An Isle of Man delegation has been to Montserrat, in the Caribbean, to help improve its parliament’s public accounts committee operation.

Tynwald Public Accounts Committee member Michael Coleman MLC and committee clerk Joann Corkish took part in a workshop to identify measures to increase the effectiveness of the Montserrat Legislative Assembly’s own PAC.

The trip was funded wholly by the ommonwealth Parliamentary Association, which organised the event. It was also attended by representatives of the Scottish Parliament and the Parliament of Jamaica and was part of a three-year UK Overseas Territories project to develop good practice in financial oversight.

Mr Coleman said: ’The workshop was set against the recognition that the Montserrat PAC is currently in very "low gear".

’Our input, and that of all our fellow delegates, was extremely well received. I maintained the stance throughout that there was no "one size fits all" solution to running an effective PAC and that there was a variety of different mechanisms to empower the PAC, improve its processes, raise its profile and, in so doing, enhance its credibility.’

He said the workshop was very successful and ’demonstrated to great effect how valuable sharing knowledge and experience within the Commonwealth family can be’.