Obama vs Labour on public accountability

My oh my what a contrast, while Barack Obama tells the American people

"And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government."

Our clear and transparent government have introduced "Freedom of Information (Parliament) Order 2009" a rather ironic name given its main aim is to exempt MP from having their expenses declared in full.

No iPODgate for them. I bet Nick Bourne wished he had won in Worcestershire all those years ago :-)

Still at least there is some opposition to this.

Jo Swinton has an early day motion down while TheyWorkForYou will lead on this from now to the election and are offering practical lobbying suggestions.

Then finally there is a facebook group which is now approaching its 6000th member in about 48 hours

Suggestions for reform on staffing

I have no problem with an MP employing 1, 2 or 200 members of their family so long as they are the best 200 for the job. So let me make a simple suggestion on how reform could be achieved

Set up a common set of job descriptions and expected skills for the core jobs an MP may advertise (case worker, office manager, diary secretary etc). Within each area establish a job ladder of expanded skill levels/ expectations and development needs with an accompanying national pay scale.

The HR team in the commons then work with the individual parties to build up a resource pool of individuals who have been assessed against the required criteria and are available for any MP of that party to employ.

Final pay is based on assessed merit and selection based on employers preference.

Of course if an MPs family are particularly large and particularly gifted they can all be employed if they don't cut the mustard they are out the door before they even get in.

Time for some real reform on MPs expenses

Yesterday was the first working day of the new month.

On starting work I extracted all my fuel receipts from the car, pulled out my government credit card receipts opened up three spreadsheets and two web pages and completed my end of month financial return. No doubt many other civil servants did the same thing.

On expenses I am governed by specific rules I have limits on hotel room costs, how much I can spend on lunch and on an evening meal the smallest amount I have ever accounted for is a 20p car park ticket.

The forms then go off to the expenses team and will be checked against the rules if I spend 1p too much on lunch an adjustment is made.

Perhaps all MPs need to spend a week shadowing their civil service counterparts to start to understand what goes on in the real world. Who knows some of them might even benefit from it.

Why MPs need to back their pay deal in full

I had lunch today with one of our MPs, a long term friend we specifically decided politics was off limits for the day. They did said they will be voting against the full pay rise because of all the work they were doing in support of the police claim and it would be hypocritical to do otherwise I told them I thought they were wrong and we left it at that ,but here I thought I might explain why.

Personally I think the best thing an MP can do for every nurse, policeman, teacher and everyone else whose pay is "set" by independant review is to back this increase in full.

Why? because to do otherwise is the leave Gordon Brown with the stick "MPs rejected their full increase so you should follow there example". Of course the there will be accusations of snouts in a trough so some care on presentation will need to be undertaken but there is a fundamental principle at stake in that vote.

IF you set pay by independent review then you must honour that review in full.

Of course I hope our MPs will propose at least one amendment the abolition of this crazy vote in the first place.