Tell voters who is REALLY to blame: MP calls for Britons to be able to find out who is behind a decision in any public sector body – and why it was made
- MP Matt Warman has said voters should know who’s made decisions on services
- The Conservative member for Boston and Skegness wants great transparency
- Under his proposals, people would be able to demand to know who is ultimately behind a decision in any public sector body – and why it was made
Matt Warman called for greater transparency so members of the public know which officials are responsible for policies that affect them
Voters should have the right to know who has made decisions on local services such as their hospital, a Conservative MP has said.
Matt Warman called for greater transparency so members of the public know which officials are responsible for policies that affect them.
Under his proposals, people would be able to demand to know who is ultimately behind a decision in any public sector body – and why it was made.
It would work in a similar way to how people are able to submit Freedom of Information requests to public organisations to get them to hand over data.
In a report for the Centre for Policy Studies, Mr Warman raised the example of how reforms to the NHS often leave the public confused about who should be held responsible. The Tory MP for Boston and Skegness in Lincolnshire wrote: ‘The most recent round of NHS reforms in England explicitly passed responsibility from the Government to NHS leaders, and on a local level to organisations such as Clinical Commissioning Groups.
‘On top of this, there are all manner of complications. Who decides that some GP surgeries operate different levels of service for making appointments, and consequently why is best practice not widespread? Why is there such variation in access to services such as IVF?’
A poll of 2,000 people commissioned for the report found that only 49 per cent of Londoners were aware the city had an elected mayor, currently Sadiq Khan, or that he had ‘powers that affect their lives’. More than half of people in Wales (54 per cent) and four in ten (42 per cent) Scots were unaware that their devolved governments made or enforced laws that applied to them.
Cabinet Office minister David Lidington wrote in a foreword to the report: ‘The stark polling results show that too many people simply don’t know where power sits, or have faith in the people at all tiers of government who discharge it. Whatever party you are in, that should be troubling.’
The poll also found that 15 per cent of people did not realise Britain was still a member of the EU.
This rose to 19 per cent for 18 to 24-year-olds.
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