What do you expect of a Councillor?

Councillors on St.Helena fulfil a number of roles:    (click on the entries to jump directly)

• Representative for individual issues

• Policy maker

• Legislator

• Champion for political views

• Monitor of Government performance

• Information source

• Executive Council member

• Ambassador for St.Helena

 

Monitor of Government performance

If the Government were not watched or monitored, then, without checks and balances, it could do more or less anything, without fear of the need to explain its actions. That is why someone has to watch what they do. The Audit Service have a role to play in this, but they are more concerned with the "way" things are done, rather than "what" is done. Generally speaking, this task falls to non-ExCo Members of Legislative Council. They sit on Committees, they run the Public Accounts Committee, and they question officials and Heads of Department on all sorts of concerns. This is an important role, and not for the faint-hearted or someone looking for a quiet life.

Information source

It has frequently been a source of irritation (or worse) when Government fail to communicate effectively. While the party line seems to be "Openness and Transparency", it is mostly a matter of paying lip service to the concept.

What is needed is a set of Councillors who are not afraid to make public, things that would be very easy to keep quiet, and things are kept quiet for a variety of reasons, some more acceptable than others.

So, you, as a constituent should be able to expect to be informed about what is going on, and that is not a matter of simply issuing Press Releases - I mean information sessions, targeted emails, media statements, articles in the newspapers, all sorts of ways of making sure you are up-to-speed with what is being said and done in your name, with your money!

 

Next: >>  What do you expect of a Councillor? continued (Executive Council member...) 
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