Picture credit: h.koppdelaney
Information has played a vital role in the raging furore over MPs expenses.
The whole thing began a few years ago, with newspaper attempts to obtain details of expenses by using the Freedom of Information Act; an initiative that did not go down well with many of our elected representatives.
They [MPs] subsequently fought tooth and nail to preserve their privacy about how they spend large sums of our money. Eventually, though, the legal system prevailed and MPs faced the prospect of greater transparency – and the potential embarrassment over their past behaviour.
Continue reading article »
Picture credit: Geir Halvorsen
The blazing row about MPs expenses is an unsavoury and dismal situation, for sure – but there are important Systems lessons to be drawn from the debacle.
In the UK a stream of embarrassing revelations about highly questionable expenses claims has meant that Members of Parliament have spent the week universally condemning ‘the [MPs expenses] system’ and calling for “a complete overhaul of the system.”
Firstly, the MPs now rail against the much-maligned ‘system’ in the apparent ignorance that the ‘system’ is nothing more than their own behaviour, which has previously escaped public scrutiny and operated with almost absolute impunity beyond self-defined and self-policed ‘rules.’ Continue reading article »
