The committee actually has two fundamental functions; development of new policy and management of existing policy. On the management side (things like preparing policy for Federal Conferences), we work on the principle that LDYS’ democratic procedures have already approved these actions and that we are therefore constrained to their mandate.

On the development side, I’ll admit the ball has been dropped in recent years. But I should point out that Policy Committee has no power to actively prevent policy motions being brought forward, and neither should it have.

More generally, on the philosophical point, committees exist for insurance; it’s not that the membership couldn’t do it, it’s that you can’t require them to. When people are elected, itis on the understanding that they will guarantee to perform the job as described. Could we do a better job of the accountability? Yes. Does that mean we should chuck the whole process away? No.

When we drafted that constitution, we scrapped several committees, and most of the ‘named’ officerships. If I could have my time again, I’d scrap all the directly elected committees and one of the conferences in favour of a single, larger ‘council’ (which could form sub-committees on an ad hoc basis) and scrap every last directly elected office: specifically the Chair and Vice Chairs.

Crazy? No, as it would create a leveller playing field. You’d still have to indirectly elect chairs of committees (including council) and other officers from time to time, but they would be more immediately accountable to the council.

Council meetings, which could be held 3-4 times a year and all members would be welcome to attend, could become mini-conferences in themselves, with speaker meetings, forums and training wrapped around them. The organisation, in its smaller state, could concentrate on trying to make one conference work a year instead of two and have more infrequent meetings happening throughout the year.

Just my tuppence worth.