Senior politicians want to give fewer updates
AN INITIATIVE to make the States more transparent and democratic could be cut back because it is too much work for senior politicians and their civil servants.
Under the current system, the beginning of each monthly States meeting starts with statements from the presidents of two committees, followed by two windows of 15 minutes for questions.
Policy & Resources and the six senior committees are required to give two statements a year and the other committees and Alderney representatives one a year.
The statements give an update of all the work a committee is undertaking and the question time allows for further scrutiny.
At a meeting of the States Assembly & Constitution Committee, its president, Deputy Carl Meerveld, said senior politicians had made representations to him that it was ‘resource intensive’ to prepare the statements.
The suggestion from senior politicians was that they should be mandated to give only one statement a year, in line with the minor committees.
Sacc has no intention of bringing forward a proposal on the matter, but committee members were alerted that an amendment from someone else was expected.
Deputy John Gollop said that the statements were very useful and interesting, especially while the chamber was a ‘debate-free universe’.
He predicted that ‘the less statements there are, the more questions’.
Deputy Lester Queripel wondered if there was more to it than meets the eye.
‘Is it because they don’t want to be questioned?’
He added that he was still waiting for answers to questions he had put seven years ago.
Deputy Liam McKenna said he admired the questions from Deputy Queripel, but had noticed that the answers did not match the questions.
‘Is that politics?’ he asked.
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