A bureaucrat's guide to... the committee

As a bureaucrat, you might not be terribly surprised by my headline. Bureaucrat and committee go together like gin and tonic (now, there's a thought...), or the House of Lords and old people who need a warm place for a nap.

However, I am obliged to respond to my fellow parish councillor in Stansted, Essex, Daniel Brett, whose rather broad generalisation as to the value of committees reminds me that those white stilettos must be killing him (oops, that's an astonishingly broad generalisation about Essex residents, drawn from a very limited and extremely biased sample of experiences in Romford on a Friday night...). Daniel entertainingly links the rather complex mesh of committees in Gaddafi's Libya to the oppression that the people of that benighted country experienced for too long. Well, in the same way that guns don't kill people, the people bearing them do, committees aren't a menace to good governance, the people who serve on them are.

And trust me, I should know.

So, here are some things that make committees work, rather than frustrate...

1. Determine whether or not your journey is really necessary

Do you actually need this committee? This might seem like an obvious question, but there is a tendency to create committees because you can. The idea of a committee is to reduce the number of people attending to just those who add value, thus allowing consideration of issues by those who care, or can have an effect. By doing so, you combine expertise whilst reducing the number of stupid questions.

2. Preparation is everything

Written reports, circulated in advance, prevent rambling verbal updates, reduce stupid questions and, in an ideal world, allow the author to formally move the report, take the odd question (a good report includes all the relevant information, as well as the context) and focus colleagues on the decisions that need to be taken.

3. Ramblers shall be prosecuted

There is nothing more annoying than having someone who rambles on, sucking the oxygen out of the room, never sticking to the subject when the opportunity to tell a lengthy story about 'old Bert' or whoever. Get rid of them, or create a special committee to occupy all of them whilst the real work is done elsewhere.

4. Chairs aren't for sitting on, they're for moving on

How quickly do you want to get home? More importantly, how quickly does the Chair want to get home? It's amazing how quickly meetings go when there's an unavoidable deadline. And if there isn't one, fake it. People will be much more focussed if time wasted further up the agenda denies them the chance to address the things that really matter. Put the things that are important at the end of the agenda, and people will skate through the dull stuff to get to it.

So, Daniel, don't get mad, get even. And, best of all, get home early...