On Saturday afternoon conference voted overwhelmingly for more engagement by members through OMOV, and for transparency and accountability from the party and its committees, in order to nourish this engagement. The amendment, put forward by Mark Pack, Duncan Brack, and others was purposeful and helpful, and made clear that we need to make sure that the party is more accountable to members. The party needs to show its firm intent to follow up on this motion as soon as it can, preferably for endorsement by spring conference next year, so that our next autumn conference operates as members wish.
However, there is one committee who could now open up their workings and decisions for spring conference. The FCC works silently as far as members are concerned, and those of us on the outside have no indication of the motions and amendments our fellow members and parties have submitted. We do not know what has been rejected for discussion at conference. This is simply remedied, by putting all submissions on the website, perhaps in a section open to members-only, and noting which were selected, and for what reasons. There are no confidentiality issues; all submissions were intended for the public domain. But such a move is not just about living up to our principles of transparency in governance. It would also let us see how each other are thinking and how our elected committee members think too. Publishing the decisions of the FCC would enable us all to draft future motions better, and enable members to discuss our priorities as a party.
This request has taken on a new urgency following the pre-manifesto debate at conference on Tuesday morning. The fourth amendment selected for debate re-opened discussion of the party’s policy on the building of new runways – despite the party policy on this topic only being set recently. The members deserve to know why FCC chose this amendment above others submitted.
When the Cambridge local party wrote to Nick Clegg about the party in July, we raised the transparency of party committees. Nick agreed with the principle that “we should always seek to be as transparent as possible”, but recommended that we write to the relevant committees directly as they have “their own working practices”, and that as Nick is not an officer of the federal committees it would be inappropriate for him to dictate these practices to them. We are therefore writing to the chair of FCC today and, in the spirit of openness, publishing this request here now.
Let’s start applying the same principles to our party as we would to our councils – that people know who is making what decisions when, and on what information.
A modified version of this article was sent to Andrew Wiseman, Chair of FCC.
* William Barter is an activist and member in Cambridge. Sian Reid is a Lib Dem councillor in Cambridge and former council leader.
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17 Comments
I have been thinking along very similar lines. It would be fascinating to see, when it comes to prioritising for time, who has voted for what.
And while we have “drafting advice” – although I didn’t get any last time despite sending a reminder – seeing what else has been rejected for poor drafting will make it a lot easier to understand exactly what is required.
And for all I know, somebody else is working on the same area as me and if we saw the submissions, we could find each other and work together.
This will be part of my platform when I stand for FCC.
All worthy and democratic stuff. But there is something rather important happening in early May next year.
Is everyone just resigned to an electoral suicide strategy for the General Election ?
If as some calculate there are a dozen seats where concentrated effort might make the difference between a Liberal Democrat MP and not — should work on that be a priority?
All good stuff. I appreciate that the FCC have an enormous number of submissions, particularly of amendments, but it does seem to take some odd decisions. It may well be that there are good reasons for those decisions, but of course we simply don’t know.
By way of example, I know of at least two amendments (one of which I submitted) welcoming Andrew George’s reforms to the ‘bedroom tax’; something supported by all our Parliamentarians and an important thing, I would have thought, for the party to be very clear about.
Yet neither amendment was taken. However, one calling for the abolition of the ‘bedroom tax’, which never had good chances of passing, was selected. Odd indeed.
I thoroughly approve of the ideas set forth in this article
This looks a good idea to me. It was totally bazarre we spent so much time debating airports when policy on this was agreed a couple of years ago. It hijacked the debate which annoyed me and the amendment was rejected anyway so it eas a complete waste of time.
To carry on John Tilly’s theme, I support these aims. But given the Pary’s present situation, FCC and FE might well consider producing some alternative and potentially more useful activity for hundreds of activists to involve themselves in together to combine with (say) a day conference in the Spring.
Cynics might suggest that is it seems obvious that the Agenda included the Airports amendment because Nick Clegg wanted to change Party policy – and the bedroom tax amendment was included to allow the parliamentary Party to have a bit of a ‘win’ over what is left of the ‘left’ in the Party. It would be good to have the info to prove them wrong.
Mark Pack has been pressing for prompt publication of committee minutes for some time, but apparently there is problem of resources. There is a natural limit to what you can put in public minutes, of course, but we could go much further in informing the membership.
It would be helpful to have a summary of which motions and amendment were NOT taken, possibly with short reasons. ‘The Toytown amendment was not included because it duplicated the Hogwarts amendment.’. But, looking at the length and complexity of some motions, this is not a trival task.
I agree with Geoffrey Payne about airports. Early on Tuesday morning the buzz was going round the exhibition that there was going to be a contentious debate about airports, so a group of us tried to see where it was in the agenda. Having the advantage of having read the Pre-manifesto from cover to cover and finding the amendment on the daily announcements, it was clear that this related to a paragraph or two in the pre-Manifesto. The presences of Heathrow and Gatwick at the conference was also a certain clue.
As Geoffrey says, it did seem to take over the pre-Manifesto debate.
I was surprised afterwards to hear the media report afterwards that we had given Nick Clegg a bloody nose – it was not presented that way in the debate. If it was true, I’m sure he’ll survive it. It’s deep in the LibDem leader’s job description that the members think for themselves and won’t agree with the leader all the time..
I do not see the point of OMOV when the leadership is quite willing to ignore the party. The party voted against secret courts. Why should the party bother to vote if they know that the leader is dead set against something
Ian Sanderson and Geoffrey Payne — runways
Watching from afar on TV and therefore having an eye on other media as well it was all too clear what was going on. If you read the thread in LDV under the article by Brian Paddick it will give you a flavour.
In brief Clegg’s people invested a lot of time and effort with the media to promote this. Ostensibly it was about any runway expansion in the UK and the more gullible fell for that. On closer inspection it was about Gatwick. And look a little closer still it was about Heathrow. A carefully orchestrated campaign was under way to change party policy by stealth.
Brian Paddick is probaby still claiming his piece was entirely his own, nothing to do with the aviation industry and solely motivated by his London to Norway weekly commute to see his husband. But if anyone beieves that …..
I might suggest that another problem we have is that committee members, once elected, have no means of reaching out to the wider party. Having been elected to a position, two years pass, and then you write another manifesto. Members have very little opportunity, and certainly none provided formally, to ask you what you’ve done in office, and get an A5 manifesto in which you can’t say very much and have to catch the eye of voters amongst dozens of similar pieces.
I’ve used Liberal Democrat Voice as an outlet for reporting, but could imagine that if all eight ALDE Council delegates did so, LDV might get a bit dull. Having more people take part in the process is possibly a good thing, but democracy is only partial if uninformed and unaccountable between polls.
Hi Mark
Some years ago, I remember, FCC devised a system whereby they had their members allocated as “links” to individual Regions. While it lasted, it was, I thought, quite effective as a communication mechanism.
@ Tim,
But for who was it effective – the Regional Executive or, say, a Federal conference representative from East Devon or Mid Suffolk?
And, I suppose, that’s my question. As a councillor, or even an MP, you would be reporting back to your electorate. As a member of a federal committee, how can you do that?
@JohnTilley I don’t see why we cannot try and improve our internal democracy at the same time as fighting the next election. Why does the publication of submitted motions and amendments, and the reasons why the selected ones were selected, make us less effective at campaigning? We are rightly proud of our internal democracy but we must act to improve it.
@Mark I could not agree more. I do not claim this post has all the answers. But I think it is part of the answer.
@Joe thanks for your support. I’m not a voting rep, so I do not know how much attention candidates will pay to me. But I hope the other candidates, like you, will back making the FCC more transparent and accountable.
Mark
Really, you can only report to those who will listen to you or read you (online or whatever). It’s often a similar experience if, as a Councillor or elected public representative, you hold a surgery. In the end, if the listener / reader / other participant in the dialogue hasn’t got time / isn’t very interested, you don’t get much across. Bearing in mind that anyone who needs / wishes to communicate anything should try to make it interesting and succinct! Even an invitation to a meeting / surgery / consultation etc.
The concept of the Regional link gives you a comparison with a rep elected for a ward or constituency, ie you have divided up your audience and it gives you an initial “in” and a responsibility to do that communicating.
@Tim13,
We both have plenty of experience of Regional Parties, and know that they can be good, poor or indifferent in terms of communication. But, and I evidently haven’t made myself clear hare, if you’re a councillor, you can deliver a Focus leaflet to your voters. Yes, they may not read it, but they have a chance to. What opportunity exists for me to report back to my electorate, Federal Conference delegates?
A few points on here: much of which I agree with.
1) Drafting advice. This is done by individual FCC members volunteering: motions are allocated and it is done on a case-by-case basis. If somebody has let you down by not providing advice, you should know. I am aware of a couple of cases in recent years where drafting advice has been sought but not provided, but thought this problem had been dealt with. I have always dealt with mine in a timely fashion.
2) Letting people know the outcome of motions submitted. Again, generally this happens and I am not the only member of FCC member happy to discuss this. Submitters of motions not accepted have the right to a good amount of constructive feedback, and do not always get this; again, it is the individual responsibility of members of FCC who should be held to account.
3) Tim and Mark – I was one of the biggest supporters of links to regions. In the first few years it was set up, this system worked well (nd I have a still-relevant training module about how to write policy and engage with the policymaking process). These days the quality of feedback most of us have with regional parties is poor to virtually non-existent, sadly. In particular, regions think any motion passed at a regional conference is automatically passed up a level when in actual fact regions do not submit them.
4) Geoffrey Payne – I am barred by FPC and FCC secrecy rules from commenting about the specifics of the airports debate. Suffice to say that if details were to become public, I am confident the amendment would have been defeated more comprehensively than it was. The episode does not reflect its supporters in a good light. That brings up the wider issue of the secrecy rules. I have raised in the past the transparency of FCC decision-making, especially when proposals on the NHS Bill and the economy were rejected for debate under pressure from the leadership. In a Liberal party it strikes me as ridiculous that on those occasions, the party could not know what happened other than by reading Liberator. I hope that ending those secrecy rules will become a major part of the coming committee elections; I certainly think that any of those who have supported their retention who then pretend otherwise should be called out.
Sian and William – the final Spring Conference of an election cycle is generally held as a pre-election showcase for final policy development. Given that the number of critical decisions to be made between then and Autumn 2015 affected by OMOV or gender quotas are minimal, I would hope that the current FE would respect the wishes of Conference and give the final decisions to the new committee to deal with. To my mind there is much to be said for us getting the external focus of the party right (just this once) and picking up other party business in Liverpool when there will be plenty of time. That said, it may be helpful for all concerned to remedy the transparency aspects of the process highlighted by Mark and Duncan sooner rather than later.