David Levy – When Government delivers solutions, we will begin to trust it – Aug 24

Every time Government in the shape of its Ministries goes into consultation with the wider world it very often sets target dates by which an Act of Parliament, and the Guidance Rules that accompany it, should be enforced or achieved.

All too often, these target dates are breached.

The question to ask is: why ?

Was the target date only provided to keep the public off the Government’s back and to limit its accountability, or is it more complicated than that?

Take public finance – most infrastructure projects exceed their original cost estimate, and often their delivery date too. The same can also be said for environmental targets – despite the promises and, even more importantly, the urgency of the need for these targets to be enforced.

At no time is this blatant manipulation acceptable, and it is important that Governments should be accountable.

The so-called auditors in Parliament who look at a Government’s performance and actions regard this frequent overspending as common practice and, it would seem, to be expected. However someone needs to explain this avalanche of overspend to the people. In a democratic world this is a basic requirement.

As an environmentalist I have reached the conclusion that for anything to be put into action and enforced, you have to expect a delay of at least a decade. Frequently it exceeds twenty years, plus. As a result all the gloom and doom prognosticators are destined to be found correct.

What needs to happen is a change in direction.

We live in a world of blame, and of legal challenges where the only winners are the lawyers. Unfortunately that approach is one Government can handle, especially the Civil Service which has a millennium of experience in doing so, and no one in the Civil Service ever seems to lose their job. Effectively, they have security of employment for life.

So how can things change?

I would suggest that ordinary people are brought into the decision-making parts of Government and its agencies, and for Government to be required to come up with solutions-based targets for which the ordinary people who have been brought in can make Government accountable.

The Treasury must be involved, and all elements of the proposed solution must be bound together for the solution’s delivery.

That is the way Marinet’s solution would work in order to bring about a stop to the animal manures that pollute our rivers, the most extreme example of this being the pollution of the R. Wye.

All parties involved in the solution would be brought together, and given the task of the solution’s speedy delivery. That would mean bringing together the financial and administrative experts, the water companies, farmers, fertilizer Industry, anaerobic digestion companies, transportation and insurance providers, and any others that need to be part of the whole picture. Once done, everyone will be working with each other for the benefit of the environment, and each industry and party involved will find that it benefits financially from converting the animal manure away from being a serious pollutant into a new source of recycled fertilizer.

Can Marinet get support for this innovative approach to problem solving?

I am sorry to say that most of the NGOs are invested primarily in their own individual approach, and cannot or will not work in tandem to solve the issue. This has to change in the near future

David Levy
Marinet Ltd Chair