CO-OPERATION BETWEEN SMALL JURISDICTIONS: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ISLE OF MAN
the British Virgin Islands (UK) organised by the British Islands and Mediterranean Region of the CPA. This followed a previous Election Observer Mission to the British Virgin Islands in November 2010 on which another Manx politician, Mr Alex Downie OBE MLC, had served.
After an election, the real work of a Parliamentarian begins, with elected members often receiving precious little support or training. In a small jurisdiction the difficulty of “hitting the ground running” is likely to be exacerbated by a lack of support structures and mechanisms, and a scarcity of resources such as parliamentary or political staff. For that reason I was pleased that the Isle of Man was able to support a post-election seminar run after the July 2013 election in St Helena with the aim of strengthening and promoting good governance through providing a framework from which newly elected members could work. Our representative was Mr Tim Crookall, who was at that time a Member of the House of Keys and who has since become a Member of the Legislative Council.
Another post-election initiative was a visit by Hon. Shirley Osborne, Speaker, and Mrs Judith Baker, Clerk, from the Legislative Assembly of Montserrat, who we welcomed to the Isle of Man in September 2015. They came to us as part of a week-long programme organised by the British Islands and Mediterranean Region which also included time at Westminster. We were glad to be able to work with our regional secretariat and to be able to arrange a balanced and co-ordinated overall programme which included both Westminster and the Isle of Man. This is an approach which I would very much like to see more of in the future. There is no reason why visits from small Commonwealth parliaments to Westminster should not include a visit to the Isle of Man as a matter of course.
Training and development of officers
It is not only politicians who have much to learn from one another, but also officers. For example, many small Commonwealth jurisdictions have in recent years
and decades sought to develop the financial sector of their economy.
Since 2009 the Isle of Man has led the way in bringing together, under the auspices of the Small Countries Financial Management Programme, officials from finance ministries, central banks, and regulatory bodies in small developing countries for a two-week executive education programme designed to stimulate fresh approaches to the challenges they and their countries face. The Small Countries Financial Management Programme is primarily aimed at those working within executive government (although the legislature and the judiciary also have an important part to play in financial management). On the parliamentary side too, officers can also learn from international exchange programmes. In recent years we have hosted multilateral conferences for British and Irish clerks, official reporters and researchers and librarians; and we have welcomed bilateral visits of officers from Denmark, the Falkland Islands, Guernsey,
Above: Hon. Clare Christian MLC, President of Tynwald, and Hon. Steve Rodan SHK, Speaker of the House of Keys, with Mr Joe Omorodion on behalf of the CPA Secretariat, welcome delegates to the CPA Small Branches Committee Workshop, Douglas, Isle of Man, in August 2015. Photo credit: Paul Dougherty, Tynwald Seneschal.
Jersey, Northwest Territories, Scotland, Tristan da Cunha, Turks and Caicos and the UK Parliament at Westminster. Our training programme for parliamentary staff has been particularly successful for parliamentary personnel from small and developing jurisdictions. It can be tailored to meet the needs of the individuals attending and combines both theoretical instruction and practical experience of working in a parliamentary setting. Delegates normally spend between two and five working days with our office. For longer programmes we are usually able to arrange one or more days for cultural activities.
Thanks to the benefits of modern technology small
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