Local government governance guru Peter Keith-Lucas has
an article in this week’s Local Government Lawyer assessing the current state of governance in local councils.

It’s a good read – expert but not too technical. Keith-Lucas has plagues to put on the houses of both parties: the Labour party for watering down the proper role of scrutiny in its most recent green paper, the Conservatives for setting out proposals on Standards Committee issues that (he suggests) leave the door open for greater councillor corruption. Here’s his closing paragraph (but do go and read the lot):

For healthy local government, there must be corporate governance, there must be a balance between the power of the executive and the checks and balances, in terms of council and scrutiny holding the executive to account, and an enforceable set of minimum standards of conduct. I am seriously concerned that the checks and balances which were an essential part of the 2000 Act Settlement are under attack. That promises a prosperous New Year for lawyers, but not a happy time for local government.

Does the sceptical journalist solve the problems that we thought they did?

As local newspapers retreat from providing anything like a good quality of news coverage, local authorities are wondering what their response should be.

On the one hand, there’s the model that Birmingham City Council have taken – providing a much more user-friendly information gateway that is designed to provide resources to citizen-journalists and bloggers.

Other options include beefing up the council’s information department with a view to turning the fairly skimpy info circulars into fully-fledged newspapers or being more in tune with hyperlocal sites of the kind that Will Perrin is promoting at the moment.

It’s a question that raises a number of important philosophical questions about the role of the state and the bureaucracy in providing information about itself. Stripping bureaucracies of the monopoly position that they have in describing their own services is a potentially game-changing idea that could, in some ways, redefine the state as we know it.

But what about the idea of ‘public service journalism’? The Press Association have a slightly opportunistic proposal to position themselves as the hub for ‘public service journalism’ – as far as I can see, the BBC do it with an efficiency that other media players can only dream of.

But all of these changes help to foreground one of the real problems that the BBC has faced for some time. And not only the BBC, but the very concept of ‘objective reporting’ itself.

In the past, journalists have provided a nice work-around for the problem of bureaucratic neutrality. The deal runs something like this:

• Local politicians are not expected to be neutral
• … but the officers are
• … and it’s the officers job to disseminate information about the local authority in a way that doesn’t compromise the next election (incumbents shouldn’t benefit from ‘spin on the rates’)
• Practically, this is a problem because a positive message about a council service implies an endorsement of the ruling group
• … but thankfully, journalists apply their scepticism and neutralise any spin that is being applied by the council press officer

Without journalists, the objectivity has gone. But was it ever there in the first place? And if so, was it of any real value?

In Northern Ireland, Slugger O’Toole deployed its bloggers far and wide to cover the Orangefest celebrations. The reporting was truly eye-opening, and it brought observations that haven’t reached the dress-rehearsed coverage of this highly contentious period in the Northern Ireland calender.  Mick was particularly scathing about the BBC’s attachment to ‘neutrality’

“…the BBC at least, was possessed of a bizarrely split personality: juddering between tourist board schmalz and an utter distaste for the whole thing. If I were to venture a guess I would say it was less a case of being conflicted than the modern BBC utterly loathing the whole thing within their very hearts and souls. I’ve nothing against Walter Love, but he retired from the BBC years ago as a working journalist. Mark Carruthers’ series of tough questions on Evening Extra last night were all sharp and relevant, and Drew Nelson, one of the ablest men to hold his post of Grand Secretary in modern times, was able to field them with some alacrity.

But you are left with the feeling that at the very least there is a huge emotional vacuum within the BBC. It gave the impression that no one of any ability or talent inside the modern BBC wants to do the job of publicly being nice to the Orange Order. To return to JP’s acute analysis, the Orange Order exists almost entirely as a negative valence in BBCNI’s inner emotional life.

Because the BBC holds a public service broadcasting remit, it has to cover things that perhaps its producers and journalists feel at best ambivalent about, and worst find inimical. It is, to follow Heath, incongruous for the BBC to cover an Orange parade which is not responsible for all the trouble it attracts. And if it does not attract trouble, like the parade in Dromore where demonstrators took their pints in three nationalist owned pubs bedecked with Tyrone flags, it is not news.”

Slugger’s correspondents offered a powerful counterweight to the neutrality of the BBC by offering, instead, pluralism (oddly, the way that BBC’s Newsnight has handled it’s strong commentary role is to employ regular correspondents from accross the spectrum over the years, though the pretense of neutrality is imposed upon semi-Trotskyists like Paul Mason or closet Tories such as Evan Davis).

I’ve just seen this post - ‘Transparency is the new objectivity’ (via my American friend Nathalie on Facebook):

“…transparency subsumes objectivity. Anyone who claims objectivity should be willing to back that assertion up by letting us look at sources, disagreements, and the personal assumptions and values supposedly bracketed out of the report.

Objectivity without transparency increasingly will look like arrogance. And then foolishness. Why should we trust what one person — with the best of intentions — insists is true when we instead could have a web of evidence, ideas, and argument?

In short: Objectivity is a trust mechanism you rely on when your medium can’t do links. Now our medium can.”

Is the objective journalist really as useful as we assumed in the past? And in an age when a cynical media is seen as being corrosive towards democratic processes, have we given them a tribune role that they’ve never been cut out for in the first place?

Is ‘transparency through pluralistic coverage’ the better option?

Ding Dong! An argument can draw crowds. But can it solve anything?

Here’s a good post from an Australian blogger on the question: Is adversarial politics damaging to our democracy? (It’s actually an update on a previous post with that title). Here the adversarialism is opposed by a more attractive ‘deliberative’ model of the kind advocated here. The flipside of this argument is put very well by Peter Levine here:

“As I told the Christian Science Monitor in 2006, “Polarization tends to be a mobilizing factor in getting out the vote.” At CIRCLE, we helped to organize randomized experiments of voter outreach with the goal that the parties would learn new techniques and compete more effectively for our target population (youth). I believe we and our colleagues had some influence on the parties and thereby helped boost turnout. We also funded a study that found that parties were under-investing in their young members. Again, our goal was to persuade them to become more effective.”

There is, of course, the adversarial politics of Parliament and the media that we are all familiar with. These arguments are fairly well played out, though they are always worth revisiting. The obvious conclusion, for me is a somewhat muddy preference for a bit-of-both.

However, there is the often-overlooked challenge of ‘adversarial legalism’ towards a supposedly ‘elite-dominated’ form of representative democracy in which various minority groups seek to take a role in the political process using courts to secure rights that protect individuals and minorities.

The difference between the UK and the US is noticeable in this respect – in the past, if you want to get on in the lobbying industry in the UK, a good address book, a record in student politics, a spell as a Westminster bag-carrier and – ideally – a period as a ministerial special adviser were often the key requisites.

In the US, a legal background has always been much more useful.

However, this has changed somewhat in recent years in the UK with an increase in the degree to which independence has been preferred over the traditional ministerial discretionary powers that used to dominate public life (Sir Humphrey permitting, of course….). In the UK, now, the Westminster background is beginning to be less useful than a spell running an NGO or a charity, peppered with periods at a management consultancy, a regulator of some kind, or a period working as a civil servant.

Anyway, here are – for me – the big questions: How far is this preference for independence in intitutions that have some governance roles, combined with a demand for greater transparency from politicans (to counteract the discretion that they have often enjoyed in the past)anti-political? And is anti-political the same as anti-democratic?

Is the preference for independence in control of interest rates, the regulation of industry, and even the regulation of politics (by everyone from The Standards Board for England to the Sergeant-at-Arms in Westminster) a threat to representative democracy – or a safety net for it? And does the neutrality of regulated news organisations also provide an unflattering contrast to elected and partisan politicians?

Are these phenomena ones that have been invented to postpone a collapse in the perceived legitimacy of politicians? Or are they becoming every bit the rival to elected representatives in the UK to the lawyered-up pressure groups that dominate so much of US politics?

This appears to me to be a very important question – and one that was picked up in a recent review of the year by Guardian leader-writer Julian Glover here (you will need to scroll down to find it). My prejudices are very much in favour of politicians being able to exercise some discretion and being required to answer for it at election time.

What are your prejudices in this regard?

Update: Here’s Kevin Harris on UK government guidelines on Meaningful Social Interaction (MSI!). To my mind, the question of how civil engagement between the non-elected should be conducted is a no-brainer. Adversarial conversations in this area are rarely worth eavesdropping upon if you are an elected representative.

Jeremy Paxman - The BBC's Newsnight anchorman

I’d like to look at how the requirement that is placed upon public broadcasters to be impartial impacts upon the quality of democracy in the UK. It’s a complex question, and I’d like to explore it over a few posts.

‘Impartial’ can mean many things. The most obvious expression of it is in the guidelines that ensure that correspondents are not imposing their own views on a story, and are instead attempting to assemble the facts – only the facts – for the viewers to review and draw their conclusions. The contrast between a fairly activist newspaper such as the UK’s Daily Mail (or perhaps, even better, Fox News in the US) and the BBC illustrates this very well.

Impartiality is also understood, at least in part, as a relative term – locating oneself at a ‘mid-point’ between the various mainstream political poles. Impartial journalists in the UK until recently would be expected to ensure that the current political centre of gravity – the variations upon the post-Thatcher consensus – are reflected in all debates. Similarly, in the early 1960s, they would have done the same for the Butskellite consensus. Now, in the post-Lehmans / Obama age, perhaps we will see another such shift?

Also, when we watch a news report, we can’t avoid looking at the people delivering it. They offer all kinds of nuances – either those of their social class or their political background.

It would be fair to say that few people arrive in a TV studio with their political virginity intact. They may attempt to be balanced on-camera, but the colour of their vests often shine through. The BBC’s Nick Robinson was a Conservative student activist. Andrew Marr edited a slightly left-liberal newspaper, and so on. Newsnight’s Paul Mason is thought to have a background in left-of-Labour politics and was certainly known as a fairly enthusiastic trades unionist when he edited Computer Weekly.

In order to report political issues, the BBC (wisely perhaps) hires people who have a rapport with politicians. This presents problems of its own. A very concrete challenge to the sociological make-up of the BBC was offered a while ago by an Irish Republican writer – Jim Gibney. Here, he called for the BBC to hire journalists to reflect the views of the electorate.

It may not be a view Gibney would have held a few years ago, but you can see why he’s on this one now. Because Sinn Féin have enjoyed a relatively rapid period of political growth over recent years, they may have a right to feel that the BBC isn’t stocked with ex-Shinner activists – and that this works against his party.

Is it possible for journalists to really mask their preferences? Should we be asking public broadcasters to go for a ‘diversity’ model of impartiality instead? Would we not be better served by lots of named correspondents with fairly well-known prejudices calling things as they really see them – rather than attempting the charade of even-handedness?

I would like to explore this in more detail, and I’ll be picking it up shortly as part of a wider questioning of how the word ‘impartial’ regulates democratic discourse – often with questionable results.

Update: Slugger O’Toole has picked this post up and the comments there are worth a look

This time last year, Sir Christopher Foster – a long-standing government adviser on economic policy was much in evidence. There was this interview in the Telegraph, and I heard him on BBC Radio 4. The link to the programme is no longer available, but I made notes at the time. The Telegraph piece makes some very good points about micro-management, but this bit stood out in the radio programme.

Foster offered a familiar list of problems: They were … (and I paraphrase)…

• too many initiatives,
• too many reorganisations,
• not enough planning,
• many more pieces of legislation.
• too much micro-managing by politicians,
• the overconfidence of politicians in their own abilities

… and of course, the relationship with the media.

And that’s all well and good. But – again – why do politicians feel the need to constantly try new initiatives? Generally, if they aren’t being seen to over-react to almost everything, they can expect a well-organised personal campaign against them from any one of a few thousand professional pressure groups.

An unwillingness to either comply – or loudly denounce – any one of these initiatives – will rapidly result in that career-ending verdict: ‘Out of touch.’

And should the relatively small cadre of ministers in central government really be spending longer planning for difficulties? Surely, that’s what the professionals in Whitehall are for?

Certainly, it seems that the people that become MPs are often puzzled spectators on the whole question of public administration. They often seem to lack the basic grounding in good governance, and are prepared to be bullied by their party whips into a spiral of short-termism. They have no idea about how to get government departments to do what they are supposed to.

They didn’t get selected for their grasp of public administration, after all.

And when a headline keeps them awake, they arrive at work the next morning ready to add yet another ropey patch to already-poor legislation. Instead of fewer, better, bills, before Parliament, we get more and more faulty legislation that is often being replaced on the floor of the House of Commons before it even reaches the statute books.

And the constant spiral of regulation is resented even by people who generally don’t mind big-ish government in general. Surely, there is a case for politians to have a more supportive bunch of civil servants that they bring in with them when they win elections? There was a very good programme on The Westminster Hour earlier this week (I don’t know how long this link will work, but it was very good)

I mention this today because one of the higher-volume political weblogs – Harry’s Place – has an interesting post on the possibility of a less neutral civil service. If this were considered at Whitehall-level, surely it would be worth considering at a local level as well?

As there are a couple of good posts in the mainstream political blogosphere touching upon the qualities that are needed to promote an effective representative democracy, today is a good day to start a blog on the subject. This post will focus on the most topical:

Both Puffbox and Spartakan are chewing over the fact that Labour MP Paul Flynn has had his parliamentary allowance docked for misuse of the weblog that he has established under that same allowance.

This scheme was set up in March 2007 with the express purpose of promoting a public understanding of Parliament. To my mind, it raises a number of questions that I will seek to answer here over the coming weeks and months. They are as follows:

1. Do we over-fetishise political neutrality? Are the rules that preclude politicians from doing politics on the rates entirely sensible in this day-and-age? And do rules that are designed to stop this from happening actually pander to a highly anti-democratic and centralising agenda?
2. Is this the old ‘Eunuch in a harem’ problem? Is there not something slightly distorted about going to people who are morbidly, obsessively and fanatically political people and saying “here is a budget that you can use to communicate with millions of people with an efficiency that you wouldn’t previously have dreamed of – as long as you don’t use it for political purposes?
3. If you give an elected representative tools to communicate politically, are you necessarily giving them a political advantage? The public are increasingly turned off by political huckstering, yet politicians seem oddly keen to do it. Giving them the space to do it really effectively a bit like giving them a shorter rope and a longer drop?

I will return to these questions shortly – particularly the first one.