Emancipation
England, Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales
Closed short-circuited consultations - the case of the Better Government Initiative
The Better Government Initiative (BGI) is a group set up on the initiative of Sir Christopher Foster, who has been a professor of economics and adviser to governments in the 1970s through 1990s. He was also non-executive director of Railtrack from 1994 to 2000. The BGI reviews and comments on the output of the government concerning constitution and proposals for changes in government administration. The main body of the BGI is an organizing committee made up of individuals who were former advisers or members of the civil service and a journalist.
The BGI has produced several reports but one in particular, "Governing Well", addresses the green paper "The Governance of Britain."
Given the make up of the BGI and in particular the former adviser/civil service nature it is to be expected that the group "welcome" the government's initiative and do not really get to grips with some of the less acceptable aspects of the green paper such as its failure to address the basis for the legitimacy of policies. In Britain of today we have policies proposed by minority faction governments who are able to impose these on the majority as a result of the first-past-the-post electoral system generating an often unassailable Parliamentary voting majority. Indeed, one would not expect the BGI to address this directly. However, this fundamental issue presents a practical basis for assessing the BGI contribution.
The BGI does make a useful contribution to the dicsussion concerning the need to ensure the quality of propositional and legislative activities by introducing the need for a more professional standards-based decision analysis justifying policies. This is indeed, an issue of fundamental importance and lacking in the current British Parliamentary system. At the same time the combative nature of British politics characterised by partisan views of the truth strains the objectivity of such an approach where someone has to decide whether or not all of the relevant options have been reviewed and whether or not the information used is valid in terms of its representation of the facts.
But returning to the BGI proposition for more rigour in proposition content as is set out in two annexes (Illustrative Parliamentary Resolution and Draft Ministerial Guidance) one sees the associated consultantive processes as being the same as they are at the moment, albeit with a more objective content and hopefully applied standards. The problem is that the issue of the fundamental legitimacy of the policy is not addressed.
All would accept that in a participatory democracy where the electorate support a policy the purpose of the civil service should be to ensure that such policies be implemented in an efficient manner through processes characterised by high technical and ethical standards. However,the constitutional problem we face in Britain at the moment in one of minority factional governments where the governing party enjoys just 20% of the support of the electorate. On such a weak level of legitimacy the political party can impose legislation on the majority because of its disproportionate voting majority in Parliament. Under such circumstances the whole concept of the civil service helping impose this generally unwanted policy in an efficient manner is something which is offensive. This is offensive because such impostitions become law and thus we see minority factions using law as a device to rule rather than the rule of law.
Until the government addresses how to address this fundamental issue of enhancing the legitimacy of policy by working to increase the degree of public support, then this moral and ethical quandry will hover over any initiatives taken to improve the efficiency of the civil service.
One aspect of the BGI report is sensitive to the pervasive and sometimes negative role of political parties in that they suggest that whips should have no control over the selection of Select Committee chairs and memberships.
There is no consideration given by either the green paper or the BGI report on how the electorate at constituency level can be better involved in the decision analysis giving rise to specific policies. No mention is given to the illogical and often thoroughly obscure processes which give rise to manifesto content which acts as the launching pad for future policies. It is the political party dominated process of manifesto drafting which provides the inertia for future policy drives. The repeated assertion of our minority factional governments is that they were "elected to carry out a mandate" to be interpretated as the party wishes. Against this outcome of the general election the sum total of the involvement of the electorate is that of being faced with a take-it-or-leave-it combination of ill-explained policies. The public are expected, on the basis of casting one vote to select a set combination of sometimes mutually conflicting policies, a political party, a group for managing unforesee circumstances in government, a Prime Minister and finally a Member of Parliament for the constituency. It is to be expected that some voters will favour some measures in a manifesto package whilst rejecting others. Those who see the options for what they are and consider the process to be a significant constraint on freedom of expression of the their own preferences, prefer to avoid the insult to their intelligence and join the growing ranks of the disaffected who today do not vote.
Freedom, It is
so important
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Seeking relevance?
It is as well to accept that this green paper has a significant element of partisan interest but there is a collusive element in that it sustains an unstated objective of keeping the control of national decision-making within the structures controlled by political parties. This grteen paper is not notable for any determination and specific propositions to open up ways and means to secure a more effective participatory democracy involving the people of Britain beyond "wheely bin" local initaitives.
Our current political system has been shown to constrain the reflection of freely formed preferences in more than 50 different ways1 and yet none of these shortcomings are addressed by the green paper nor by the BGI report. Remarkably, the BGI has found another 50 points to address less pressing issues. The problem with this sort of consultation is that the BGI is a sort of short-circuited consultation in which, if one considers ex-civil service and advisers to consider themselves to be part of the system then they are not going to rock the boat too much. On the other hand, what is relevant to the people of the country is to m ove towards a more transparent representation supporting a more direct participation in policy formulation. Indeed, the government mentions that it hopes the green paper proposals will help improve letitimacy; but they do no such thing.
The challenge facing this consultation process is how to make it relevant to the people of Britain. The green paper does not however provide any hooks or points of interest which can enthuse people into recognising it to be important to them and their families. The government has failed to encourage people to come forward to participate because it is difficult to recognise any fundamental relevance to individual interests and thereby fails to gain an inspired participation. Unfortunatelty the government does not demonstrate that it seeks this form of relevance and the BGI contribution accordingly does not rise to address this relevant challenge to our democracy.
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