Ousted States CEO ‘fall guy’ for politicians
OUSTED States chief executive Paul Whitfield has been described as ‘the fall guy’ for the inability of leading politicians to deliver on their ‘unrealistic’ election promises.
Mr Whitfield’s departure was announced on Thursday night, and Deputy Charles Parkinson was one of the first to say that the outgoing CEO was being used as a scapegoat.
‘The Guernsey Party was elected on a promise to cut out government waste and not raise taxes, in fact they said they might be able to reduce taxes, and they’ve been in power for 10 months now and they clearly haven’t found significant government waste to cut out, and so somebody has to take the blame.
‘The leader of the Guernsey Party is now talking about imposing a GST, so clearly this has to be someone else’s fault and Mr Whitfield has become the fall guy.’
Former chief minister Gavin St Pier said that leading the civil service was an extremely difficult role which would always attract significant public scrutiny and criticism.
In a climate of looming tax rises, Deputy St Pier agreed that Mr Whitfield had been made a scapegoat.
‘It is about being seen to take action, and this is a visible embodiment of taking action, you can point at this and say “look we did this and changed the leadership”, of course it means nothing in itself and the real test is what happens following the change.
‘I think it’s very easy to point at the leadership of the civil service and ascribe responsibility for everything on that individual, the reality is somewhat different.’
Current and former politicians were lining up yesterday to say that Mr Whitfield was taking the rap for election pledges on big cuts to government costs.
Ex-deputy Matt Fallaize predicted months ago that Mr Whitfield would be forced out.
‘The leaders of the current States face the headache that they have been unable to deliver enormous cuts in the size of the public sector which at the start of the term they suggested would be achieved swiftly and fairly easily.
‘I always thought that sooner rather than later they would want to respond to this apparent failure by shifting responsibility for it and taking dramatic actions to create the hope of more success in the future.’
Mr Whitfield, who was awarded the OBE for services to the public sector in Guernsey and the UK, has been temporarily replaced by Mark de Garis.
