The annual Budget Debate is behind us. Time to take stock. How was it for you? The debate, I mean.

Frankly, I wonder how many people bothered to listen in. Even for a period of time.

Mind you, there was plenty of opportunity for those who were interested, spread out as it was over three days a week for just over two weeks for a total of 56 hours.

You might however, have had difficulty following along. It is far easier if you have happen to have a copy of the Book of Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure in front of you.

But they are not that easy to come by unless you happen to be a member of the Legislature.

They are relatively big and bulky and probably not inexpensive to reproduce, but still they ought to have at least been available on line. It is done with legislation.

It should be ditto for the Estimates.

Let me pause here to give credit to two young enterprising young men who wouldn’t take no for an answer: Andrew Simons and Louis Galipeau.

They managed to get their hands on a copy, after being told they couldn’t get one until after the Debate and the Estimates were approved, and they posted it on their website: http://bermuda.io.

They did that very early on in the debate (Day One, I believe) and those who were keen were able to follow along. Bully for them.

They also host a local open data community at http://Facebook.com/Bermuda.io.

BTW last time I checked the Estimates had still not been posted on the Ministry of Finance’s website.

Now sure the Legislature is an exclusive club of sorts of 36 elected MPs and a further 11 appointees in the Senate, but really they ought not to continue to operate in a way that makes it difficult for the public to get engaged, or otherwise feel shut out, or helplessly lost when it comes to trying to understand what it is they are debating.

Ritualistic boredom is how one of my more Famous (Chris) readers described it.

He happened to sit in on one of the debates when one Minister read for four hours from a brief (a terminological inexactitude if there ever was one - or political oxymoron, if you prefer) prepared for him by swivel servants, some of whom were probably in attendance, fighting off sleep, but ostensibly there not to hear how well he read but to help answer questions, assuming there was ever going to be any time to ask one let alone time to give an answer.

Another reader (Comment is Free) listened in at one stage to what he described as “a mind-numbing brief, most of it going into minutiae that few could care about”.

Adding: “I know that civil servants spend weeks putting this stuff together but the tail needs to stop wagging the dog.” Quite so.

And, he or she went on: “The madness of this is that both sides (having been on the receiving end) know the Budget Debate is a farce, yet both continue this charade.

“It might have been OK when things were going well, but when they are not, it’s a colossal waste of time and effort which should be dedicated to turning the country around.

“This is one status quo that really needs to change (Bob Richards may regret that comment – it will be turned on him more than he knows!).

“There’s one other point. Members of the public tuning in will soon switch off, as I did. In that sense, this whole thing of reducing interest and participation in governance, and that has to be a bad thing.”

Bad thing indeed. But reform of the Legislature, and the way business is conducted on the Hill, isn’t at the top of everyone’s bucket list.

The economy and jobs rate higher. Fair enough.

Yet that’s no reason in my books (pun intended) not to fix what needs to be fixed; and in this case I believe change can lead to better value for money and to a more vigilant Legislature, which could become a more effective deterrent to waste, some of which could be ferreted out before it even occurs.

If only.

I won’t go on again (promise) about what a more active and robust Public Accounts Committee could do for us – and should be doing.

The Annual Budget Debate should feature less time on speeches and instead present greater opportunity for questions and answers about the strengths and failures of the year before and the promises for the year to come.

That’s the kind of exchange and challenge we should see, being made and being met on both sides of the House.

Modify the system, modify behavior; possibly. It’s worth a shot.

The players may change, and some of the packaging too, but surely it’s no surprise that the same old same old continues to produce the same old same old.

Now I won’t pretend to have all the answers (just some from my experience on The Hill) and I would be interested in hearing yours.

It’s time to weigh in people and have a say. A couple more for the list to get you going:

How about a more active cross-party committee system featuring public hearings and the opportunity for the public to make submissions? or, Scrap sitting across an aisle: try a horseshoe-shape setting instead, as if seated around a table?

Finally, let me close with this line of the week from one witty reader: “I don’t suppose the OBA thought of adding the Legislature to the list of departments they think are ripe for privatisation, mutlualisation and/or outsourcing?”

Fat chance, my friend. Fat chance. But I like your sense of humour.

Share your views and ideas on The Royal Gazette website or write jbarritt@ibl.bm.