Toby Atkin-Wright

Through the post today I received a voting pack for the election of members to Fife Health Board. There was an instruction sheet, a ballot paper with a freepost envelope for return, and a booklet of statements from the candidates who are standing for election. As far as I can see, there is no explanation of what the Fife Health Board does, or why its members are elected.

There are sixty-one names on the ballot paper, of whom I can select as many as I like, marking them in my order of preference. Twelve of them will be elected. The candidate statement booklet runs to twenty-three pages of anodyne personal histories. I have no idea how one is supposed to make any kind of informed choice.

I suspect the lot of it will go straight in the paper-recycling bin. I wonder how much it cost NHS Fife to run this exercise in pointless democracy.

Through the post today I received a voting pack for the election of members to Fife Health Board. There was an instruction sheet, a ballot paper with a freepost envelope for return, and a booklet of statements from the candidates who are standing for election. As far as I can see, there is no explanation of what the Fife Health Board does, or why its members are elected.

There are sixty-one names on the ballot paper, of whom I can select as many as I like, marking them in my order of preference. Twelve of them will be elected. The candidate statement booklet runs to twenty-three pages of anodyne personal histories. I have no idea how one is supposed to make any kind of informed choice.

I suspect the lot of it will go straight in the paper-recycling bin. I wonder how much it cost NHS Fife to run this exercise in pointless democracy.