comments.
So our leaders are being asked to resign because they acted in the best interests of the Guernsey people by making the correct decision and saved us wasting an infinitely greater sum by going with the wrong decision ? Common sense has prevailed.
I can well understand the clamour for Deputy Flouquet’s resignation – for multiple reasons he should have gone long ago – but not the others. In my view they have shown proper leadership and made the correct decision.
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In my view there are NO states member that comes out of this shining and personally feel there should be an election to replace ALL of them
Has any states member learned anything from the last decade?
Proposal 1 – Give you a brief, we let you spend millions and after a few years we bring a requette (S Ogier I believe) and please go back to the drawing board
Proposal 2 – like proposal 1 for a few years, we will pass it, start planning, spent a few million. Along comes a requette (no point challenging early in process or challenging the brief as who cares years of planning are wasted let alone the money) and lets start again….
Deputies jump ship and people wonder why all of you are laughed at.
Sort the decision making process out from initial proposal and at final stage for multi million pound project is should be a simple case of states agreeing it meets the scope and criteria originally set. The next strategy could easily go the same way
CLOWNS THE LOT OF YOU AND I GIVE YOU ALL A VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE.
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Flouquet should be gone, FACT.
As for the rest I think they must learn from this debacle.
We needed to know the alternatives to Suez and the cost of the alternatives and we needed to know this before we considered Suez seriously.
Flouquet and his board should have provided as much of this information as was reasonably expectable and for that reason he should be gone.
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Mike Hadley has no understanding of numbers I’m afraid.
I recall him saying live on radio that it would take “billions” to increase our sea defences. Work that out on a per mile basis and see how ridiculous it is.
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Simon
Deputy Flouquet has done what the States asked him to do and that was recognized by many States members who were apposed to the Suez contract during debate on the Lowe amendment, It is the States as a body that got it wrong and made a pigs ear of the whole issue, not PSD. when they (the States) finally woke up and pulled back from the brink PSD and Dep Flouquet got the blame for it, in fact they were blamed by both camps, the pro incinerator lot accused them of not getting out there and selling the project to the public hard enough and the anti incinerator lot blamed them for bringing forward a solution they didn’t want, even though they were clearly instructed to do so by successive assemblies of States Members. Also Bernard had the added problem of dealing with members of his board changing their minds during that debate, something which they were perfectly entitled to do and which had a profound outcome on the final states decision, so blaming Dep Flouquet is demonstrably unfair, he is a Minister with one vote and like all of us is subject to States decisions however perverse they may seem depending on which side of the argument you are on. I had a two hour meeting with Bernard yesterday and he is signed up absolutely to the new direction of the States and I have no doubt at all that he will support Scott Ogier fully in finding the right way forward for this community with a new energetic replacement on the board I believe we will see some of the initiatives coming forward from PSD reasonably quickly.
And further, in case you missed this on another thread, we are not starting from scratch and much of the money that has been spent already has not been wasted. The first thing to say is that a substantial amount of these costs went on preparing Longue Hougue for any facility that was going to be built there, An electricity sub station had to be moved at the entrance to the site and the road widened amongst other site preparations, that is not wasted money as the site is already being used as an inert land reclamation site and whatever facility eventually goes there this preparation work would have had to be done. You also have to remember that this massive land reclamation is adding millions in land value to the States of Guernsey, what would you think that site would be worth on the commercial land market? The revenue from that inert tip alone went a considerable way to off setting the costs on the tender process for a solution you also have to remember that even back at the time of the Lurgi proposals the tip fees increased year on year to cover the costs of the procurement process and many millions over the last ten years since that abortive project have been recovered but of course that is the bit the you are not being told because it doesn’t suit the argument for scrapping the Suez proposals. Now I am not trying to pretend for a moment that money has not been wasted on going completely in the wrong direction on this issue but as I said a huge amount of these costs have already been recovered by those who dump their waste in all our landfill sites over a long period of time, I agree with David on this we would have been burning millions more over the next 25 years locked into a contract that was not the best deal for Guernsey. One other thing I want to say is that we are NOT as some would have you believe starting with a blank sheet of paper, there has been a huge amount of work done already on more intelligent solutions so we are not having to re-invent the wheel. We have the Dadd report and the people’s panel report together with reams of ideas and proven solutions on waste minimisation and waste reduction from places already doing it successfully. I believe that we can minimise our waste considerably and then treat what we have left with some small modular solutions like Anaerobic digestion together with a small Pyrolosis Gasification plant to deal with the rest, the important point is that neither of these solutions will produce a highly toxic by product (toxic ash) that will cost us many millions over 25 years to deal with.
Our rubbish only becomes rubbish when we mix it in a black sack, in many Scandinavian countries they keep all the packaging from consumer goods separate and dry, it is sent for re-cycling which just leaves food waste and disposable nappies etc which at present is little more than about10% of our entire black bag waste, so if we don’t contaminate the dry recyclables by chucking food stuffs and other nasties on top of them, then the amount of actual rubbish will be vastly reduced. We can do this as a community; we certainly do not need to spend the thick end of 100 million on an incinerator. Everything else can be recycled, wood, furniture metal, aggregates, plastics and the usual household item such as glass, tins, cans, milk cartons etc. We can also recycle masses of commercial waste and turn it into useable products for other industries there are several web sites that can show you how this is done. We have to ship an amount to Jersey until we get our solutions up and running and I am not opposed to that for a very short period say 3-5 years if it is possible but I know one thing there is a real determination to get behind Scott Ogier on this by a large number of States members and I believe we will start to formulate a workable waste management plan reasonably quickly once all the obstructions have been removed.
Finally I know this was a hugely contentious issue and there are strong opinions still on both sides but the legacy we leave our children and our grandchildren is hugely important to all of us and I never thought that legacy should be incinerator shaped.
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I suppose that whenever there is a heated debate on a contentious subject involving costs and delays, there will be those casting wildly around for scapegoats to blame. Sometimes no one is to blame, sometimes everyone is to blame.
In the case in point, I think many of our deputies have shown weakness, vacillation and naked, populist tendencies. Flouquet is one of the few to have little to be ashamed about in this affair and has to some extent redeemed his reputation after his blunder in the “gollygate” incident.
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Dave Jones
Thank you for your reply. As I have already stated I share your view that its not only Mr Flouquet that has got this wrong but “the states as a whole” argument is not one Im keen to accept. Our states are made up of individuals and it is the words and votes of those individuals that are under the microscope here!
For me, Mr Flouquet more than anyone lead the cause for the incinerator and made it clear that he would go if it did not happen. Maybe I got caught in the headlines!! But please tell me did I misunderstand what that meant too?
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Ted
Seriously you think this redemtious by Flouquet!
Personally I think him beyond political redemtion.
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Sorry Ted I’m missing some pppp’s there :-)
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Simon
The reason I said the States as a whole made a pigs ear of the issue, is that PSD gave them several opportunities to take a different path which they chose not to do, even one brought by Deputy Flouquet that would have taken any form of incineration out of the equation altogether, that offer was soundly rejected. You are right Simon when you say that the States is made up of individuals but it is their collective vote that counts at the end of the day. The Minister of PSD did lead the charge on the Suez option as you would expect him to do, he is after all the Minister of that department and it is what the States chose consistently for the waste solution. Further they kept telling him and his board to get on with it. Which they did, right up to the point of choosing a preferred contractor. Now wind forward a couple of weeks, clearly at least two members of his board and a majority of States members did not have their heart in it and at the final stage bailed out over choppy waters into the nearest life raft, leaving PSD and its pilot deputy Flouquet the only option, which was to ditch the plane.
Ted is right, all of us are to blame although some of us never changed our minds on this matter from day one but we should have rejected it much sooner if that is how we really felt but we didn’t and that was not good government, we all led PSD up the garden path and then blamed them for our collective cowardice. None of us should feel particularly proud of this affair. I am happy that we made the right decision in the end but perhaps if I had found a bit more courage last July to ask the States to reject the whole thing instead of asking for a breathing space to think about what we were doing and the massive costs, we could have moved on much sooner, I didn’t and for that I can only apologies.
As for his resignation, what I heard him say on a phone in programme, was that he would resign if the Suez plant failed, in other words having paid for it and had it built, if it turned out to be a financial and operational disaster then he would resign. It was a generous offer I thought at the time as he would have had to be re-elected in 2012 for him to be able to deliver on that promise if need be but nonetheless that was what was said. All of that is now academic as we will now not be having an incinerator.
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Dave
Thanks for taking the trouble to reply swiftly.
One issue that is troubling me is that of Mr Flouquets decission not to vote with deputy Spruce. Surely he should have been able to rely on his ministers support? Mr Flouquet had been totally in support of Suez on every other occassion!
should not Flouquet,Parkinson,Trott et al have been clear with Mr Spruce that they had now decided against incineration?
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Simon
Their vote changed when Deputy Lowe amendment went through on that Friday evening. The PSD minister and the Treasury minister together with the Chief Minister decided to stick to that decision which was 38-2 to go for waste minimisation. Deputy Spruce did not like that result and was trying to get the Suez contract re-instated under the guise of so called clarification. It was as clear as a pike staff that the majority of the public didn’t want Suez and I think Charles Parkinson summed up the feelings of all 3 senior ministers when he said in his speech that the best interests of government would now be served by starting with a clean sheet. You also have to remember that Deputy Spruce was one of the 38 and so were 7 of the other signatories who voted FOR the new direction. So on this occasion it was Deputy Spruce and his cohorts who changed their minds within a few days, not the ministers. You also have to recognise that two other members of PSD voted with the 38 so the majority of the PSD board had changed their minds and deputy Spruce was in the minority even on his own board at that point.
You are absolutely right Bernard had been in support of Suez as it was what he was instructed by the States to bring back but once the Lowe amendment went through, Suez was no longer on the table and in a very good speech at the end of that debate he promised to get behind the new direction and stuck to that decision right through the abortive attempt at getting Suez back in play. I think that showed strong leadership at that point and was exactly the right decision for all 3 senior ministers. Deputy Flouquet was never going to win as PSD minister everything changed that Friday evening and most of the States members accepted that, the Spruce Requete was ill conceived and in my opinion was doomed to failure the moment it was lodged, you might argue that it was public opinion that fatally wounded Suez and I think to a large extent that was true but the 38-2 vote was always going to be a difficult one to completely overturn.
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Simon.
They made that quite clear in the Feb vote.
It is the 14 who changed their minds between the Feb and Mar votes that concern me most.
The Spruce gang keep accusing BF of “Jumping ship”
he did no such thing.
They may have assumed that he would switch sides, and read it wrong.
Sour grapes
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Hurrah
An incinerator thread full of common sense and reasoned debate.
I have a shock induced nose bleed, I’m going back to bed!!
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Dave
I guess you have helped clarify my own thoughts.
I have issue with BF being totally committed to Suez until it got thrown out. The vote after that was taken with Suez off the menu so it is not an issue for me that a new direction was fairly unanimously set( it was a vote that was Suez free).
The Spruce vote included Suez and as BF was the minister leading the charge for Suez I would have expected him to be consistent and vote for Suez whenever it was a possibility. He had believed in it on every occassion.
In my view this was POPULIST, and showed little conviction from an already unpopular figure. For the record I dont think him the only sinner on this issue.
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Simon
Bernard was committed to the direction the States instructed him and his board to go forward with on more than one occasion as I have said before, at the time it was Suez. Simon you say “he believed in it (Suez) on every occasion” well he believed in the job he was given to do by the States, so did his board and that included Scott and Tom le Pelly. The States has now made it clear that they do not want incineration and they want to pursue a waste minimisation and recycling strategy before settling on the final remedy for what is left. As minister he is now fully signed up to this new strategy and once a new board member has been elected by the States they will I am utterly convinced move forward very quickly. The Spruce Requete was an attempt to resurrect Suez, you are quite right but Bernard stuck to the commitment he gave the previous month when Suez was thrown out by the Lowe amendment along with the other 37 members of the States. I think that showed commitment by him and recognition that whatever he and his board had previously thought about the Suez option the States and the majority of the people of Guernsey didn’t want it. I certainly don’t think it was populist, as Bernard has already indicated that he will be leaving the States at the end of this term.
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Dave
You are being somewhat selective in stating BFs intention to leave the states.
As you pointed out yourself he could not resign a failed incinerator unless he was re-elected!! Hence my view remains this was a desperate change of direction from mr unpopular.
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As you say simon it is your view.
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The real villians are the ones that voted these bandits in.The Locals must wake up at the Polls ,dont vote for Qinney just because he dated your Gran ,nor Lyndon because you may of changed his nappy or John because you spoke on a bus ,we must vote for some intelligent leaders that can run this Island with some foresight…
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Dave
You have said PSD was only following the States’ instructions. This is technically correct but, as former Deputy Roffey has pointed out, much of the power in our system resides in the formulation of policy; in the writing of the Reports and the propositions presented to the States. It was PSD and the Environment Department before it which wrote the orders regarding waste disposal that the States then instructed those Departments to carry out.
Of course Deputies have proposed amendments or brought requetes but the Departments have the momentum and the back-up. This is illustrated by the failure, until February/March this year, of any Deputy to derail the policy, embedded in the Waste Disposal Plan since January 2007, that we should procure an EfW plant. The only successful attempts to change that policy were of a relatively minor nature eg the possibility of alternative heat-treatment plants and/or of modularity.
Portraying Ministers as being the humble servants of the States, simply doing the States bidding, does not really give the complete picture.
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Shane,
Your first paragraph is entirely correct, and explains very succintly why initiatives that are being undertaken in ways that conflict with our system of government (e.g. States Strategic Plan, Fundamental Spending Review, greater role for Policy Council sub groups) simply will not work.
It is bizarre and quite alarming that, among all the talk of improving governance, the Policy Council and the wider States seems to have disregarded this single most significant failure of governance.
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Shane I disagree.
The States have the ability to throw out any policy brought by a Minister on behalf of their department. PSD brought several options to the States throughout this waste management process before deciding on the final method of treating the waste residue. Members were not duty bound to vote for any of them, also not everything Peter Roffey says is true, formulating policy is not power in any sense that I recognise it, the real power lays in the hands of the States as a collective body, Formulating policy might be considered as a compass bearing pointing the States in a specific direction but the rest as you know is left to democracy. It matters not one jot whether policy has taken a considerable amount of time to put together, nor how many civil servants advocate it as a way forward, the elected members will decide in the end on what they believe is right. In the past most advice from civil servants was accepted by states members as read, that is no longer the case, as politicians have come to realise that not everything written in the Billet is entirely accurate and it is often the information that is missing that is more important than what is read. When you think back to the blind obedience of States members in the past in accepting almost everything they were told as authentic, it was that deference that led to bad policy, bad decisions and millions in overspends on projects that we had been advised were on time and on budget with much of that information coming from departments and their civil servants.
I think Shane what derailed the waste disposal plan in the end was public opinion and the nagging feeling many states members had that somehow the Suez option just wasn’t
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Shane
You are spot on. Seems clear to me that Bernard uses the “I’m just doing the will of the States” as a Get Out of Jail Free card.
Even within a concensus system, the Assembly is still looking for leadership from its Depts. It wants to see clear, well-researched proposals that the Dept truly believes in. Yes, the Deputies reserve the right to amend them or throw them out – that’s democracy – but I’m sure they would much rather say “Really convincing case, guys, thanks” and sign them off.
That requires something else that Bernard isn’t too good at – SELLING his Dept’s proposals, to both the States and the people.
Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed Scott Ogier showing the beginnings of some disturbing “Will of the States” tendencies himself? What was all that talk just before the Spruce Requete of “asking the States what they want” prior to bringing back a Green Paper?
Please Scott, no. You’ve been given the mandate to sort this, it couldn’t be clearer. Tell the island where you think we should go, with intelligence and conviction, and we’ll all line up behind you. But please don’t present us with a blank sheet of paper and ask us to write your instructions on it for you. That way, chaos lies.
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Dave Jones said
“Not everything Peter Roffey says is true”
Being a bit over generous by recent examples there Dave.
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Dave Jones is surely right in claiming that public opinion proved the nail in the Suez EFW plant coffin. Shane makes his predictably insightful points and I will return to Matt’s remarks in respect of governance. Lest this begin to sound like a mutual admiration society, let me now turn to the political handling of what has become known as the Spruce requete.
There were undoubtedly some Deputies who genuinely believed the Suez EFW option to be the very best on offer. Others, myself included, were never persuaded that it provided the most appropriate solution to Guernsey’s “waste” management problem. Interestingly, PSD never allowed Suez to effectively deploy the huge PR resources of a multi-national corporation in seeking to combat the series of highly effective public meetings arranged by those who afforded a robust challenge to the PSD stance. One might question the political judgement of that decision, at whatever level it was taken.
PSD then seemed to rely almost solely upon an internal charm offensive aimed at Deputies. Although that approach was very professionally administered by Suez employees, it was never able to counter the huge swing as public opinion moved from neutral to anti-PSD… for whatever combination of reasons, but do not underestimate the quantity and the quality of research undertaken by so many members of our community. There followed a marked reluctance on the part of some to acknowledge the breadth and the strength of that public opinion.
Then there was the question, yet to be answered by Deputy Spruce and his co-signatories, of whether the advice of senior political figures was ever sought or offered? Given that three senior and influential Policy Council members have almost been accused of “jumping ship”, one wonders why those figures never shared the benefits of their political experience with the mostly “first termers” who signed the requete. At the very least, one might have expected advice to withdraw that requete so that the States could proceed with a unified stance. Instead, the supporters of the hapless requete were seemingly not discouraged from continuing in the face of huge public opposition and substantial opposition within the States.
We govern with and by consent. As Matt Fallaize indicates above, there arise further issues of good governance when there appears to be a leadership vacuum… as was so evidently the case on this occasion.
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Sean is right to ask “,,,there was the question, yet to be answered by Deputy Spruce and his co-signatories, of whether the advice of senior political figures was ever sought or offered?”
Perhaps my earlier comment of cannon fodder and over the trenches first might be appropriate.
There is also the fact that seven or so newcomers were so politically lacking as to fail to read the writing on the wall, and see they were being left to drown by the lifeboats manned by the more experienced politicians.
The question of failed leadership is of current interest. The latest management research suggests that consensus is better than figurehead leadership. The many and well known examples of leadership leading to failed and costly leadership decision making might be the reason for the swing top consensus management.
It seems the States might well have got things right after all!!!!
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This Peter Roffey that’s been mentioned on this thread, is it the same person as the Peter “Don’t bother asking me me about the millions wasted during my time in charge of health because I won’t bother to answer” Roffey, or the Peter “what a great job I did on the provision of mental health services, although no-one can see it” Roffey, or maybe Peter “I’ve now got a press column in which I can criticise at will whilst not being asked any awkward questions myself” Roffey? Are they all the same person?
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Kate
If “I’m just doing the will of the States” is a Get Out of Jail Free card, imagine how soundly a Deputy can sleep believing he has a “I’m just doing the will of the People” card up his sleeve. Just in case our new waste strategy struggles to find a practical implementation or goes pear-shaped.
As I said at the beginning of my speech on the Spruce requete;
“Government is often about making decisions in the face of uncertainty. It should not be about hiding behind dogmatism, prejudice and false certainties. False certainties such as the belief one is speaking on behalf of the majority of islanders on any issue, including this Requete.”
Between the vacuity of the blank sheet of paper approach and the single recommendation currently prevalent in our system is the happy medium of building up a strategy through debate on, say three, well argued alternatives defining the spectrum of possibilities.
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…or perhaps advice was sought and ignored? As Scott said on the radio after the 38-2 but before the Spruce requete was announced “Tony is VERY angry”
I do not think we would have overturned Suez under any other model of Government
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Islander
I think your right, having a system of government that allows its elected politicians the right to collectively change their minds during debate is exactly how a parliament is supposed to work, it is not necessarily what goes on in the mix that is important as there will always be several points of view. It is the final result and subsequent benefit to the community that matters most. I see this as one of our strengths; if you look at the other model across the water you have the party who is newly elected unpicking the legislation of the previous administration because it does not fit with the new party doctrine or policy, real YO YO government. At least we unpick it before any final decision is made and I cannot think of a an issue that once legislation has been passed, it has been repealed by anther assembly, there may be one but If there is I can’t think of what it might be.
Guernsey has done remarkably well under the consensus system and one other of its real strengths is that it prevents small powerful factions from taking control of the government which has happened in many other small jurisdictions across the globe. As I keep repeating, democracy is best served when power is in the hands of the many not the few.
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Kate,
You have hit upon a very important point: strong, confident departmental political boards should be an axiom of our system of government by committees and consensus. The notion that the States wants to micro-manage departments or guard the making of all policy from the “bottom up” is one of the many misconceptions of our system.
At present, too often the political boards of departments assume independence and authority where they should be subservient to the corporate centre; and where they need to be strong and tenacious, they are being weakened.
Below is a section of a paper I am submitting to the Public Accounts Committee as part of its review of the governance arrangements of the States.
Boards of departments, while structurally very sound in my judgement, do have functional problems. They have, partly on account of their own errors and partly on account of the structural detritus elsewhere, lost their compasses and much of their self-confidence. Government by committees and consensus requires that political boards of States departments should be the engine of policy-making, but in practice they lack the clarity, respect and authority to carry out that principal function of theirs as effectively as they might. There is only one solution: to stop their gradual, pernicious emasculation by removing from the equation, at least as far as policy-making in areas that are mandated to them is concerned, the Policy Council, its sub-groups and the States of Deliberation, which is a parliament and not, as the WAO seemed quite wrongly to imply, a developer of policy itself.
On the other hand, as the WAO quite rightly identified, departmental boards also have a tendency to become embroiled in service delivery and operational matters. This is unnecessary and ineffective, although it will not be reversed unless and until the process of emasculating their policy-making functions is reversed, too. When considering its review, the Committee should ask itself: What is expected of members of departmental political boards other than to become involved in operational matters when their role in policy formulation has been eroded, in some cases in areas of policy that had been among their principal initiatives during this term of government, and especially when the finances of the States are so restricted that the development of new service initiatives are few and far between in any event? The point is this: policy decisions have practical consequences. The States cannot emasculate departmental political boards of their policy-making function [as they have in respect of initiatives related to the Fundamental Spending Review, for instance] and then expect those boards to remain consumed only in the development of policy.
This is another example of where the system of government itself is often blamed when in reality the faults lie only in how the system is misunderstood and misapplied.
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Now that this thread has moved towards aspects of the machinery of government in Guernsey, and bearing in mind the Press’ relentless, decade-long campaign for cabinet/ministerial government, I thought it might be interesting to read (at the link below) some of what is being said about the success or otherwise of Jersey’s ministerial system (introduced in 2005).
I have always believed that ultimately ministerial government and party politics would prove to be, as one famous Scottish politician said, “two cheeks of the same backside”.
http://www.thisisjersey.com/2010/04/01/its-no-wonder-everyone-in-the-states-is-so-frustrated-whats-the-solution-its-party-politics/
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Then of course there is the oft-repeated claim that ministerial government (a la Jersey) would provide the transparency and accountability which, critics claim, Guernsey’s system of government uniquely lacks.
Let’s test that by turning to a recent opinion piece about Jersey politics which appeared in the JEP (link below).
http://www.thisisjersey.com/2010/03/30/honesty-is-the-best-policy-not-if-youre-a-politician-with-a-contentious-report/
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Sorry: this will be the last in my unbroken series of posts in this thread.
See (at the link below) what this Jersey Evening Post correspondent has to say about ministerial government in that island.
http://www.thisisjersey.com/2010/02/13/have-we-no-true-political-statesmen/
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Matt
Thanks for the expanding the point. Good to know you are on the case.
Anyone who thinks the GP Comment columns are feisty should try your JP links, esp the second one. Y’ouch!
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Matt
It possibly doesn’t matter what system of government is operated, whether consensus or ministerial, if the calibre of politicians in power under the relevant system is poor. A different system will not make a poor politican a better or a worse one ! Its also somewhat irrelevant if the non-elected civil servants are the people who really run the island in practice. Interesting to see that this latter point is seemingly also an issue in Jersey !
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David,
Fair points; difficult to disagree.
But the one thing [maybe the only thing] government can’t be blamed for are the choices that the electorate makes at election time.
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Matt
Oh yes it can !
We can only vote for those prepared to stand, but until island-wide voting comes in I can only influence the election of those in my district. I have no influence whatsoever on what happens in the other 9 districts. Until the current States adopts a change to island-wide voting the situation will not improve. There are several muppets (in my view) who I would like to vote against, but can’t.
It is pathetic that we can’t have island-wide voting in a Bailiwick of just 65,000 people. We can run a multi-billion pound finance industry totally reliant on software, but it seems to be beyond us to cope with island-wide voting once every 4 years. Reducing the number of deputies from a totally ridiculous 47 would be a start, as the electorate invariably end up voting for the seemingly “least bad” option. Hardly satisfactory !
I’ve seen it suggested recently that the salaries for deputies and ministers is wrong. Its not high enough to attract high quality candidates from industry, yet its a high salary relative to what many could earn outside of the States. Cut it to 20-25, raise the salaries, introduce island-wide voting and the results would be immediate. You wouldn’t need to then debate executive v consensus government because the quality of the consensus system would improve beyond belief.
Just my opinion of course, but our present system is unfit for purpose and we simply don’t need 1 deputy for every 1400 islanders.
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David
I think you just bumped into the elephant!!
Please Matt, I would also welcome your response on this issue!
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Absolutely right David
The mere satisfaction ( even if unsuccessful ) of being in a position to try to vote out the dross would increase the voting numbers dramatically
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David,
I agree that refining “consensus government” would make the debate about “executive government” even more superfluous than it should be now.
However, while they are ideas worthy of consideration in their own right, I don’t think that island wide voting or drastically reducing the number of members would improve our machinery of government, or the quality of government, to any great extent.
The first will be debated at length in the coming weeks and months when the Assembly & Constitution Committee publishes proposals to introduce a form of island wide voting from 2012. Granted, there are attractions to any such system, but don’t believe that those elected island wide would differ very much, if at all, from those elected by parishes and districts. All logic, and indeed evidence, suggests that the results would be very similar.
Island wide voting without party politics would also disproportionately benefit incumbents and other well-known candidates.
And I tend to think that a unicameral legislature of 20-odd members would be bordering on the undemocratic. It would provide weak, feeble parliamentary scrutiny, most likely unbalanced policy-making, and would run the very considerable danger of far too much power being concentrated in far too many hands.
Many of the features of politics in Guernsey which I hear people referring to as “weaknesses” or “problems” are merely products of a non-party political culture. But it seems to me that there remains very little enthusiasm for a party system in Guernsey – and with good reason.
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Kate:
I agree with your comments re Scott. I hope that he leads from the front and pushes forward with a strategy based on minimising the residual waste fraction…… looking for the opportunities that exist in waste management and showing that Guernsey can set an example. He has the vision and desire to make it happen while there are still some in the States that don’t see it at all. Rather than allow them to drag his ideas back into the 20thC, he needs to inspire and encourage them to believe that we can do it. There are many amongst the Guernsey population that are excited at the prospect…… He needs to use the momentum generated by the last debate and run with it.
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David,
Sorry – the penultimate word in the penultimate paragraph of my 10:53 post should have read “few”, not “many”.
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This is the latest from the UK political scene…
The Labour government, having introduced a 10% tax rise on cider in last month’s budget, has now announced that the plans have been scrapped. The decision to introduce a so-called ‘broadband tax’ is also being reversed.
Two of the main policy proposals of the Lib Dems are to scrap plans to replace Trident and reverse preparations for an ID card scheme, which have already cost millions upon millions.
And there is absolutely no certainty about whether the main tax rises later this year will be on National Insurance or VAT.
Oh, and members of the cabinet [and the shadow cabinet for that matter] are spending most of their time trying to convince the nation that they are united when only a few months ago half of them were trying to organise an internal coup against their leader.
And we’re told that the biggest advantage of ministerial government is that it would be strong, decisive and strategic. Yeah, right.
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Matt F
For me one of the main benefits of Island wide voting would acctually be for those elected.
Nearly every issue these days is Island wide and I believe most of the elected are primarily acting for the Island as a whole not their elected area.
Those elected are thus representing the whole Island and is that not where their mandate should come from?
Island wide politicians with an Island wide mandate would in my view be much better supported by the people of Guernsey, in doing their jobs, rather than being picked apart by those of us who cant influence most of our represented house!
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Matt
It doesn’t need to be a party system. It simply needs competent individuals. At the moment, up to a couple of dozen individuals get in at each election by default.
We’ve all sat there at voting time. 2 or 3 candidates in each voting district are always stand-out candidates, with a proven track record in politics. You then end up with a mixture of politicans with a poor track record, people from a business background who speak sense and look as though they have something to offer, plus invariably a number of complete imbeciles whose manifesto is so poor (“I’m local and I wish to contribute to running the island and I’m available to do it because I don’t really have another job and because the money is better than I can earn in any other job”) (OK, so I added the last bit !). You then realise that say 2 out of 3 of the latter group are bound to be get elected and you end up spending more time on picking the “least bad” candidate than on anything else.
If two such individuals get elected from each of the 10 districts, then we end up with 20 such individuals in the elected House, which is almost a majority ! But imagine if we we were only voting on say the best 3 from each district, with 2 seats available (on average). We are bound to end up with a better quality of government, and not every items debated in the House would need to covered in excruciating detail by having to listen to the “contributions” of those who really have nothing to contribute.
But I would combine this with a much more formalised Douzaine system. As well as having say 20 elected deputies, there could be perhaps 5 Douzaine Representatives (plus Alderney reps) in the House. A lot more people could then seek to get onto their parish Douzaine committees and then seek election as one of 5 Douzaine Representatives from across the 10 Districts.
I think we would end up with a leaner, more effective government made up of better quality candidates and, quite frankly, without the dross which the current system positively encourages.
It doesn’t result in party politics and it doesn’t result in executive government. It just makes consensus government far more effective, giving us the best of all worlds.
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Simon,
We’re talking here about jurisdiction-wide voting essentially, rather than the electoral map being divided into parishes, districts or constituencies.
Members of all parliaments make decisions that affect the lives of people throughout the jurisdictions they serve.
But it should be noted that very, very few places in the world have jurisdiction-wide voting for parliament. Nearly everywhere, the electoral map is divided into constituencies. I think Isreal, with a system based 100% on proportional representation, may be an exception; and Gibraltar may have something similar; I’m not certain – but in any event it’s made possible only with a very strong party-based system.
The Assembly & Constitution Committee found one other example of jurisdiction-wide voting where political parties were not that dominant: I think it was the Central African Republic.
As I said earlier, there are advantages in IWV and I am not opposed in principle. If the States wishes to introduce it in 2012, I’ll be happy to give it a go. But, for the sake of balance, one has to wonder why nearly every other place in the world divides its electoral map by constituencies.
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Matt
Its because nearly every place in the world is much bigger than Guernsey and it would be impractical elsewhere (Gibraltar a rare exception).
One elected deputy for every 1,400 Bailiwick residents ? We are a fraction of the size of a UK provincial town (Oxford 155,000, Norwich 137,000, Plymouth 251,000).
47 elected deputies, each with a voice in consensus government, is far too many and its totally unwieldy. Unfortunately the problem is highlighted more when half of the elected members are of very poor quality and get elected by default, no matter how bad they are.
In some electorial districts some very decent candidates miss out, when greatly inferior candidates get elected in another electoral district. But the latter are having to make decision which affect all of us and each of us has no say about what happens in 90% of the electoral districts.
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David,
In your 12.29 post that you placed all election candidates in one of four groups:
1. Incumbent politicians with a good track record;
2. Incumbent politicians with a poor track record;
3. New candidates from a business background with something to offer; and
4. New canditates with poor manifestos, who you refer to as “imbeciles”.
I noticed that your thinking does not seem to allow even the remotest possibility that any new candidate has anything positive to offer unless he/she has a business background. Was that deliberate?
Incidentally, if something like your vision was realised and we cut the States to, say, 28 members, based on selecting the four candidates who received the most votes in their districts in 2008, the States would now comprise only the following: Brehaut, McNulty Bauer, Tasker, Domaille, Gollop, Matthews, Steere, Storey, Gillson, Maindonald, Ogier, Rihoy, Fallaize, Mahy, Spruce, Lowe, Dorey, Adam, Le Pelley, McManus, Brouard, de Lisle, Laine, S. Langlois, Parkinson, Quin, Sillars and O’Hara (plus the Alderney Reps).
The following members would have fallen below the ‘cut-off’ and would therefore be out of the States: A. Langlois, Kuttelwascher, Honeybill, Gallienne, Collins, Trott, Stephens, Guille, Jones, Le Lievre, Paint, Flouquet, Garrett, Sirett, Dudley-Owen, Le Sauvage and Hadley.
If you consider the voting records of the 28 who would be in the States and compare them with the political views you have tended to hold on this forum, are you sure that such a government would give you what you are looking for?
This may not be true of you, but it is something I have noticed about many people who tend to believe in drastically cutting the number of members: they seem to assume that the sort of politicians they personally don’t like very much would automatically be the ones to lose their seats. But perhaps they should be careful what they wish for.
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David,
I accept fully that jurisdiction-wide voting in Guernsey is a slightly different concept to such a system in a large nation state with millions of people. And I also fully accept your point that constituency-based voting means that any one elector cannot vote directly for the majority of members.
However, I am still inclined to think that we shouldn’t pick a number arbitrarily and settle on that number of members. Rather, we should determine how many members are required to form a functioning democracy under our system of government, and from that point consider whether a reduction from 47 would be appropriate.
You suggest that 24 members would be the right number within the system of government by committees and consensus.
You would need to retain a senior co-ordinating committee for the system to function – at present, that is 11 members of the Policy Council, which would leave just 13 members to fill the other 69 departmental or committee seats.
Abolishing the Policy Council would hardly assist the co-ordination of corporate policy, but even doing that and having a senior committee of, say, five members instead would still leave just 19 members for 69 other seats – not at all practical.
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Matt
Im with David on this one in relation to scale and representation.
I dont however see a need for a big reduction in numbers.
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David
I hear what you say but we have to provide the services for an entire country not a local council. Matt is correct if you slim down the States to far you would have no effective opposition whatsoever. And very few politicians to sit on the elected boards. As a result the civil servants would gain more power than they have now, which would be a backward step in my view. I do agree however with some of the other points you are making.
This is part of a minority report i took to the States 8 years ago, again I apologise for its length.
Full democracy in Guernsey can only ever be achieved if we give all of the people eligible to vote, the chance to elect all the members of the States on an all island ballot sheet, or some electronic version of the same.
The previous Bailiff Sir De Vic Carey, a man widely respected for his wisdom commented on this issue during a speech given at one of the I.O.D. conferences a few years ago, where he made special reference to our electoral process. He warned at the time of the Harwood report, of the possible consequences of embarking on a change to a more ‘focussed’ form of government, without first addressing the pressing matter of the limited support there seemed to be for the present political system.
It is this clear lack of support that is revealed in terms of the diminishing numbers of people prepared to visit the ballot box. De Vic said, and I quote: “If only a small minority vote and you move from consensus government to a more focussed government”, “the risk of that government being unrepresentative and suffering a serious loss of confidence are that much greater”. End of quote. In any modern democracy (ours especially, without a party based system) it must be the fundamental right of every citizen to elect or remove all of the politicians that make up their government. When we vote, we are not voting for a party ideology, we are electing a group of individuals, that stand on their own policies or beliefs in an election for a single seat, that will collectively make up the entire legislature of this island……… a complete government
It is also my belief that there is now widespread public support for Island wide voting. Accountability we are constantly being told by at least one powerful section of our business community and our illustrious Guernsey Press, is the ingredient that is missing from our present system. Although I don’t believe this new government is any less accountable than those of the past, I just think we often appear to be less willing to account for our mistakes when we make them. This frequently results in a feeling by the voting public, that we as politicians do not step down or to use the political interpretation, fall on our swords, when we have failed our people, and when it is abundantly clear to everybody that we should do so.
It is my belief that Island wide voting would go some way to making everyone of us as elected representatives, accountable to ALL of the electorate, at least through the ballot box. Many of the opponents of island wide voting have regularly dismissed the idea as being too complicated or too difficult to administer, another view is that the public would find the process too complex to understand, in terms of numbers and choice of candidates. I can only say that if that is the strength of the oppositions argument, against I.W.V then it is intellectually bankrupt by its content, not to mention hugely insulting to the intelligence of the electorate who consistently show that they are much brighter than any of us ever give them credit for.
You don’t need to be in politics for very long to realise, that things only become impossible when there is no real will to succeed. Not to mention a certain fear by some of our elected representatives that IWV would not be in their individual best interest. As for being to difficult to administer, I would ask all of you, if you would trust any government to run a 3 hundred and million pound economy, who couldn’t even organise an election in an island eight miles, by five? Recent attempts at reducing the number of States members also has huge dangers for the electorate. Having fewer numbers in the house, will not somehow give us more legitimacy to govern. I believe that down that road lies executive government, by default. The number of States members must never be reduced to the level where it would be possible for Ministers and Deputy Ministers to outnumber those left to balance the decision making process on the floor of the house. Our legitimacy to govern our people can only come through the ballot box, not by some politically engineered elected block vote that would amount to little more than an elected dictatorship.
The States of Deliberation is answerable to the people, it is elected by the people, to serve and protect their interests as a parliament for a maximum period of four years, after which time the power is returned to the people who may grant it to another States of Deliberation for a further four years and so ad infinitum. Thus the sovereignty of the Guernsey people is established over the States of Deliberation.
One problem we have, is that our people do not believe anymore that they can influence the States of Deliberation, they certainly don’t believe it at election time, which is why I believe they are turning their backs on the whole electoral process. They simply don’t feel that they have any say or influence over the majority of politicians that are elected to govern them. It is true the numbers voters rose in the 2004 election after many tens of thousands were spent on encouraging people to the ballot box. It has to be remembered that was at a time of the machinery of government changes and peoples interest in the new system had risen, partly as I said due to the huge amounts of money we as a government threw at it in order to generate this interest. However the trend over the last three decades is down.
The Present System of Representation
We as elected People’s Deputies, make decisions that effect the lives of every man, woman and child in the Bailiwick, and yet at present the electorate can only vote to elect or remove a handful of deputies who happen to stand in the electoral district where the voter resides. It should also be remembered that a candidate is not required to live in the electoral district in which he chooses to stand and can change parishes as and when they suspect that their electoral chances might improve, by not standing in the electoral district where they live.
This electoral freedom of course is denied to the voter. More importantly once elected the politician, can if they so choose, ignore the concerns of the rest of the island electorate. Taking heed only of the issues that may effect the voters in their own particular district, secure of course in the knowledge that these are the only voters who will have the power to remove them at the next election.
There is no doubt in my mind that one of the major reasons for this drop in interest over the years, is the question of choice, the voter can only vote from among those candidates standing in their own electoral district and it matters not one jot, what their views or policies are, as they are the only candidates on offer. Even if there are 8, 9 or 12 candidates for 6 seats, that cannot be described as an election, it is little better than a lottery.
We also forget at our peril that today’s voter is much more sophisticated than those of the past, years ago people felt a real connection with an individual parish, they probably knew most of the candidates personally and their families and many of those standing for election would have come through the Douzaine system standing for the States after years of service to the parish. Local people who lived and worked in their area
That is only still true now in a small number of cases, there are more and more people from outside the island who have settled here who are now standing for seats in the States. I was one of them and although I have lived in Guernsey nearly all of my adult life, I had only lived in the Vale where I was elected for 6 years when I stood. So it was clear that there were many hundreds of Vale parishioners who didn’t know me from Adam, it was also clear when the people of the Vale voted for me it certainly wasn’t on my record of service to the parish or my parish connections but rather because they had read my manifesto or and heard my protestations from time to time through the media.
This has happened in several parishes or electoral districts in recent times, So It cannot be Parish connections, as some candidates have only lived in Guernsey for a relatively short period of time. In any event the connection with the parish is less important to modern voters, given that the electorate are acutely aware that the States only make decisions on an island wide basis, all of which affect their lives regardless of the parish or electoral district they live in.
It would be hard to argue that the parish or electoral district system we have at present in terms of political justice for our electorate, does not represent a significant denial of genuine democracy to our people. I repeat again, the elector in Guernsey does not help elect a member to serve in the parliament of a party based administration, as would be the case in many countries, he helps elect an entire government, including a built in opposition. And it is for this reason, that it is essential that the electorate should have the opportunity of electing all of the members of the house.
Just touching on the accountability issue again, the present system also leaves members of the House free to inflict any unwelcome or unsympathetic policies of planning, traffic, the closure of schools, even the sighting of refuse tips for the disposal of rubbish or incinerators in any parish or district that is not their own. Fully aware that the views of the residents of that electoral district will be of little consequence, as their vote cannot damage the electoral chances of the people who made that decision outside the district in question. Given that position, is it any wonder that people who are forced by the present system to vote on Parish or electoral district lines, desert the ballot box when the views of the Parish are constantly ignored by States Members the voter had no hand in electing?
As for the question of choice, the voter has very little real choice of candidates on polling day, those who do bother to turn out to vote, (if exit interviews are to be believed) usually end up voting for the candidates they either dislike least, rather than selecting those across the island that they believe will best represent their views. Finding themselves in this situation the only other option open to those disaffected voters, unable to find a suitable candidate in their voting area, is to spoil their paper, or not to vote at all. An option it would seem, more and more people are adopting.
This kind of voter apathy can often lead to people no longer wishing to register on the electoral roll and in many cases, never returning to vote again. Voter apathy is corrosive and can be handed down through generations, entire families never voting in their entire life. It is just as important, for the electorate of the island to be able to remove politicians from office, as it is to put them there in the first place. Under the present system that is simply not possible, as they can only vote to remove a maximum of 6 members of the house at anyone time from a very restricted voting area.
Our present system of election also throws up other serious questions about the number of votes needed to gain a seat in the States of Deliberation. Candidates can and frequently do, gain seats with a handful of votes, often gaining powerful and influential positions in government, despite an ever-diminishing mandate from the people. Harwood suggested that the island needs ‘strong’ candidates who command wide support both inside and outside the chamber. Difficult for anyone to argue with that statement? However members elected into office on an ‘Island Wide’ mandate would clearly have demonstrated that they had the support of all the people on the electoral roll, before taking up their seats in government.
Politicians would equally be aware that those very same voters could just as easily remove them from office should the best interests of the people be consistently ignored. One of the most frequent charges laid against States Members is that “politicians do not listen to the people.” That as we all know is question of balance but the public need to feel that their elected representatives get it right more often than not and when they don’t, they at least have the power to remove them.
The real danger in any democracy is, when support for politicians falls to such appallingly low levels in terms of turnout, that it calls into question their legitimate right to govern. That of course has not happened in Guernsey yet but you have to ask yourselves what the percentage would be before it was considered to be a collapse of the whole democratic system. One other point worth remembering at this stage is , that should a situation as I have just described, took place it would allow the UK government to step in and take over the administration of this island.
It has also been claimed that ‘too much’ democracy makes it hard for politicians to make difficult or unpopular decisions, that every government needs to make. This is in my view is again insulting and patronising to the people of Guernsey. If the public has freely chosen all their representatives and voted them into government and providing politicians inform, consult and listen to the electorate properly, implementing just and reasonable policies, the people will give such a government their support.
What is abundantly clear at the moment is that States Members cannot lay claim to that support. The island has become a very unpleasant place for some in our community. A place of poverty and despair for many, a place many local people no longer feel a part of. The people should not be treated as a commodity that is only required to put a ‘cross’ on a ballot paper every four years in order for that ‘cross’ to bring them more of the same.
For the hundreds of islanders who believe that States Members have turned their backs on them altogether. They in turn decide that they no longer wish to be involved in the electoral process.
People need to feel that their vote matters, when they see that it doesn’t, they find other things to do on polling Day.
It is also I believe, to miss the point that the only viable alternative to our system of government under it’s present electoral system, is the one the Guernsey Press have relentlessly pursued since Harwood and that is Cabinet or executive Government. Similar to that adopted by Jersey, a system, I fear it’s people will find out soon enough, will evolve into little more than an elected dictatorship.
To conclude, the adoption of an Island Wide Voting System would I believe bring in from the cold hundreds of disillusioned voters who have turned their backs on an electoral system they perceive to be undemocratic. We have at present a system which has so far failed to stem the tide of apathy and will only serve to fuel that indifference unless we are prepared to change.
Modern elections throughout the world are carried out using electronic voting, postal votes, and touch screen computers. Any modern democracy, even one as small as ours, can have whatever type of election we desire. There are highly respected organisations across the western world that could provide all the necessary equipment and hardware to run a ‘modern’ election in this island, all we have to do is have the will to do it.
I hope this submission will help your committee in formulating it’s view, our electoral system is a serious subject and any changes to it will need serious consideration. I know you will treat it as such.
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PS this also formed the bases of my submission to the committee reviewing our electoral system.
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Matt
Apologies – my third category of candidate should have said “and/or those with something to offer” -not just those with a business background.
I take your point re. the past electorial results, but don’t forget that those votes came out a non-island wide voting system, and the electorate were not asked to vote for a small number of deputies. It would rather focus the electorate’s minds a bit more if they knew the amount of influence that their elected members would have.
Also, if you cut the number of deputies down substantally, and paid them more, then I am quite certain that the number and calibre of candidates putting themselves forward would increase materially.
All in all, you aren’t comparing apples with apples.
Dave Jones
Yes, we need a size of government capable of running a “country”. But several elected deputies really make no significant contribution to that, do they ?
I was advocating an enhancement of the role of the Douzaines. The Douzaine system could (and probably should – a bit like parish councils in the UK – therefore play a role in helping to run many of the domestic affairs of the island. The elected deputies would then have more time to focus on the bigger strategic issues without having to take calls from Mrs. Le Page whose drains are blocked.
We cannot escape the fact that our elected deputies have a job description which one minute requires detailed reading and understanding of complex technical issues, and the next minute requires them to deal with calls from parishioners regarding non-political matters which ideally could be dealt with by a Douzaine with a far wider mandate.
Overall, island-wide voting has to be the first step before any restructuring of roles. Until that happens, I don’t think that voter apathy will change one bit.
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Dave Jones
Thanks for the posting (small book) above, I hope at some point other deputies like Matt F will take note.
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David
I agree with you on the narrow point about the Douzaines, there are many functions that were once carried out by the Douzaines. I believe small planning applications could also be processed by this group, providing that the criteria was uniform across the island.
Simon
I apologise again for the length of the post but it cover so many of the aspects of our electoral system.
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