The bulk of government work is carried out by the Civil Service in one guise or another. Broadly they are any people paid salaries directly from the public purse. All such people must be subject to rules of conduct which go with the duty and privilege of public service itself. MPs are just one special kind of civil servant, the highest level that is directly elected. MPs would in future be responsible for directing the work of the Civil Service. As bottom up government takes over from top down, the number of MPs is likely to shrink as they represent too many people at high levels in a hierarchy which is to be deliberately flattened. Sufficient MPs should be available in some fashion to direct the Civil Service but more than that are superfluous.
Each government department would have a management committee of 15 MPs composed of three groups :
All government departments will cease to exist automatically five years after the day they are created unless specific measures are taken to prevent this from happening. If a department does cease to exist then all its member employees also cease to have jobs and must move on. Civil Service jobs, that is any job paid for directly from the public purse, will be for fixed terms, agreed as part of the job description. While the job may be renewed, if a full business case is freshly drawn up to justify the job, the person holding the post will automatically be replaced and must move on. To further prevent empire-building, vested interests and corruption there will be a permanently maintained and evolving matrix of all jobs and which ones it is not permissible to move between, again with continuous input from the People who will have the deciding vote.
IMPLEMENTING CIVIL SERVANTS. (Ref: w1002)
Each department is to have at least two entirely isolated sub-departments, one to carry out the public will and the other to oppose the public will. The opposition will report its opposition in advance of decisions being made. The opposition will not have the power to veto the public will but it can appeal to arbitration. The arbitration body can force a veto of the public will. All will be public and overt and thus subject to dissent. This is not what we know, and so mistrust, today as 'self-regulation'. What we are after is self-regulation by ourselves not government self-regulation by itself.
MONITORING SECTIONS. (Ref: w1003)
This new view of government has built into it a hierarchy of 'purpose' which consists of:
Note that this has no place for personalities, no prime this or minister for that. This hierarchy lays down that those monitoring how well the government is meeting the demands of the People should look first at how the principles are being adhered to and last at the details of individual actions. Thus, it does not require that all the monitoring people be experts in the field they are monitoring, and it follows therefore that it is possible to set things up so that ideally every person can contribute, and should contribute, to the monitoring processes to the best of their ability. It is certainly in the interests of every person that they contribute as much as they can, again a fail-safe attitude that cannot fail to pay off. It also follows that monitoring can therefore be voluntary. The pressure from the process is for the individual to contribute, to volunteer, not just for the common good but out of self-interest too. The more volunteering there is the lighter the burden on each person and the better quality the outcome is likely to be. We all win.
These monitoring sections may be vital but they are also potentially very boring. With a function that consists solely of reporting with no power whatsoever to do anything these sections are not careers, just temporary duties. The need for volunteers will start very small and grow directly in proportion to the growth of this whole new way of thinking, thus the pool of volunteers will remain an ocean for a very long time. But assume all resources are finite, whether they are in fact or not. So the ideal structure in the very far future might be something like :
This team is of course in addition to the mass monitoring that the People can and should perform when all public business is published in detail on the Web for all to see. Any time, from anywhere, for any reason, anonymously.
It not only does not matter if the monitors are experts in the department's field but it could be a positive advantage as a non-expert has to ask more questions and will not be so averse to asking the 'wrong' questions nor so readily and automatically assume that as experts they already know the answers. These people are monitoring not dreaming the stuff up in the first place. Furthermore, this structure will put more onus where it belongs, on the policy-makers, planners and implementers, to explain and explain and explain again why they are doing what they are doing.
It may be tempting to imagine that after fifty years this way of government will have become second nature and therefore we can do away with the monitoring department altogether. Don't. Ever. Somebody said 'for evil to triumph it is necessary only that the good man do nothing'. Doing nothing is not an option. Ever. To paraphrase Pat Shearn, the good person does something good, sits back for a rest and then does something else good. The bad person does something bad, then does something else bad and then does something else bad again. He does not rest, he goes on and on and on.
That everyone should perform some public service sometimes should be seen as a duty. Jury duty already makes this presumption. Exemption can be had but at a public price. The price must be publication of the act and its reasons, including a private reason which can be construed by the public in whatever way it sees fit. In other words, even the refusal to give a reason should have a separate cost, even if the private refusal to answer is for the very, very best of motives. (This is again an element of the truth business. Truth leads to trust leads to spiritual enhancement)
TopQUESTIONS (Ref: w1099) (Contact us)