Review team is key
THE States is to debate a requete from Vale Deputy Matt Fallaize calling for a root and branch review of its own structure and governance.
THE States is to debate a requete from Vale Deputy Matt Fallaize calling for a root and branch review of its own structure and governance.
Such an exercise would certainly be timely, but I worry about the make-up of the proposed review team. Undoubtedly the Harwood Report suffered from being drawn up by a totally non-political panel and therefore lacking an insider's view. The problem is the Fallaize proposal goes too far the other way. A seven-strong team with five deputies runs the risk of being too rooted in 'the way we have always done things'.
That's particularly true in relation to the position of chief minister. The review should ask fundamental questions about the responsibilities – and even the existence – of this post, which was only dreamt up within the last decade. If we keep our current non-ministerial system (which it is, despite the fancy titles) then it seems odd to have a chief minister. What is his job?
Obviously someone has to chair Policy Council meetings and the island needs external representation but that hardly justifies a fully-fledged 'prime minister'. The danger is that over the years a title without a real job attached will lead to work being created to justify the post. Maybe that's already happening? But with the review team to be chaired by the new Chief Minister these issues are hardly likely to loom large.
Of course within a full ministerial system, with political parties, a Chief/Prime Minister has a massive role. He is ultimately responsible for government policy and ensuring its programme is properly implemented. The buck stops with him. He drives that programme forward through by a combination of collective responsibility, party discipline, an inbuilt parliamentary majority, and the ability to hire and fire ministers.
To Guernsey ears that all sounds very overbearing, with all the power concentrated in the centre. But it does have one massive advantage – it delivers accountability. When things go wrong the government can't avoid the blame. They can (and do) try but the very system makes them ultimately responsible.
In Guernsey, by contrast, departmental failures can always be blamed on someone else. 'T&R have kept us short of cash', 'Environment was unreasonable when we needed planning consents', 'Housing didn't give us the licences we needed' or 'The States rejected the key part of our comprehensive proposals'.
Perhaps that's the worst element of Guernsey's current political system. There simply is no accountability and so failures – which all governments suffer – lead to massive bouts of collective finger pointing. Those failures are also more likely to start off with because of the lack of policy co-ordination, with each department ploughing their own furrow within a very loose States' strategic plan. Some departments even deliberately cock a snoop at fixed States' policies and there seems to be no way to discipline them without the messy business of a full-blown no-confidence debate.
So would we be better joining most of the rest of the world and implementing full executive government? Certainly that will be one huge question for the proposed review.
Despite all of the above I remain highly sceptical. Going for Jersey's half-way house of ministerial government without parties is pointless and even potentially damaging. It certainly doesn't deliver accountability. Remember their Home and T&R ministers sitting together in a CTV studio arguing over who was to blame for the loss of a new police headquarters? And it also tends to lead to a feeling of 'government and opposition' with the opposition in the majority. A nightmare situation.
So what about full executive government, with political parties and all the bells and whistles? Well, it certainly has the attraction of cohesiveness, accountability and efficiency. But personally I find the prospect of importing the sort of inane party political conflict we see elsewhere very unattractive. I'm not talking about legitimate policy differences but rather the sort of 'ha, boo' debate that comes with parties as surely as night follows day. More importantly, most islanders seem to agree with me. Traditionally anybody standing on a party platform has not tended to fare well and you can't impose party politics on a community.
So the task is to preserve what is best about our consensus model while trying to engender cohesive government and genuine accountability – for both success and failure. I'm not sure that's totally achievable, but I think we could move towards it and provide more efficient and less costly government. I'll consider how next week.
