CO-OPERATION BETWEEN SMALL JURISDICTIONS: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ISLE OF MAN


Islands, the Cook Islands, Guernsey, Jersey, Maldives, Northern Territory, Northwest Territories, Prince Edward Island, the Seychelles and Tasmania as well as from the Isle of Man itself. This workshop built on the Small Branches Conference but also allowed us to focus in more depth on the particular issue of committee work.


Above: Mrs Ellen Callister, Head of Hansard in the Office of the Clerk of Tynwald, operates the voice recognition system in the Legislative Council Chamber, Isle of Man. Photo credit: Paul Dougherty, Tynwald Seneschal


jurisdictions today can even provide parliamentary services directly to one another. The foremost example of this is the network of international co-operation which we have built up in the field of parliamentary reporting, also known as Hansard services. The Speaker of the House of Keys, Hon. Steve Rodan SHK wrote in The Parliamentarian in 2008 about the pioneering voice recognition system which is used in the production of official reports of Manx parliamentary proceedings. Since then we have extended our Hansard operation by undertaking work for the legislatures of Alderney, Gibraltar, Guernsey and Sark, with discussions also underway with a number of other jurisdictions. These developments, which have brought tangible benefits to all concerned, would most certainly not have taken place, had it not been for the opportunities afforded by the CPA for the


sharing of information between jurisdictions.


Parliamentary Committees In August 2015, the Isle of Man Branch of the CPA was delighted to have the opportunity to collaborate with the CPA Secretariat in the organisation of a Small Branches Committee Workshop, with participants from Bermuda, the Cayman


The system of parliamentary committees in the Isle of Man has come a long way in recent years and the same will be true of many other Small Branches. Nevertheless there remain considerable challenges in operating an effective Public Accounts Committee and other parliamentary committees. Some of these challenges are universal but others are, and always have been, unique to small jurisdictions.


Indeed, if I may end where I began, at the Fourth Small Branches Conference in the Isle of Man in 1984, the second session on that occasion was entitled ‘The Utilization of


Parliamentary Committees as a Mechanism for Improving the Efficiency of Small Parliaments’. This may seem like a case of déjà vu but in reality it illustrates one simple truth: that, as the parliaments of small jurisdictions, we have so much to learn from working together. As the oldest parliament in the world in continuous operation (if not, in today’s world, the smallest) Tynwald recognises this truth and will always be ready to play its part.


Below: Hon Shirley Osborne, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Montserrat and Vice-Chairperson of the CPA (second left) and Mrs Judith Baker, Clerk, visit Tynwald Hill in the Isle of Man with Hon. Steve Rodan, Speaker of the House of Keys (second right) and Dr Jonathan King, Deputy Clerk of Tynwald. Photo credit: Paul Dougherty, Tynwald Seneschal.


58 | The Parliamentarian | 2016: Issue One


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