Solutions – ‘Citizen Panels’ for Major Projects
How to ensure citizens interests are reflected in publicly funded projects
Convention is to begin with problems and causation before proposing solutions, however I am offering some solutions up front. Most people will accept that there are general systemic problems with our major publicly funded projects, and many will be aware of the causes – although I will go into more detail in future. A proposed solution is the creation of ‘Citizen Panels’ for major projects and portfolios.
The potential for project governance problems exists where the people responsible for managing an asset are different to the people that own it; there is then the risk that managers act in their own interests rather than the owners. In a publicly funded project ownership is with the taxpayers and citizens. Those responsible for selecting, designing and constructing projects are the ‘management layers’ consisting of Government, civil service and private sector contractors. There are also stakeholders and influencers like lobbyists, regulators and political parties.
Although a project or asset might be described as ‘Government owned’, it is my view that Government is just another layer of management, true ownership is with the citizens. The management layers have financial, career or ideological objectives that far outweigh their interest as individual citizens. Everyone understands this.
There is generally only a very weak connection between public projects and the people. Taxpayers will have only a limited insights into how their money is spent on projects and very little say. Most people only find out about projects from the popular press, this is information has been filtered through civil servants, committees, auditors, regulators and journalists. Even then it has to compete against other news stories.
The purpose of a ‘Citizens Project Panel’ would be to establish the connection between the citizens and the projects they select, own and are paying for. The panel would not be involved in the day to day management of the project but would be focussed on Governance. The main objective of the panel would be to represent the interests of the citizens and give an independent eye, from a citizen perspective, on the claims being made for the projects costs, benefits and timescales.
Participation on the panel would be like undertaking jury service (citizens chosen at random & having no conflicts of interest, compensation for participating, etc). The time commitment would be different; perhaps one day per month or quarter but over a longer time period rather than concentrated on a trial. A professional judge or chair would manage proceeding. Similar to a court room the Panel could receive and request insights from independent witnesses and experts. This is just the concept. To become policy, details such as which projects require a Panel and exemptions for Defence projects would need to be worked out.
How might the existence of a Project Citizens Panel have affected a historic project?
An example of misaligned objectives might be the Scottish Parliament Building which opened in 2004. Architects, politicians and civil servants wanted, and got, a very expensive iconic building. Scottish citizens were less convinced, the project was controversial on grounds of cost, architecture and location. A public inquiry was held into how budgets had risen from an initial estimate of £10 to £40m to a final reckoning of £414m (the inquiry took place after the money was largely spent of course). It seems the management layers did not spend the money as the citizens would.
The inquiry stated:
the £40 million figure could never have been a realistic estimate for anything other than most basic of new Parliament buildings. However, what can be stated clearly is that at the time £40 million was included in the White Paper, there was no clear understanding whether that was a total cost including professional fees or only a construction cost. It was certainly not explained to the Scottish public what the figure was anticipated to cover. (Fraser, 2004)
Might a Citizens Panel have questioned the cost and how the full project was to be paid for? And in good time that something could have been done about it? It was certainly well known early on in the project that the true costs were much higher.
One of the recommendations made by the inquiry report was: ‘Views of independent advisors should not be filtered through civil servants when presented to ministers. Judgements should be received alongside the disagreements of civil servants.’ . The suggestion above that the Citizen Panel can ‘request and receive insights from independent witnesses and experts’ is the implementation of this recommendation.
To ensure the Project Citizen Panel a fully effective system careful thought has to be given about how the Panel gains clarity and insights about the true status of the project. For this I propose the ‘Triple Information Pathways’ will be covered in my next post.
References and further reading:
Holyrood Inquiry The Holyrood Inquiry (parliament.scot)
Follow up inquiry into conduct of civil servants:
Holyrood critics cry whitewash as report exonerates civil servants (thetimes.co.uk)
Holyrood inquiry QC lashes out at MSPs and civil servants | The Scotsman
Two decades on has the Scottish Government learned lessons from the Holyrood Project?
Ferguson Marine: Calls for public enquiry over £500m ferries bill | HeraldScotland
Ten things we learned about Scotland's ferry fiasco - BBC News