St Helena : St Helena EXCO REPORT 69 – 15th February 2011
Submitted by Saint Helena Herald (Public Relations Information Office) 19.02.2011 (Article Archived on 05.03.2011)
Executive Councils are flowing thick and fast at present. Much of the reason for that is of course the MOU and the timed targets to which we are working. However today’s meeting was quite a short one with only two items but worth holding none the less as we anticipate a far longer one next week.
St Helena EXCO REPORT 69 – 15th February 2011
Executive Councils are flowing thick and fast at present. Much of the reason for that is of course the MOU and the timed targets to which we are working. However today’s meeting was quite a short one with only two items but worth holding none the less as we anticipate a far longer one next week.
Brian Isaac stood in for Mervyn Yon once again, and our first item was in fact consideration of the Joint Position Paper that has been prepared by all Overseas Territories in response to a Green Paper and a follow up Paper published by the European Commission in 2008 and 2009 respectively. By “all Overseas Territories” I mean far more than just the UK ones – the OT’s of Denmark, France and the Netherlands have all been involved in the production of this paper, and we have made our own contributions. It is hoped that this Paper will be signed at the EU/OCT Forum that Mervyn is attending in New Caledonia.
Anyone who has ever had any dealings with the bureaucratic Brussels machine will appreciate the complexity of doing so, and this Paper has 11 pages of small print. Our interest in maintaining our ability to receive funding from the EU is very important to us and members were anxious to ensure that the Paper would assist in that process. In discussion it became clear that our interests were as protected as they could be by this document and so the contents were endorsed.
The second Memorandum was on the subject of our Divestment Strategy. Those of you with long, or even medium term, memories will recall that our Sustainable Development Plan, and many documents since that time, have referred to “outsourcing” of SHG activity as part of our desire to see the private sector grow and flourish. In essence this Paper is covering the same ground but recognises that some changes in approach are necessary in the light of experience. In fact the Paper leans heavily on Phil Spiers’ 2010 review of the issue.
The paper itself does not identify specific divestments, they will be included in a more detailed Action Plan later – what it does do is to clarify the processes involved. Six different options were identified:
1. Abolition
2. Privatisation or Corporatisation
3. Contracting out
4. Transfer to another public sector entity
5. Transfer to the Third Sector (NGO’s charities etc.), or
6. Stay as we are.
Councillors were at pains to point out the real danger of monopolies on small islands and they were also keen to stress that the recent internal consultation on redundancies within the Civil Service should be considered in the light of facilitating the transfer of activity from one sector to another.
Virtually all of the work done on this island is necessary for our wellbeing, and the implication that having a sensible redundancy policy in place somehow means that vital functions will stop being carried out can be seen to be ridiculous. The point of such a policy is to ensure the proper protection of the individual in what is normally a change of role or of employer.
I did take one matter of Any Other Business at the beginning of the meeting and that was to congratulate the 7 nominees for Council who are standing on Ascension Island. This means that we can now have a contested election there in the near future and it goes a long way to ensuring the survival of democracy on an island where a great deal of sorting out remains to be done.
The meeting closed at 11.10 pm
Andrew Gurr
Governor
15th February 2011
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