But Cabinet approved it

One of the defences we hear in defence of excessive overseas travel, is that the PM or Cabinet approved it, so it can’t be criticised as the fault of the Minister doing the travelling. I want to put that myth to bed.

The role of Cabinet or the PM in approving, is to check a ministerial trip is within the rules. That you are actually going to be doing some portfolio work on the trip. I think you will find that almost every Ministerial trip submitted for approval gets approved – because Ministers are expected to be big boys and girls who can use their own judgement about value for money.

What Cabinet and the PM don’t spend a lot of time on, is looking at all of a Minister’s travel over the last year and working out whether the travel is becoming excessive. They are too busy running their own departments to be acting as nurse maids for other Ministers. It is the Minister who is doing the travelling who should be asking themselves the question about whether their travelling is becoming excessive.

The reality is that almost any Minister could find enough reasons to do more than half a dozen trips a year. There are numerous conferences in portfolio areas that can be worth attending, and bilateral meetings with counterparts overseas can be one of the best sources of new policy ideas etc.

On an individual trip basis, a Minister can justify each and every trip as being of value.

But a Minister also needs to use their judgement about whether the total quantum of their overseas travel, and associated costs, is reasonable. Sure each individual trip may be worthwhile, but is eight trips in a year reasonable?

Most Ministers can work this out easily. They don’t apply to go overseas at every opportunity, They may do one major trip of bilateral meetings a year, and say a conference attendance.

So I don’t put much stock on the defence that the PM or Cabinet approved it. Of course they did. But no one forces a Minister to apply for said travel.