6.3.3.2  Competence                                                   

(This is an archived extract from the book Patterns of Power: Edition 2)

The population is entitled to expect that politicians are competent:

·      Politicians should ensure that public services are competently run.

·      A government is responsible for setting the levels of government spend and taxation, to provide the services and benefits it has promised (3.3.8.1).  A competent team meets its forecasts and avoids creating economic problems. 

Politicians don’t require deeply specialised skills – they can call upon those who do – but they need more knowledge than the average ‘man in the street' so that they can competently perform their role as intermediaries between the population and the specialists.

© PatternsofPower.org, 2014