The doors of government set to open a little wider
THE doors of government will creep open further again next month.In the slow evolution towards open government, the Scrutiny Committee is following in the footsteps of Public Services and the States Assembly and Constitution Committee in allowing the media to sit in on some meetings.
THE doors of government will creep open further again next month.In the slow evolution towards open government, the Scrutiny Committee is following in the footsteps of Public Services and the States Assembly and Constitution Committee in allowing the media to sit in on some meetings.
Also in February, Environment will take the long-awaited step of making planning decisions in front of the public.
Planners have been leading lights on openness in recent months - their website is now something of a treasure trove of information if you know what you are looking for.
Is it all enough? No, still the island lags behind Jersey, which has a freedom of information regime.
And both Alderney and Sark put department and committee agendas and minutes online.
Scrutiny's open meetings move is to be restricted to those where it assesses the Billet to find out if there are issues that it needs to comment on.
Chairman Barry Brehaut, however, believes that scrutiny is already an open process.
'We hold review meetings which are open to the general public and the media. Transcripts are published and any evidence relevant to the review is publicly accessible,' he said.
It is investigating how to improve public engagement as one of its workstreams.
'We are proposing to have our Billet meetings open to the media to create a better understanding of the political scrutiny process.
'Hopefully, this will complement our existing communications through our website and Facebook presence.'
There has been pressure on the committee to open up its meetings for some time.
Those deputies who have sat through board meetings in front of the media often comment on how much more focussed they are and those who were sceptical have made few complaints about the reporting.
Confidentialities are respected at times and any reporting restrictions observed.
But it all means everyone is better informed about the decision-making process.
Open meetings have been a mainstay of the UK planning process for some time.
Their emergence in Guernsey was given extra impetus by the independent Shepley report.
Environment has investigated how they work in different jurisdictions and will not be jumping in. To begin with, there will be no opportunities for applicants or third parties to speak at a hearing.
If Chris Shepley's recommendations are followed, this would happen in a couple of years' time. But even with the first steps taken, it should improve everyone's understanding of planning and their confidence in the system.
Mr Shepley said that there should be no views relevant to the quasi-judicial process of determining planning applications which cannot be expressed in public.
The same is true of other aspects of departmental work.
'It would be appropriate to introduce this, initially, during the discussion of planning applications, but should this proceed satisfactorily it should be extended to planning policy issues - such as the revision of the Rural Area or Urban Area plans, or the preparation of briefs or other guidance too,' said Mr Shepley in his report from 2008. 'I think it needs to be made clear that this is a planning issue only and does not necessarily set a precedent for other committees - though I recognise that there would be pressure to go further.'
How that pressure mounts now will be interesting to see, but it appears unlikely that a States that has been so slow in moving this term on issues like freedom of information will suddenly see the light and throw the doors wide open now.
