Alderney States rejects P&F move

Matt Birmingham introduced the requete in order to bring better debate on Billet items during States meetings.

Currently all 10 States members sit on the Policy and Finance Committee.

He, and the three members who signed the requete, claimed decisions were made behind the closed doors of the P&F meeting and effectively just rubber stamped at 35-minute-long public States meetings.

Mr Birmingham, who is chairman of the Building and Development Control Committee, said scrutiny in the Alderney government was 'wholly absent'.

He said best way to create a scrutiny function in Alderney's government was to have several members – including himself – retire from P&F so they could ask questions at the States meeting and stimulate deeper debate in front of the electorate.

'I've come to conclude that 10 members on the Policy and Finance Committee is not just bad practice, but bad government,' he said. He likened it to driving with 10 pairs of hands on the steering wheel – 'car crash government'.

Policy and Finance Committee leader James Dent, who also signed the requete, said debate around policy was 'very rarely taken to the States'. The current system was 'too cosy' he said.

Ian Tugby, who has been on the States for five years, said he remembered the last time P&F had been reduced to just five members. The move lasted just a couple of months before it was restored to all 10 members again.

'When there was a five-person Policy and Finance Committee it did cause divisions, there's no ifs or buts about that,' he said.

'Do some people think they are more important than other members who were voted in by members of the public? We are all equal on this States.'