Equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath - 'every politician agrees to do their best, for the society as a whole and be totally honest irrespective of party and personal considerations'

Politicians must have a minimum set of competencies, this includes wide experience of work and a good understanding of the issues the UK faces, the pertinent economics and current technologies. (There should be an assessment panel for anyone standing for Parliament who review each candidate to ensure that they have the minimum competencies).

Politicians pay would be fixed, with a weighting dependant on where their constituency lies. All general expenses are paid from this - this would allow the politicians to use their time on real issues rather than administration.

To help all politicians develop ideas and work through potential policies, they would be allocated a research link into a unit run by the 'BBC Information Centre' This would ensure effective research at a minimum cost.

By statute, the new bodies would be protected from direct political interference and provide a 25 year framework for setting out and carrying through major reforms.

Any change to these structures would require a referendum. There would be an overriding body that reviews their work and effectiveness.

This body could if necessary suspend the whole or specific members if they believed their work was detrimental to the UK.

Each body would contain a small number of commercially minded individuals, (with significant, direct industrial & commercial experience), chosen by an all party committee on the basis that they are effective at creating and overseeing change. These places would rotate within a maximum of 8 years.

There would be a body representing each major structural issue in the society, the obvious one are:

• Business & the Economy
• Education
• Energy & Transport
• Health & Welfare
• Security & Prison Service

How would it work to create change?

These bodies would be charged with building a coherent plan to meet specific future needs. This plan and the identified goals would be voted on by parliament. Once agreed they would be monitored by the overriding body. Each body would be provided with agreed budgets and have significant powers to create the required change. (see Implementing Change)

These plans and processes for change would include, as a necessity, the requirement to flex the plans due to new technology and changing needs within the society.

Cost for this - overall savings from reducing the current body of civil servants will easily fund these new bodies.

There is a myriad of statistics from civil servants and other government research agencies. Unfortunately these rarely provide an accurate, independent view of what is actually going nor are they transparent.

CST's commonsense view is that we need to disband the current methods and create a fully in dependant process that is founded on modern quality research rather than staid civil service processes.

We already have a world renown, independant, commercially astute body that could encompass this without even breaking sweat - its called the BBC.

Costs?
The moribund processes of the civil service, (and yes some members of CST have worked directly with them), would be consigned to the dustbin. These savings would pay for additional research services within the BBC.

Issues
The BBC's independence needs to be increased and agreed by statute.
The independence and quality of research within the BBC would be overseen by the new overriding body for change
The dissemination of the research and information would be enhanced by the BBC's proven ability in media provision including the newer online and digital technologies

The BBC would be charged to inform and educate the society as a whole - so that everyone can be sure of the independence, quality and completeness of what is actually going on within the UK and rest of the world.

... after all this is the most fundamental component of a modern democracy..... CST

More on ...The BBC Pages

Feedback - tell it like it is

Comment:
The discussion regarding our democratic processes should be about the effectiveness to deliver useful change. Currently the main discussion is about voting systems and devolution of powers - neither of which directly improves our societies ability to create effective change.... CST

An Holistic Approach

CST attempts to change the basis of how we spend our money and drive our economies.  Governments by definition are short term in their outlook.  The review of Spending, Debt & Investment changes our perspective by clearly revealing that only investment in our future can provide significant change and provide for continuing prosperity.

This, of course, is commonsense when it is stated.  However, our governments (all of them), time and again, propose to ignore this basic fact and put forward spending plans that do just the opposite to ensure their re-election.

So, CST puts forward a new concept called ‘Investment Indicator’ (II).  This provide a simple and clear identification of when spending provides a useful investment and may help to keep our politicians honest.

The Job Indicator can be used to show that while providing for jobs within this spending round - it does not mean that future jobs will be created in the long run.