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GOVERNMENT
Government is:
- management of people and resources. (This applies to all levels,
Parish up to National).
the people are:
Elected Members (Directors who should set the direction).
Civil Servants/Officers (Management who do
set the direction).
'Stakeholders',
(Customers who want more than they pay for))
Shareholders
(Public who are the investors).
the Resources are:
Area (Natural resources i.e. Mineral etc)
People (workforce)
This may seem a cryptic analysis but if one studies the reality one soon get
the picture of how much is done by smoke & mirrors.
Operation.
The public elect the Members, the members select/delegate the responsibility of
areas of management to individual members, the operation of the management is
done by the civil service.
The management set the rules which the Members have to abide by (Audit
Commission sets the rules, the UK Standards Board police/enforce them).
Funding.
No level of government has any money, what they do have is a license to extract
it out of the public, that license gives the ability to borrow on the basis
paying the loan back out of future taxes.
The current system is based on the assumption that we will be better able to pay
higher levels of tax 'tomorrow', hence the every rising tax levels which
contradicts the saying 'tomorrow never comes', today is yesterdays borrowing
repayments.
Distribution of Funds.
Essential services, one has to be careful with the word 'essential'
because the real essential services have been sold-off, privatised, or in the process
of.
Bureaucracy, major consumer of funds, yet why? the British Empire was run
by 1,828 pen-pushing clerks in it's hey-day, the Min' of Transport has 5 times
more staff than it had when it actually ran Road and Rail transport.
Quangos, NGO's, Advisory bodies, etc. means of distribution of tax money
with out direct control, over 15,000 of them and numbers rising. Good outlet for
'jobs for the boys'.
Public means of control.
Elections, every four years a license is given to politicians to make
expansive promises to get the publics attention, then do want they want as and
when they like.
Hard comment? no, public 'apathy' speaks for itself.
The reality is changing the 'faces' does nothing to control the system.
Councilor's Surgeries, can be good for personal issues but for major grievances
a councillor is only one of perhaps 50.
Protest Groups, single issue groups gain attention but do not address the
problem, they are reacting to a symptom of the problem i.e. failure to address
the concerns of the public.
Media, some politicians think that letters to the papers is the only
public forum necessary for democracy to work.
Polls etc, it is not uncommon for polls to be conducted on less than
2,000 people and statistically adjusted to represent the whole country, and the
politicians use them as fact.
Referendums, usually presented on the basis of 'have you stopped beating
your wife? answer Yes or No'. Very expensive (the government has allocated £60M
for the euro referendum, that is about £1.50 per person).
The USA has Initiative & Referendum (I&R) in 19 states, it is not
unusual for votes to cost $4M per Initiative, and then be rejected by the
courts.
Not necessarily legally binding.
Summary.
The Future.
Corporate Governance will play an ever increasing role to the point where local
government will be privatised like the services are now.
Why?
1. Malpractice by 'decision-makers' in the past has led to increasing
declaration of interests which has in turn deterred the most able
decision-makers from standing for office (not all of them are in it for
own-interest benefit). This can only be reversed by changing the role of the
elected from decision-makers to policy-advisors and letting the public choose.
2. The current plan is for reorganisation of government in to three levels,
Unitary Councils, Regional Assemblies and ................ Brussels, they do not
say that but the increasing levels of decisions made in Brussels do make
Westminster surplus to requirements.
Parish, Borough and District Councils will be collated in to a Unitary Council,
in this area that will be Canterbury, Dover and Thanet as one council.
Ditto with the county councils, they will be collated in to Regional Assemblies.
After the May election the Boundaries Commission will be opening a consultation
on Parliamentary Constituencies, Thanet will be having one and a bit MP's
instead of the current biggest part of two MP's, the current boundary between
the two runs right through the middle of Thanet Villages Ward.
All this is happening by stealth now, £millions of taxpayers money is going in
to regionalisation, when it is all setup we will be given a referendum on
whether we want it.
The 'bribes' that go with this are good, millions of euros (your VAT money) will
be pumped in to regeneration, or they would have been, 10 new semi-deprived
countries have now joined the EU who will join the queue for handouts.
3. The so called democracy will take a further dive, the number of constituents
per councillors in a Unitary Council will be greater than in a district.
Ditto Regional Assemble v County Council
Ditto MEP v MP
Regional Assemblies will be fighting with over 1700 other EU regions for
funding, and that is before the other 10 countries joined.
Have you ever wondered where your tax money goes?
Did anyone ever ask you?
In order for things to change, three things have to happen:
1. the public need to get involved
2. they need a means of doing that
3. proposals/issues have to be presented in a way that shows both sides so the
public can make their judgment.
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