A cog in the machine

I WRITE with reference to the interesting, analytic and powerful arguments made in the Open Lines letter on Tuesday 15 August by Peter Gillson, who one recalls as being a very successful financial sector professional, civil servant, deputy colleague, scrutineer, and minister for the Home Affairs Department and occasional powerful Press columnist.

He certainly applies his diligence and forensic analytic abilities to his persuasive arguments that the committee of Education, Sport & Culture were not necessarily obliged to follow the learned advice of His Majesty’s Comptroller Robert Tittteriington KC. I am very flattered Mr Gillson states that the Father of the House (i.e. me), a States Assembly & Constitution Committee member and experienced politician, should or could have been consulted instead, and that my interpretation should carry as much weight as a senior law officer who has been head of legislation and solicitor general for both this bailiwick and the Falkland Islands. But I kind of understand the point that special interest and committee exclusions have a political dimension as well as a legal one.

As a current member of Sacc, I will support my president, Deputy Carl Meerveld, in looking again as soon as possible at the wording of Rule 49 and may suggest alternatives. But we need to avoid writing a two-volume telephone directory of clauses and, as a senior parliamentarian may have said, you know an elephant when you see one, albeit it could be coloured pink, white or in shades of grey. However, it occurs to me that Deputy Rob Prow has been vindicated because for several years he has been calling for a thorough analysis and understanding of the nature of ‘special interest’ and now the situation has come to a head.

Personally, I wish to support Education, Sport & Culture’s current board as a whole, including Deputy Andy Cameron, but also especially the president, Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen, who diplomatically and gracefully has to lead a committee in difficult and rapidly changing times at a period of unique challenges and financial pressures. To a degree, committees have to run themselves in a way which works for everyone, but especially the voting majority.

The morals I draw from the recent controversy are totally different from mainstream opinion. Firstly, rotation of board positions and mid-term elections, as Deputy Peter Roffey advocated, would be very useful both as a safety valve and a way of supporting new talent and bringing it on board. Secondly, three-member committees focused on policy rather than attending school governing boards would be preferable to five voting members. And thirdly, we are all collectively too careless what clash of personalities we elect for nearly five years on to a locked-down board.

My 26 years of political States ‘experience’ tells me we have the wrong system of government and would benefit from more chief minister control of hiring and firing, a cabinet council ministerial system, and no committees running departments. If we had a proper ministerial system this kind of problem wouldn’t exist in its current form.

I get Peter Gillson’s point that some advice asked from senior top and able lawyers isn’t necessarily essential legal advice but general advice from a respected person who happened also to be a professional lawyer.

I have completed 19 years on States legislation committees, sometimes chairing, and appreciate the complexity and intersectionality of diverse legislation and its interface with customary so-called common law and judgments both insular and elsewhere. But the Rules of Procedure are not just designed as political club rules either. For a start, some of us occasionally disagree with the interpretation of the rules by the highly trained presiding officer and deputy presiding officer, but they are judges too. And my guess is that in certain circumstances a committee that was careless about Rule 49, or didn’t heed advice, may find themselves before a Scrutiny review or, worse still, a Royal Court judicial review, especially if money contracts or procurement tenders were a feature of committee deliberations.

I have absolutely no knowledge of what specific points His Majesty’s Comptroller gave advice on or the context or content so can’t sensibly comment on that or whether the president, board or officers requested such legal advice. But I would state I have witnessed over the past two terms or so a creeping change of practice behaviour and attitude. Fewer radicals and mavericks in the Assembly... well, the electorate decided that in some cases and we reduced our size unwisely by seven, reducing diversity.

There is now more of a corporate committee culture of collective responsibility and team-building, even a touch of secrecy between committees. We also strangely have a number of able, experienced ex-ministerial level members without portfolio, almost available as a kind of troubleshooting can-do squad.

In this context, dissent can be unwelcome. Certainly, when I sat on Planning, senior officers and the boards argued that I was conflicted with other committee policies relating to sites. Members today who sit on two principal committees sometimes abstain on one. I thought the exclusion of members from a previous ESC board on the grounds that they would have children at the private colleges went too far. The core of Rule 49 is all about business or financial interests but has been extended to membership of charitable bodies too. It is also curious that a social housing tenant can be excluded on vested interests, understandably, but not perhaps property owners or certain types of taxpayer who may be affected positively or negatively by sundry policies. The old days when distinguished professionals in a field could lead committees where they had expertise have diminished.

In short, we need a Sacc internal review, maybe a rewrite and a States debate for the future regarding the revised rules of procedures, something Deputy Lester Queripel has been requesting for many months and years.

I suspect that the interesting alternative views of Deputy Cameron may be shared by some other senior members and will be worked up soon. I don’t generally approve of members being excluded from board meetings, minutes and papers, but suspect the issue really is foreshadowing a more fundamental review of the machinery of government and our increasingly creaky system of incompatibility where everyone is in government and opposition and oversight at the same time.