'Declaration' is just the opposite
One of the duties of HM Greffier is to maintain an up-to-date register of States members' financial interests. It is there so electors can be satisfied that deputies are acting scrupulously in the public interest and are not influenced by external pressures or, where potential conflicts exist, they are well known.
One of the duties of HM Greffier is to maintain an up-to-date register of States members' financial interests. It is there so electors can be satisfied that deputies are acting scrupulously in the public interest and are not influenced by external pressures or, where potential conflicts exist, they are well known.
While that's the theory, how well does that work in practice? The Health and Social Services Department minister's declaration, for instance, notes that he has a shareholding of less than 5% in Vignon Properties Ltd and Brook Properties Ltd, both with an address in Torteval.
The register, which adds in black type that members are not required to disclose the monetary value of any entry, has no other details of what the declared interest actually means.
In this case, there is nothing that helps voters to understand that the Health minister is a shareholder of a company that rents space to the consultants his department authorises to use the hospital facilities or that it is public funds that effectively pay that rent, a proportion of which he will receive as dividends.
To many people, that will seem a close – and potentially not especially helpful – financial relationship.
The code of conduct for elected States members is rightly firm on probity but the register which is a part of that process is less than helpful. Indeed, it seems entirely voluntary as another minister omitted for several years until recently to declare a 50% shareholding in a company.
The other oddity is why the register is so feeble in the first place. Given Guernsey's enthusiasm for copying the UK on every nit-picking occasion, it is remarkably out of step with what many might regards as best practice.
Meaningless company declarations and financial secrecy contrast strongly with the openness MPs are expected to display. A few mouse clicks, for instance, reveal that Diane Abbott receives £839 for three hours' work as a BBC presenter and £250 for an article for The Independent.
When members' interests were last raised in anger, over the PEH 'Fallagate' clinical block controversy, it was suggested that the whole issue should be debated by the States.
That was in 2007, and it has yet to happen.
