Citizenship Foundation Voices

Recent revelations that British Members of Parliament have abused their expenses may seem pretty appalling. But maybe it’s society, and not simply the MPs, that needs a change of attitude.

On Tuesday Lord Foulkes challenged BBC presenter Carrie Gracie to reveal her salary. When she did, he lambasted her for daring to cross-examine him when her own salary of £92,000 is almost twice as much his.

It seems to me that he’s missed the point. Gracie replied that she uses her own phone rather than the BBC’s because she’s aware of spending public money. That may sound a little pathetic considering the size of her salary, but she’s right: surely it’s the attitude that’s the issue here, not the amount of money?

Lord Foulkes may be earning a lot less than Carrie Gracie, but he’s still earning a lot more than most people: and many of them would be considered well-paid. I work for a charity, which is funded in part by public money. I work from home, and I don’t claim for phone calls, electricity, or heating. Certainly I don’t expect other people not to claim for such expenses incurred in the performance of their job, but some moral integrity wouldn’t go amiss.

Which begs the question: would we be any different?

How many of those who have been so eager to criticise MPs’ use of expenses wouldn’t have done exactly the same given the chance? It would be interesting, for example, to see a freedom of information response on this from some members of the press.

If such a request did show a similarity of behaviour, the defence - I should imagine - would be that it isn’t public money that they’re spending. True, but if someone takes advantage of expenses in the private sector, they’re unlikely to change their spots if they then move to the public sector.

Isn’t it our attitude to money and to our behaviour in business and society that’s important? If we don’t see ourselves as having a duty to behave responsibly with others, and within the society and communities in which we operate, then why should anything change; MPs will always act selfishly - even if they do it within the rules - because that’s what people do?

Surely MPs are a product of society: so if society doesn’t change, neither will they.

Adapted from my post on citizensheep.com

That sounds like a massive question, doesn’t it?  Don’t read on if you expect me to answer it in this blog post – I’m merely aiming to think through the MPs’ expenses debacle and what questions recent events might raise for the Citizenship Foundation.

Over the past couple of days I’ve had conversations with Andy (Director of Participation and Social Action at the Foundation) and Tony (our Chief Exec) about whether or not the Foundation has something to say on the expenses scandal.  Over various discussions we all agreed that, as an organisation, we believe that that this is a time for everyone to take ownership of our political system and that we hope teachers across the country are using the debate as an opportunity to tackle some difficult questions around trust and democratic representation with their students.  Indeed, we’ve got lots to say on the subject, but I took the view that there probably wasn’t much point entering into the media scrum at the moment with a message that is positive and/or constructive.  Defeatist as this might sound, I think it’s fair to say that a measured response would be considered positively boring, what with all the back-biting and political manoeuvring taking place on our TV screens and in our papers.

So we’re not going to stand up and shout about what’s going on.  But that hasn’t stopped me – and I’m sure other colleagues – from thinking about the long-term impacts the scandal is going to have on public trust in politicians and our political institutions.  I think this is a systemic problem, one that has arisen because Parliament has been allowed to create the very system that is supposed to regulate their behaviour.  This is an obviously skewed arrangement; who knows how creative we all could be if we were allowed to write the tax policy, for instance, that applied to our own earnings?  From the fear of anarchy implicit in such a proposition, it follows that it is right for public decisions regarding issues of self-interest to be handed up to our political representatives; this is a basic principle of our democratic arrangements.  What puzzles me is that we don’t extend this logic to our representatives themselves.

As it stands now, an independent inquiry will look at the expenses system and make recommendations, which the Government and Parliament will either accept or reject.  We, the public, are supposed to be cheered by the independence of the review.  But I can’t be with final decision-making power still resting in the hands of the political establishment, rather than with – at least at some level – citizens.

And this is when I get to empowerment.  What has struck me about this whole mess is how confined public anger towards and interest in MPs’ apparent abuse of the system is.  Several representative groups have been polled to demonstrate the outrage.  Media pundits talk at length about the electoral impacts, both at the European elections in June and the General Election in, presumably, 2010.  But when it comes to the nitty-gritty – how to sort this out – the problems are for MPs themselves and not for us, as citizens, to think through.

All too often it seems to me that the ideal empowered citizen, from the point of view of the political establishment, operates on his or her own street, getting the council to fill a pot hole, or organising activities for local young people.  I would never suggest that these activities aren’t important, but I wonder if they are all that we should aspire to.

Can we be empowered citizens if we are only able to call our representatives to account at elections?  Can we be empowered citizens if our political institutions judge us too busy/uninterested/not clever enough to think through the checks and balances that should exist in Parliament?  Is there really a problem with public trust in politicians and institutions – or is the real issue that we, as citizens, are not allowed the national, political space to trust ourselves?

This morning I was invited to participate in a school’s year 10 Citizenship class: via Twitter. I’m not sure how well it worked, but it was an interesting experiment. Here I outline some of the challenges I think it presents as a model, which I’m keen to help iron out.

The lesson was on the topic of climate change, and the teacher had set up a Twitter account from which she tweeted questions on behalf of the class.

Because I wasn’t in the classroom I have no idea how the lesson progressed, which in turn made me feel somewhat isolated. That may not be a bad thing, although it was impossible to know how much commitment was required during the lesson (and, in fact, how long the lesson was to last).

Even though the external contributors like myself were few, the quality of replies was sometimes questionable. This is not a problem provided we were being treated the same as any other source, and not as experts.

I think the main stumbling block was actually the questions; they were too wide for us to answer with any authority, but appeared to expect us to.

These are not criticisms though. It was a bold experiment, and I hope it’s repeated. If it is, my suggestions would be:

• be clearer at the outset of the topic in hand (ie I was told it would be on the citizenship aspects of sustainable development but the questions were about the effects of climate change);
• perhaps, instead of asking questions that expect answers, actually conduct a discussion on a specific question; or invite questions to the class instead (which challenges them rather than offers them easy access to answers);
• provide the external participants with some context; maybe via a live blog of the lesson, or pre-published notes.

I’m no teacher though, so any comments gratefully received. I think this was a great initiative, and hope the teacher in question will continue to explore it.