The Zen of Committee (how not to annoy the Secretary)

I am known to be a fairly placid soul, and so when I suggested to a sympathetic ear this evening that I had a fairly radical proposal to improve future meetings, it was borne of much frustration. And so, whilst it is unlikely that any member of Federal International Relations Committee will read this, this seems like a good time to speak up on behalf of Committee Secretaries everywhere...

The lot of a Secretary is not an exciting one. The drama, assuming that there is any, tends to happen elsewhere. But, if you are one of those people who do the job because it matters (and I acknowledge that many end up in the role because their arm has been twisted), you will, I hope, appreciate what follows. And what follows is some tips to keep your Secretary happy.

1. Keep to deadlines

Your Secretary doubtless has other things to do, and sets deadlines to ensure that he or she can fulfil Constitutional requirements without having to stay up until 1.30 in the morning.

2. Written reports are always better than verbal ones

I hate verbal reports. They require much more effort to record than a circulated paper which can simply be referred to in the subsequent minutes. And if the Secretary has sought written reports in advance, and you choose to ignore that, you are showing disrespect. I take a mafiosi style view of disrespect.

3. Do not read out your written report

The Committee can read. Really, they can. They have all sorts of skills if you give them a chance, and the whole point of circulating your report in advance is so that they can read it. If they choose not to, that's their problem, and I have a tendency to heckle people who ask questions that were answered in the document they chose not to read.

4. Read the reports circulated to you in advance

Do as you would be done by. See also point 3.

5. If you want to raise something, put it on the agenda

There is nothing more dispiriting than reaching the end of an agenda when, at the point where 'Any Other Business' is reached, there is a deluge of items for discussion. Your gallant Secretary is tired, having had to be alert throughout the meeting, and the chances are that everyone wants to go home, or to the pub, or somewhere.

But if you are going to raise something that isn't already on the agenda, do try and warn the Secretary in advance so that he or she can ensure that business is moved along and that there is sufficient time to air the issue properly.

6. The agenda is not for turning

Raising items out of turn is not helpful. It makes the minutes disjointed, confuses the flow of a meeting and flusters the Secretary. I put my heart and soul into that agenda, and you just toss it aside like a used handkerchief...

So, remember these six points and you will make your Secretary's life happier and more fulfilled. Remember, a Secretary is for a full term of office, not just for Christmas...

A soft-spoken bureaucrat makes an unexpected departure from the schedule

You know how it is. You're minding your own business, catching up with some old friends, when, out of the corner of your eye, you notice that something isn't there. And so it was today with the Constitutional amendment F14, which was intended to introduce a structure for generating party strategy and reporting on its subsequent delivery.

I am, as previously reported, the Secretary of the Party's International Relations Committee. And what I had noticed was that, in the list of new committees, the proposed new Federal International Relations Committee did not appear. Oversight or deliberate strategy I know not, but I did feel that a few polite words from a genteel bureaucrat might be helpful.

Naturally, an entirely uncontroversial constitutional amendment was never going to attract a lot of cards, thus making the prospect of my being called rather higher than usual, and, sure enough, as Mark Pack was called to speak, I was asked to standby. There was a small, nagging problem though. I had no speech prepared.

This does not, traditionally, end well.

But, ironically, a speech that I didn't prepare for is the one that I have preparing for most of my political life. I have always believed that having a strategy is one thing, holding those responsible for its implementation to account is quite another. The proposals require those empowered to report back to us, which requires us to gently prod them if we feel that they aren't doing their job well enough. How could I not support that?

I did rather promise that the missing committee would not seize the opportunity not to participate in the reporting back although, given that my prospects for re-election to the committee are probably rather slight under the new 'One Member One Vote' system for electing our internal committees, it may turn out to be a commitment without personal consequence.

And so, dear reader, I got away with my unusually spontaneous intervention. Who knows, I may do it again one day...

A change of title and some design notes (with grateful thanks to Frank Little)

I changed the name of my blog a few years back. It was, I admit, an attempt to escape my past and cut a new trail, some distance away from my reputation as a faceless bureaucrat. It also reflected my new status as a rather unexpected member of the country gentry.

And no, I haven't moved - I am presently sitting in our designed for purpose office across the patio from our home in the country - but it is perhaps a recognition that I am, at heart, also a bureaucrat... and proud. I think. Actually, yes, proud. Admittedly, due to management policy, I'm not allowed to tell you where I'm proud to be a bureaucrat professionally, but you get the picture (and I did sign the Official Secrets Act, after all).

I have also experienced a bit of a rebirth as a bureaucrat within the Party. I'm not a campaigner, but I am good at freeing up other people who want to do it, and are better at it than I am. I have plans, put it this way...

And so, I have reverted to the original title of this blog. Oh yes, I'll write about Creeting St Peter and the joys of rural life from time to time, and have a gentle kvetch about politics and whatever else comes to mind, but it is time to be a little more comfortable with who I am.

Talking of comfort, readers might have noticed that I changed the design of the blog too yesterday. I wasn't happy with it, but had run out of time to address the remaining issues, so saved what I had done so far. This morning, Frank Little, who has flown the flag for liberalism in one of the country's less fruitful areas (Neath Port Talbot) for many years, kindly advised that the new design wasn't working for him.

And so, I've changed it, making it rather easier on the eye, I hope. If you read this, Frank, do let me know what you think.

For the rest of you, do drop in on his blog, "ffranc sais". I do from time to time, and am always given something to dwell upon...

Sometimes, the art of good bureaucracy is broadly defining just what isn't there...

Today has been, in turns, frustrating and mildly exhilarating (actually, can you be mildly exhilarated?). Frustrating because, courtesy of Liberal Democrat Voice, I have been reminded that younger people can be reactionary, ageist and intolerant just as convincingly as older people. I've also spent forty-five minutes waiting for British Airways to answer what seemed, on the face of it, to be a pretty simple request, only for it to be made to appear like the height of optimism.

On the other hand, people close to me have had good news regarding their careers and, perhaps most surprisingly, I appear to finally have a grasp on my new(ish) job.

It would be harsh to say that I haven't been entirely happy in my current role. Bemused and slightly unsettled, yes, unhappy, no. After many years of bureaucracy in an environment where certainty is hard-wired into process, and backed up with legislation, I had grown deeply comfortable with the idea that, confronted with a new situation, I could come up with a definitive answer. As a liberal bureaucrat, that feels right, in that a rules-based environment is one in which good administration can flourish, as long as those rules have built-in safeguards and offer everyone equality before the law.

My new job, however, which I can't actually talk about, is more of an evaluating one. I am presented with a lot of data, and a range of operational tools with which to analyse it. It may, or may not be, complete, it may, or may not be, accurate. There is, if you like, uncertainty - definitely not in my comfort zone.

And so, it has been necessary to adapt. That's easier said than done - I'm not as young as I was, and increasingly set in my slightly idiosyncratic ways, and I respond less well to direct philosophical challenges than perhaps I once did. It has not come easily. The challenge, if you like, has been to put it into a context which sits comfortably and yet allows me to be as effective as I can be.

But, this week, things have fallen into place. In our half-yearly performance assessment, my manager declared her puzzlement that I see my work as a logic problem, feeling as she does that there doesn't have to be an exact answer - often, there can't be. What you can achieve, she believes, is a position where you have an argument that stands up to rigorous, independent scrutiny if necessary.

That makes sense, I think, but appals my inner control freak. And so, I have dwelt on what she said, and carried out some analysis on some of the data sets requiring my attention as a means of developing a modus operandi that sits more comfortably. Interestingly, I'm not sure that I agree exactly with her analysis, but have realised that there is a way in which I can achieve a similar result.

You see, if I can establish all of the areas of certainty, I can then define the area of uncertainty in terms of a series of expressed doubts, which can then be queried by means of interrogation and, if necessary, testing of hypotheses. There is, if you like, an internal logic which might not provide for exactitude, but does produce an 'exactly about' outcome which feels fair and reasonable.

It was, if you like, that light bulb moment, a realisation that this feels right and good and philosophically sound, not something that most people would associate with bureaucracy, but then, perhaps, I'm not your typical bureaucrat...

Liberal Youth: the result of the election to co-opt four General Executive Members

With all eleven votes now in, I, Mark Jonathan Valladares, Returning Officer to Liberal Youth, do hereby declare that the result of the election to co-opt four General Executive Members is as follows; 

• Cara Drury - 3 votes
• Usaama Kaweesa - 2 votes
• Callum Morton - 2 votes
• Ed Sanderson - 2 votes
• Caroline Boyd - 1 vote
• Callum Leslie - 1 vote

With eleven votes cast, and four vacancies, the quota required to gain election is 2.2, and Cara Drury is declared elected on the first count.

For the second count, Cara's votes are transferred at a value of 0.26, leading to the following outcome;

• Callum Leslie + 0.52 votes
• Callum Morton + 0.26 votes
• rounding error + 0.02 votes

The new totals after the second count are;

• Cara Drury - elected at count 1
• Callum Morton - 2.26 votes
• Usaama Kaweesa - 2 votes
• Ed Sanderson - 2 votes
• Callum Leslie - 1.52 votes
• Caroline Boyd - 1 vote
• rounding error - 0.02 votes

I therefore declare Callum Morton elected on the second count.

For the third count, Callum's surplus is transferred at a value of 0.02, leading to the following outcome;

• Caroline Boyd + 0.02 votes
• Callum Leslie + 0.02 votes
• rounding error +0.02 votes

The new totals after the third count are;

• Cara Drury - elected at count 1
• Callum Morton - elected at count 2
• Usaama Kaweesa - 2 votes
• Ed Sanderson - 2 votes
• Callum Leslie - 1.54 votes
• Caroline Boyd - 1.02 votes
• rounding error - 0.04 votes

For the fourth count, there being no further surpluses to transfer, the remaining candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, that being Caroline Boyd, whose votes are transferred at face value, leading to the following outcome;

• Ed Sanderson + 1.02 votes

The new totals after the fourth count are;

• Cara Drury - elected at count 1
• Callum Morton - elected at count 2
• Ed Sanderson - 3.02 votes
• Usaama Kaweesa - 2 votes
• Callum Leslie - 1.54 votes
• Caroline Boyd - eliminated at count 3

I therefore declare Ed Sanderson elected on the fourth count.

For the fifth count, Ed's surplus is transferred at a value of 0.27, leading to the following outcome;

• Usaama Kaweesa + 0.27 votes
• Callum Leslie + 0.27 votes
• non-transferable + 0.27 votes
• rounding error + 0.01 votes

The new totals after the fifth count are;

• Cara Drury - elected at count 1
• Callum Morton - elected at count 2
• Ed Sanderson - elected at count 4
• Usaama Kaweesa - 2.27 votes
• Callum Leslie - 1.81 votes
• non-transferable - 0.27 votes
• rounding error - 0.05 votes

I therefore declare Usaama Kaweesa elected on the fifth count, and Callum Leslie to be the runner-up.

I should thank the candidates for putting themselves up for election, and the Federal Executive of Liberal Youth for casting their votes promptly and efficiently.

The dark romanticism of bureaucracy

It was always my ambition in life to be the dark, brooding romantic type and, although it often surprises people, I achieved it in a way that I might never have expected.

Romanticism and bureaucracy are not words that are immediately associated by many and yet, I have become a slightly unstable combination of the two. Tonight, I am crouched in front of the keyboard in a room lit only by the flickering light of a candle, catching up on my Regional paperwork to the strains of Johann Sebastian Bach's Fantasy and Fugue in G minor (BWV542 for the Bach scholars amongst you).

Bureaucracy has become my passion, and occasionally an all-encompassing one, which coupled with an old-fashioned sense of honour and a broad streak of Catholic guilt, occasionally leads me to do things that I might regret (last year's resignation drama was one of them...).

On the other hand, being a bureaucrat in politics give you a leeway that few others get. There is little competition for such roles and, as long as things get done, even the most eccentric are left alone to get on with things (heaven forbid that a campaigner should get involved with administrative stuff - doesn't win any votes, does it?).

So perhaps it is time to let loose the latin in me (where did you think the name came from?) and fight beneath the blood-soaked banners of good administration, old-fashioned courtesies and free trade liberalism. I always fancied the uniform of an early nineteenth-century Austrian cavalry officer (although the balls, music and diplomatic intrigue would probably have been even more fun) and, even if I can't have one, it might be fun to behave as though I was wearing one.

To sleep, perchance to dream, and tomorrow, let there be passion!

A Secretary is (re)born

Yes, bureaucracy fans, I'm back as Regional Secretary, having been gloriously elected without opposition! Clearly, the electorate didn't read my manifesto... thank you once again to those who have been so supportive in recent months.

I have all sorts of plans for 2006, including resuming the Executive Diary, improving reportage to the Local Parties and working with our formidable Regional Administrator, Flick Rea, to improve the way we communicate with the broader Party. It is also my ambition to have more fun this year, or is this impossible within the context of faceless bureaucracy?

The Executive Committee looks to be a very interesting one this year, with a number of strong and vocal personalities already emerging. If that means that the Officers are kept on their toes (myself included), it can only be a good thing in terms of corporate governance, effectiveness and medium/long-term strategy.

Why I'm running for Secretary, by Mark Valladares (aged 41 and a bit)

My New Year's resolutions made (and no, I'm not telling you what they are!), it's time to turn my attention to actual achievement.

Having decided that I would run for Regional Secretary, following the kitchen sink drama that was my resignation in late November, I should at least state why I'm doing it and what I hope to deliver in 2006 if elected.

Good administration matters. Not good administration simply from the viewpoint of a bureaucrat, neat, tidy, and in line with the rulebook but good administration that honours the liberal principles I stand for. Clean, transparent documentation that informs everyone quickly, efficiently and honestly, without spin or varnish, whilst maintaining appropriate confidentiality. Provision of information that allows every member of the Regional Executive to play a full part in the successful running of the Region, and conveys a message to the Local Parties that says what we're doing and why.

Linked to that is respect for each and every person that I deal with. I won't always agree with them but they have a right to their opinion and, equally important, a right to express it. By making meetings more effective, we create time for proper, meaningful debate and discussion and we make the Executive stronger, more effective and more relevant both at constituency level and at the State and Federal levels.

I also believe in widening involvement. I have tried to encourage those who were unsuccessful in the recent Regional elections to think about serving on one or more of our standing committees. These people are interested, and willing to commit their time, energy and experience to the Region. Let's bring them on board!

Finally, I stand for diversity. The Regional Officers last year were not reflective of the community we hope to represent, unless we want our vote to come predominantly from white males. I would like to see more women as both Officers and on the Regional Executive as a whole, and a greater black and minority ethnic presence. My motion to the Regional Conference wasn't a gesture, it was a statement of intent.

So, in summary, doing it well matters. Doing it right matters even more. I accept that many will never understand my passion for this but bear with me, the more you see, the more you'll understand...

Faceless bureaucrats: a faceless bureaucrat salutes you!

It's been an odd day.

I started by setting off for the Indian High Commission to get my visa for the forthcoming family wedding in Mumbai. Just as I was leaving Peckham, I realised that I had left my passport at home (duh...). So I went home, collected the passport and headed for India House, at Aldwych. I get to the window, form completed, money and photographs ready, only to be told that my passport, good for another five years, cannot be used as there are no blank pages left (that'll teach me to travel, won't it...).

What to do? No choice but to head to the Passport Agency at Victoria, with dread in my heart. It's three days before Christmas, millions of people are leaving the country, I'm bound to be there all day, aren't I? To my immense surprise, I turn up, am given a form to complete, which takes about two minutes, given an appointment within five minutes, hand over the forms and am told that my passport will be ready in four hours. Oh and yes, I don't have to hang around, just pay for it and come and collect it any time between 4.30 and 8.45. I hand over my credit card to give them £104.50 and off to my office. At 8.30 I return. The passport is ready, there's no queue and I'm on my way.

Haven't these people heard of making life difficult for the public? Why is the building well-maintained, efficient and comfortable? Why are the staff pleasant and helpful? I bet that there hasn't been a prominent article to say how good they are, yet there were plenty when the new computer systems went sour a few years back. But I forget, the public sector is horribly inefficient (as the Daily Mail keeps reminding us) and the whole thing should be contracted out to an Turks and Caicos Islands registered company owned by former Tory Ministers and 'employing' young children in a sweat shop somewhere in Burma...

Anyway, many thanks from a faceless bureaucrat to my fellow inmates in the UK Passport Agency...

A token ethnic minority male writes...

I found this picture the other day and thought that my family might like to see me in best faceless bureaucrat mode. Notice how I am cunningly part-hidden by the microphone. On the far left is Baroness Sarah Ludford, a member of the European Parliament, next to her Susan Kramer, MP for Richmond Park and on my right, Lynne Featherstone, MP for Hornsey and Wood Green. In the middle is Mandy Wells, our former Regional Conference Chair. So what am I doing there?

Well, Mandy said that she needed an aide and, given the others on the platform, she wanted a token male. Having been married, I knew exactly what to do...