St Helena : St Helena EXCO REPORT 50 – 27th July 2010
Submitted by Saint Helena Herald (Public Relations Information Office) 29.07.2010 (Article Archived on 19.08.2010)
This was the 50th EXCO that I have had the privilege of chairing. Whatever you may feel about the value of committees, EXCO is a particularly important one for all of us living here and it has been a very fulfilling experience to be involved in so much helpful and informed discussion.
St Helena EXCO REPORT 50 – 27th July 2010
This was the 50th EXCO that I have had the privilege of chairing. Whatever you may feel about the value of committees, EXCO is a particularly important one for all of us living here and it has been a very fulfilling experience to be involved in so much helpful and informed discussion. We don’t always agree, and this meeting was no exception. I hope that over so many meetings I have got used to changing my mind when Councillors differ from my own view – and in a sense that is what EXCO is about. The Councillors persuade as well as advise the Governor.
The 27th July is “National Sleepy Head Day” in Finland. Apparently in every household there the last one to wake up is either doused with water or thrown into an icy lake! I know that today all 11 Councillors on the island were up very early as we had a video conference at Prince Andrew School at 8 am with the DfID Secretary of State, Andrew Mitchell. This is the man who has made the decision to press on with our airport.
It was very helpful to be able to hear from him and raise questions with him as well as being able to see him live on a large screen. The brand new enhanced broadband will be a great asset to teachers as well as useful for this kind of session. I think that all of us present were impressed by the desire that the Secretary of State showed for actually getting on with the airport. He expects us to deliver our side of the bargain – a more welcoming attitude to inward investment and land ownership, as well as a business friendly tax structure and an accelerating tourist industry. He was assured of our general enthusiasm for the airport and it was poignant to emerge from the conference and see all the children preparing for their school day. They will after all, be the major beneficiaries of what is happening.
We began the EXCO meeting at 9.30 am and approved the excision of two parcels of land near Model Cottage from the National Forest. All the details have been gazetted, but Members were concerned that the Gazette notices are not widely read. The Attorney General pointed out that publication in the Gazette is deemed to have placed an issue in front of the public. In reality, if the public never read a Gazette, that doesn’t actually happen. So we agreed that from now on we would make sure that a summary of the current Gazette notices would be published in the weekly papers, so that those who wish to investigate an issue further can then seek out more detail from the Gazette. We will also place the notices on the government web site.
We then had an Information paper about the fuel price rises that I flagged after the last EXCO meeting. Next was a review of the forthcoming LEGCO Order Paper. That meeting is scheduled for next Monday.
The next item was consideration of a Memorandum on the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, Strategic Objectives and Policy and Planning Priorities. This is the result of a great deal of work by our Strategic Policy and Planning Unit, including many meetings with Councillors. Much of it was familiar and we all agreed that it formed an excellent basis for further discussion in the light of the airport decision. There is a sense in which we have all got used to the prospect of an airport being delayed and we now need to take a deep breath and start planning in a more optimistic manner.
The next paper was asking whether we should devote resources to preparing legislation to provide for the appointment of a Complaints Commissioner, also known as an Ombudsman. The ability to do this is enshrined in our new constitution, but it was pointed out that we already have a very similar mechanism in existence. The Governor can set up a Commission of Inquiry and that is essentially similar to there being an Ombudsman. The duplication of the two devices would not really improve or speed up our present complaints procedure. As I pointed out two weeks ago the real issue is that we don’t actually have a proper complaints procedure in most of our Departments and so we are currently setting one up. It was therefore felt that the additional resource of a Complaints Commissioner was not urgent at this time, and the matter would be reviewed once again in a years’ time.
We moved on to consider a very detailed paper prepared by Phil Spiers reviewing our current outsourcing strategy. The very first recommendation in the paper was felt to be extremely worthwhile. That is that “all options which can potentially achieve the same broader policy end, such as short-term contracting, parastatalisation, privatisation and government restructure need to be appraised”. The presence of an airport over the horizon also adds considerably to this debate and so, along with the acceptance of Recommendation 1, the rest of the paper was referred for further consideration.
We then discussed the remuneration of our judges. I have no doubt that our Chief Justice and our Magistrates are significantly under-rewarded for what they do. The work requires considerable skill as well as detailed application, and these functions have not enjoyed a rise in payment for some years. The new levels were accepted although they still remain far below the situation pertaining in most other parts of the world.
The minutes of the meeting held two weeks ago then occupied us for some time. The tracker document has been enhanced by the use of “traffic light” indicators against each item. I realise that this report may well be heard and seen by some who are fortunate enough never to have seen a traffic light; well the tasks that have been done are shown as green, those being done as amber, and where we haven’t achieved anything they are red. If there are too many reds it reflects on our efficiency.
Unfortunately there remains nothing to report on the oil slick emerging from the Darkdale.
We agreed that the Infrastructure and Utilities Committee should become the Authorities for Highways, Water and Electricity when it is discussing matters relating to those three bodies.
I agreed that I would be holding meetings in Cape Town during August on the issue of fishing in some of our deeper offshore water, and I also said that as yet I have no news on the possibility of reflagging the RMS here.
It was also agreed that we should seriously consider improved premises for our London office as the advent of an airport would be bound to increase the workload there.
This was a meeting with plenty of items and plenty of variety. Nevertheless it ended earlier than the last few at 1.20 pm.
Andrew Gurr
Governor
27th July 2010
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