Ministerial-committee hybrid system will work, says Ozouf
Saturday 23rd October 2010, 2:56PM BST.
Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf
CHANGES must be made to Jersey’s system of government despite the defeat of reform proposals this week, says Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf.
The Senator – who abstained from the vote on Senator Alan Breckon’s proposed reforms, despite backing them publicly at the end of August – says that some kind of hybrid system between ministerial and committee government is the right way forward.
He says that more needs to be done to engage a greater number of States Members in decision-making and policy-making, without undermining the Scrutiny system and going all the way back to the pre-2005 committee system.
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First change we need is to get these numpty dictators out of office!
Jersey’s ‘government’ couldn’t even run a tea party!
We need a ‘government’ who will put an end to all the secrecy and actually listen to what the population have to say!
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Dear Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf,
Just how many horses do you think you can attempt to ride whilst maintaining credibility? One too many I fear.
You either backed reform, or you did not back reform. Personally I, a true Jerseyman, would like to reduce toe States to 24 working senators, and bin the rest.
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if you abstianed , phil , why did you not stand by your convictions, and vote , pour.
talk about sitting on the fence.
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What was really obvious from the start was that the change to the ministerial system without direct control over the appointment of ministers in the hands of the CM, let alone a government with a coherent policy, any unified policy at all, and a single voice, was just not going to work. But still they went ahead. And I won’t even bother to mention the ludicrous mishmash of senators, deputies and connetables, all with different terms of office. All designed to ensure that nothing ever changed in the best of all possible worlds – Jersey. And, of course, this has nothing to do with the quality of members or the blind path followed for so many years when it must have been obvious that Finance, that great big cash cow, would not and could not go on for ever. So, we have the so-called rainy-day fund. A pity that it will prove to be a drop in the ocean when the pension and other liabilities that the States have allowed to build up over the years instead of being prudent, frugal even, have to be met. A deafening silence from Messrs Le Sueur and Ozouf on the real problems down the line in the next decade. At least they had the sense not to listen to Southern and Corbel and borrow just so as to have to swallow a bigger pill later.
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The (full) article discusses Shadow Boards yet the article is about a proposition related to Ministerial Boards, there is a difference.
A Ministerial Board is composed of non-ministerial government members (Scrutiny) whereas a Shadow Board (like for the Harbours & Airport) is introduced to the assembly by the Minister as a shadow board but the job description for the members says it will “assume a normal board governing role”. It is quite straight forward really.
Now, PO appears to have been given advice by the acting Attorney Gen (Solicitor Gen.) which could have benefited the whole Assembly during the debate. The advice related to the legalities of Shadow Boards which are quite curious because they don’t actually have a legal status at all; they are an unofficial (yet expensive)quango that merely advises the respective minister prior to taking the reins.
The point of my wrinting is to raise awareness of this, and to point out that – had the proposition succeeded – it would have prompted the question of who is the shadow board and who is the ministerial/executive board? It is a real mess, one ‘shadow’ board paid a fortune and gets listened to whilst another ‘shadow’ board gets usual pay and will continue to be ignored.
The ‘shadow’ element of our government is Scrutiny, the Ministers are not the government, they are the executive of the States of Jersey who are the government (which includes scrutiny members).
Strikes me that the COM think they are the Government and it is this which causes the problem which Sen. Breckon is (rightly)seeking to address. The situation is different in the UK where a particular majority are invited to form a government. So far as I am aware, the only body on Jersey having that accolade is the States itself not the COM. The fact of the matter is that the COM are there to execute the wishes of the States, they are there to implement the decisions, make the day-to-day decisions within the scope defined by the States, not secrete information and exclude States Members.
In 2005, the dawn of Ministerial Gov’t was preceeded by the one purporting to be open government; without that promise I suspect that Ministerial Government would never have seen the light of day.
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