46. Advisory Committees

Hi. I am Greg and I want to grumble about the State Government plan to abolish a raft of advisory committees and boards across all government areas. The committees have now been asked to show cause why they shouldn’t be cut.

The government says it is getting rid of bureaucracy and allowing citizens direct access to government. Who could complain about that? Well, I could!

The idea that having experts or stakeholder representatives on committees advising government somehow stops people having access to government is bizarre. It blames committees for separate processes of poor government engagement with the community, and it misunderstands the role of those advisory boards and committees.

The fact is that such committees can be useful, and often the only chance different stakeholders get to sit around a table to try to arrive at a common position.

That is potentially good both for policy development and for better community understanding of issues.

The real problem with such committees is that this potential is systematically sabotaged. The relevant government department usually controls the agenda and most of the information flow to the committee, and takes up most of the meeting time proferring its own advice or doing show-and-tell presentations on uncontroversial issues.

The committees are usually chaired and peopled by those handpicked or approved by Ministers and departments, ensuring the committees are “reasonable” (Humphrey Appleby would say “sound”) rather than representative.

Participants may be further prevented from reporting back to their constituencies by government-imposed confidentiality requirements, and there is a pervasive culture that avoids conflict or hard questions by not making formal decisions. Despite rules requiring majority decision making, votes are almost never taken.

General discussion and opinion substitutes for policy advice, and committee minutes – written and vetted by the department – simply note briefings and discussion with no actual decisions or outcomes.

So, having gutted and undermined the ability of these advisory committees to give independent and robust advice, the government now says they don’t work and should be abolished.

But here’s a radical idea, why not try to make them work by actually giving them independence and real questions to deal with – and expect actual decisions and advice, not just discussion and noting of government briefings.

Of course, that’s hard – and challenging. You might get different, and maybe even uncomfortable policies put forward. Perish the thought – much simpler just to abolish the committees.

I am Greg and I am grumbling.





This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 5 August 2014