Outside nominations to the Legislative Council: Public service.

A recurrent theme in nominations to the Legislative Council is that the nominee has a history of public service. Often the term itself is used in nominations, but it is worth expanding. Public service is seen as about societal rather than self-interest, and close to civic mindedness. It is not, however, seen as incompatible with being paid for the activity – although not seen as synonymous with public sector employment, it is not seen as incompatible. So we find the case for a nominee as a public servant built on a career as a police officer, for instance.

An overwhelming majority of nominations referred to the public service of the nominee: all but 8 of the 63. The 87% of nominees whose nomination referred to public service had the case made through involvement in a wide range of activities, and it was common for a single nominee to be associated with multiple types of public service – .for instance Barbara Brereton’s nomination in 2010 referred to her public sector work in a protective service, her other public sector work, her local government roles, her work as a school governor, her work in a religious organisation, and her work in a Manx charity.

As mentioned above, public sector employment was often represented as public service: 10 by reference to a protective service such as the police or the military, and 21 by reference to other public sector careers. Taken together, this was by some distance the most common way of making a public service case, at nearly 50% of all nominations.

Beyond employment, involvement in Local Government, almost always as a repeatedly elected Commissioner, was referred to for 18 nominees. We also find extensive reference to involvement of varying degrees with Manx charities – 17, as opposed to 3 references to involvement in non-Manx charities. The only other activities mentioned for 10 or more nominees were work with government agencies (13), work with Manx cultural associations (12; 13 if you include the Southern Agricultural Show, which perhaps controversially I have classed as a business association rather than a cultural association) and involvement with sports and hobby clubs (11, primarily Manx football and motorsports).

Focussing on the three biggest categories (public sector employment, local government, and charities), 44 of the 63 nominees had at least one of these categories in the case for their public service (just under 70% of all nominees). A significant number of nominees had two or even all three (14 and 1 respectively), but 29 of them had only of the three factors (.just over 45%).

The significant place of public sector employment as evidence of public service is interesting. As paid employment, it might be seen as in tension with the idea of service, and the prioritisation of the public interest over the private interest, I mentioned at the start. It suggests to me that a public sector ethic, making public sector careers different from private sector careers, has been taken as read by at least some MHKs during the process. We see this most strongly in relation to the protective services, but the significant place of public sector careers in many nominations suggests this assumption goes beyond those services.