GOOD GOVERNANCE VERSUS INQUIRY COST

Many miss the point by speaking of the cost of the McGrail Inquiry. The issue is not cost. The issue is good governance and good administration across the board involving independence and integrity, something that this blog continuously preaches.

Cost will become an issue if no remedial measures are put in effect, over a reasonable time, across government and the public administration arising from any lessons learnt from the final report in the McGrail Inquiry.

ADMINISTRATIVE INDEPENDENCE

Lots will come out in the McGrail Inquiry which will be applicable to much related to governance and the supposed exercise of certain powers through independent bodies. Are those bodies in practice so independent?

Gibraltar should not continue to be administered with a pretence of ‘independent’ bodies participating when reality most roads seem to point to No 6 Convent Place or thereabouts to other parts of the elected Governments from time to time.

FAILINGS NEED INDEPENDENT ASSESSMENT

If there are indications of failings by public officers or bodies to publicly administer properly, then independent assessment of those is central as are corrective action of anything that may be found.

It is especially so if there are constitutional or administrative bodies precisely to provide that objectivity and independence, like the Gibraltar Police Authority, Public Service Commission or Specified Appointments Commission, at a constitutional level, and many other statutory bodies.

GOOD GOVERNANCE

Good governance is not just about those who are elected going about their job. It is about democracy, which in turn is not just about elections every four years. It is about checks and balances at a parliamentary level and at all levels of administration, including an independent Civil/Public Service and independent public constitutional and statutory commissions and committees.

It is likely that much that will come of the ongoing Inquiry will not just impact on the various parties involved on the issues engaged. It will likely apply, with adaptation, to many other areas where the failings in independent thought and action from government are to be found.

WHO WILL ACT?

In terms of good governance and administration, the issue will become who, if anyone, will take any steps to improve those. The Constitutional duty for ‘peace, order, and good governance’ is retained by the UK.

However, it would be sad to see that the UK would need to step in and take appropriate actions. One would hope that those responsible at a local level, including politicians, would act. A failure to act, or a shortfall in taking any action, at a local level would show up a huge amount of political and administrative immaturity.

AVOIDING REPETITION

It is an immaturity that would come to attention and to the fore, if the UK was seen to be taking any steps to put right what may be found to be wrong, without that action being instigated, promoted, and actively pursued locally at a political level.

Constitutional, governmental, and administrative change, improvement, and greater maturity, preferably instigated at a local level, are the best remedy to avoid costs, such as those being incurred in the McGrail Inquiry, being incurred again in the future.