No radical agenda in PfG
LAST Monday and Tuesday were hard going for those who found themselves trapped in the public galleries in the Assembly, as the First Minister and then the Finance Minister opened the debates on the merits of the Programme for Government and the accompanying Budget.
As I have noted before, the PfG is as dull and uninspired as it was in its draft version.
There is no real departure from the policies and guidelines of Direct Rule and no radical agenda for making Northern Ireland a genuinely different place. Put bluntly, there is no sign that devolution is making a difference to our everyday lives.
The Alliance Party tabled a predictably pie-in-the-sky amendment to the PfG and floated it into the chamber on a tidal wave of woolly thinking and fortune-cookie sound-bites.
It would have helped their case considerably – particularly when they wish to be regarded as the official opposition – had they produced their own PfG, complete with costings, legislative requirements and timescales. But hey, that would be too much trouble for a party which always opts for over-rehearsed self-righteousness rather than properly researched socio-economic alternatives.
BEST OF BOTH WORLDS
Meanwhile, the SDLP allowed its sole minister to vote for the PfG and Budget and then whipped the rest of the team to vote against it.
Some commentators believe that the SDLP were simply trying to have the best of both worlds; getting the extra funding for social housing (providing Margaret Ritchie with a little victory and an excuse to stay in the Executive – which also allows her party to get the minutes), but leaving them free to do what they like on committees.
But the real reason the SDLP voted against the PfG was that it didn't embrace and promote the doctrine of "A Shared Future"; and, as I have said before, that particular strategy is aimed at putting unionism and republicanism upon a level playing field.
Indeed, the sole purpose of the doctrine is to strip away the remaining benchmarks, touchstones, signs and symbols which identify Northern Ireland as a constitutionally and politically integral part of the United Kingdom.
As I see it, the SDLP is trying to outflank Sinn Fein. Voting against the PfG is the clearest sign, so far, that Mark Durkan is moving his party towards a deal with Fianna Fail.
MAJOR PROBLEM
One major problem with the PfG is that it remains largely aspirational and there are huge policy gaps which no amount of consultation exercises or "it-will-be-alright-on-the-night" optimism will bridge.
The DUP's William McCrea, chairman of the relevant Assembly committee, confessed: "I would love to be in a position to stand here today and commend the agricultural aspect of the Programme for Government…but I cannot".
It gives you some idea of the scale of the problems ahead, when the chairman of an Assembly committee refuses to endorse the proposals, input and policies of the department he is responsible for shadowing. Mind you, his resounding dismissal didn't prevent him backing the PfG as a whole, but it does leave him with a lot of room for manoeuvre at a later stage.
Moreover, because of the tightness of the budgetary restraints (and we're talking whalebone corset rather than elastic, here) there is every likelihood that some parts will be postponed further down the line if the UK economy becomes as turbulent as the experts suggest.
Under normal circumstances a Government outlines a policy programme, lists the necessary Bills and then sets out a legislative timetable for implementation. It is taken as a given that the Government has the internal consensus for its programme.
This is what we had been led to believe was one of the practical changes the DUP had negotiated at St Andrews: there would be collective responsibility in the Executive and individual Ministerial accountability.
In other words, the PfG would have included the programme, the Bills and the timetable, allowing the Executive to speak with one voice, while the finance minister had a clear and reasonably exact idea of the financial commitment required. That is not the case with this PfG.
EDUCATION CHANGES
As was pointed out by a number of MLAs during the debate, the PfG had nothing to say on the Education Minister's plans for changes to post-primary education. And when you don't know the plans you can't possibly build in an accurate costing or legislative framework.
So why wasn't the minister required to put her plans to the Executive in advance of the PfG and Budget? And if it was, as I suspect, because the minister doesn't actually have a clue what her plans are, then the Executive should have instructed her to do nothing until the plans were clear, costed and ready for implementation. Better that than the present confusion.
It is not the job of an Assembly committee to twiddle its collective thumbs while a minister trawls the internet for some sort of solution to her problem – it is the job of the committee to consider and scrutinise a Bill which has been endorsed by the Executive as the first stage of its journey to enactment.
And it is certainly not the job of a ministerial adviser to brief the media: "In terms of the full range of the proposals for the future of post-primary education outlined, there will be a legislative basis for those proposals as appropriate. The minister believes she can build a consensus of support for her proposals and we are working to achieve that."
BEDDING DOWN
Let me translate that for you: "The minister is determined to do her own thing and reckons that with the clock ticking and the pressure building on the committee, she will get away with it."
What way is that to run a government department, you may ask? Well, when the PfG doesn't actually set out a clear programme of government, which this one doesn't, then the gap will be filled by ministers acting unilaterally. Which is maybe what William McCrea had in mind, when he said that he didn't support the agricultural aspects of the PfG and criticised the department concerned; which, like education, is headed by Sinn Fein.
I don't want to be too critical. We are still, after all, at the bedding down stage of the process.
Yet it looks to me like the issues of individual accountability, collective responsibility and committee scrutiny remain unaddressed and unresolved. And, while that remains the case, government can only get worse rather than better. The most worrying element of all, though, is that neither the DUP nor Sinn Fein seems aware of the ongoing difficulties.
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Tuesday 14 February 2012
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