PAC: we can learn a lot from across the pond
Readers write, Mr Editor, and I am grateful. They are never wrong and I generally enjoy what they have to say. This week I feature what one astute reader had to share with me: the views of the retired head of the UK Civil service, Lord O’Donnell, on the importance of the work of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) across the pond.
This reader has obviously been keeping up with what I have been writing about PAC here and its most recent public attempts to get cracking. Good stuff.
Lord O’Donnell spent some 32 years in the civil service in the UK, six of them as its head. He was sharing his views on the need for parliamentary reform in the Global Government Forum, a website for senior government officials, that was picked up by The Independent newspaper.
The role of PAC came up. He was commenting on how the House of Commons might better fulfil its role of accountability.
“Making the best use of taxpayer’s money”, he was quoted as saying, “is what government should be about.” Agreed. Totally.
We are told that in the UK, PAC is regarded as the Commons’ main accountability mechanism, “a cross-party group of MPs which examines all government expenditure”. Note the use of the word “all”.
According to this report, PAC has been very, very active under the chairmanship of Margaret Hodge, Labour MP and former Cabinet Minister who has been an elected member for over 20 years. The post over there usually goes to a senior Opposition member.
Her tenure as head of the UK committee has not been without controversy. The Guardian report notes: “Since being elected PAC chair, Margaret Hodge, has catapulted the committee’s findings into countless media headlines, repeatedly attacking government contractors, seniors officials and ministers for failing to properly run projects, spot risks and spend taxpayers’ money wisely”.
MP Hodge and her committee are no shrinking violets, obviously. On the contrary.
“Known for its sharp questioning style in hearings”, the report goes on, “the PAC has seen its influence rise dramatically under Hodge’s chairmanship.”
Good stuff. I believe that’s what we want to see.
But Lord O’Donnell thinks PAC could do even better. Far too often, he thinks, the committee descends into the blame game, investigating reports and events after the fact, looking to affix blame, which does little to effect the outcomes. Sound familiar?
The former heard of the UK civil service believes Ms Hodge and her committee should focus instead on current rather than past expenditures.
This was his point:
“I’d like bodies like the PAC to ask questions when there’s a proposal for a new project, so looking at things before they start and then as they are going on, as opposed to spending your time saying ‘My goodness, this milk is spilt and that’s terrible’.”
His expression may be quaint, but we get the picture.
There’s greater value in reining in horses before rather than after they have bolted the stable door.
Here at home we recently saw a glimpse of the new approach at work with examination by PAC of the proposed new airport project.
The Accountant General was called in for questioning about his reasons for giving Government permission to enter into agreement with a Canadian company to facilitate the project without a competitive bidding process.
First, we learned that he thinks that his role in waiving the three-bid requirement should not be handled by his office but should be the responsibility of the Office of Project Management and Procurement, notwithstanding that Financial Instructions say otherwise. Apparently, a transfer was the plan as far back as 2011. But it hasn’t yet happened.
Secondly, we learned that his office has had 50 requests in nine months to waive permission to advertise and obtain three quotes for projects over $5,000.
“I have to make decision on the trot with the information I have”, the Accountant General was quoted as saying. “We need to finish what we started.”
I should think so. It makes you wonder too about the efficacy of the entire process, when the Accountant General was reported to have also said that under ideal circumstances a competitive process would have been preferable; and further when he shared his concern about the ability of the airport to derive sufficient revenue to sustain any debt incurred for its redevelopment.
Shucks. Where there are questions, there should be answers, and for answers we do need close and open parliamentary scrutiny. This is the role our Legislature is meant to fulfil whether by debate on the floor of the House or through its committee PAC.
These are times when we could use a lot more of this, Mr Editor. If it be broke, let’s fix it.
Another reader wanted to know my thoughts, Mr Editor, on recent goings-on at the Corporation of Hamilton. Not much.
I haven’t had a lot to say recently; for good reason, I think. It is hard to keep up with a script that keeps writing itself. Fact seems stranger than fiction on this front and Gilbert & Sullivan couldn’t do a better job.
It makes you wonder though: the saga of the waterfront lease, now in arbitration, lawsuits, real and threatened, intervention by Government and most recently the introduction of a new-fangled, two-tiered scheme for voting. Not to mention all the extra expense to which all parties have been put.
It makes you wonder this: maybe all of it is just part of a carefully orchestrated campaign to actually eventually do away with Corporations. Okay, maybe not so careful, and, on reflection, probably not orchestrated either. I mean there are just too many moving parts — and all of them going in different directions.
But it does prompt me to remember the views of the late Sir John Plowman. He was, in his day, a master of government organisation; he even held a portfolio by that name, as I recall. He was an advocate for abolition. He said that it made little sense, politically and economically, to have any other body other than the Government of Bermuda, in charge and in control of the Island’s main port and business centre.
St George’s? EdCO?
