Move to replace ministerial system
Friday 11th June 2010, 2:58PM BST.
Senator Alan Breckon.
RADICAL plans to scrap ministerial government and bring back a reduced committee system with flexible Scrutiny panels have been tabled for debate.
With pressure mounting on the ministerial system and the Chief Minister facing a vote of no confidence in the States, Senator Alan Breckon has tabled a proposition that would allow almost all States Members to serve as ministers or assistant ministers, and which would force ministers to consult panels of three to five assistant ministers before making decisions.
Senator Breckon’s proposition, due for debate on 6 July, follows a damning report which claimed that ministerial government needed a major rethink and could not be fixed by ‘tinkering around the edges’.
• See Friday’s JEP for full story.
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Naturally Ministers and ‘Assistant Ministers’ will warrant a higher pay scale than mere Deputies and Senators.
You can’t see them taking less and sharing the wealth.
Let’s go back to the £40k for all days, that should get rid of a few. (And please don’t say the higher pay attracts the ‘right people’, one clown costs much the same as the next).
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The lastest scenario with Minister Cohen & dandara “promise” a typical example of the way must be changed as Senator Breckon suggests
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Hooray for a real statesman….and Alan don’t forget we need a proper well thought through constitution which is in favour of the citizens to protect politicians from themselves and a clear cut way of getting rid of them when they screw up.
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A five year fixed term for 24 Senators and bin the rest. An elected speaker with only a casting vote, with the Lt Governor invited to observe.
Everybody to serve on a committee, with the committee electing a chairperson, the Minister who is accountable for his own budget.
The Constables can then be lest to manage their Parishes, unhindered.
Ha, it may even work. Good on you, a bit of democracy at work.
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Senator Alan Breckon’s proposition is long over due. Naturally the Civil Servants controlling and running the Island behind closed doors will not like this – not one bit. Just watch them, the hidden in-house Government and special interests fight this tooth and nail.
After all, it has been so convenient for them to turn an elected Minister into no more than a messenger boy or a spokes person for their own policies and personal agendas; after all, it was the Senior Civil Servants that stealthily introduced Ministerial Government behind the Clothier facade.
Bureaucrats love to create problems, campaign against them and then weave their own departmental agendas into the solution – especially so, when the solution gives them someone else, like a solitary, not too bright Minister to blame for their over paid incompetence.
Local Government has become too big and too intrusive into our personal lives. The bigger Government becomes, the worse people become! The former Committee System, consisting of at least three States Members, while a little slow at times, prevented the unelected Civil Servants from over powering a single Minister, thereby allowing them to take control of both policies and issues, which was never meant to be their job.
The States Assembly must take back the power given to them by the electorate and begin to set policy and Govern properly – in short some States Members have got to put in an honest day’s work and start reading some of the deceptive Civil Service fine print that has been skillfully woven into the prepositions brought before them. Too many States Members have done nothing, other than sit in the Assembly and get fat!
If you believe the state of the Island is in a political mess, it is because States Members have allowed to become this way – it is even possible that some of them like it this way – totally unaccountable.
We get the Government we deserve. If you don’t like it, then do something about it; support Senator Breckon’s Proposition.
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