OPINION: Time for deputies to lose those L-plates

IT’S ONE of the great mysteries of life – how the exercise of anything remotely responsible or potentially dangerous like driving heavy plant, operating on sick patients or heading a bank requires skills, qualifications and relevant experience, but we leave running a country to any old waif or stray. Yes, I am thinking of you, Liz Truss, and look how that ended.

You may think, given GST, chronic under-investment in island infrastructure and housing, connectivity issues and a faltering economy, that making it as easy as possible for anyone to seek elected office and giving them a £45,000 pay packet hasn’t exactly been a success either.

Indeed, the more cynical may even feel that introducing island-wide voting (IWV) has made matters worse, destroyed the island’s ability to reach compromise (or any) positions on tough issues and that the general election in 2025 will only make matters more dire as the grown-ups who used to be in charge gradually fade away.

Well, Yvonne Burford, who heads the Scrutiny Management Committee, may have views on such things when she finally concludes SMC’s review into IWV and tells us whether there are any advantages of the new system – and whether the downsides outweigh them.

For me, it’s pretty clear. Island-wide votng was a reform too far. It was introduced for no real reason, other than a few fancied not voting for someone who wasn’t in their parish/district. In other words, it was grudge-based tinkering with no clear purpose or benefit in mind. Which, of course, is why the Electoral Reform Society said ‘You really don’t want to go there’, but we cheerfully ignored the advice.

What we now know – from actual experience – is that no one can make informed decisions about which 38 candidates to select from a field of 119 often unknown hopefuls and those who did try to cast all their votes now recognise that they inadvertently ended up backing some complete turkeys.

We also know from pretty bitter experience that political parties aren’t the answer to screening or filtering wannabe candidates or even implementing their manifesto pledges (‘Read my lips, no new taxes…’).

Meanwhile, the problems facing the island simply keep building up. In part, that’s because we have no coherent plans for resolving them and the handwringing over the ageing population, lack of affordable housing, any economic growth or public sector investment gets worse because we’re now incapable of taking rational decisions on how to tackle them.

As a leading management consultant who lives here put it to me the other day: ‘The political choice on the big, important stuff has been to focus on avoiding what is not liked, then not making any positive choice and then doing nothing (at great cost!).’ Spot on. Even much needed private money going into something revenue-generating like rebuilding La Grande Mare gets dragged down by something as trivial as masts.

Well, we’re stuck with island-wide voting next time round which suggests, at best, nothing much will improve and, at worst, things could get even bleaker if more first-timers scrape up the 6,000 votes or so needed to claim a seat and that alluring £45k.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with new deputies and hats off to them for seeking public office. It’s a thankless task and, done properly, a significant one: Preparing for and participating in meetings of the States as a parliamentarian; undertaking committee work and overseeing policy aspects of operational delivery; and dealing with casework raised by members of the public.

It’s also why senior deputies will tell you it takes at least a States term of four years really to learn the ropes and start to make a solid contribution – deputies with L-plates, if you will. Which brings me back to the waifs and strays remark earlier. What we’re not good at is ensuring candidates are fully prepared for the role they seek to take on.

Jersey, for example, has a three-week induction process for successful contenders, reflecting the complexity of public office and the need for them to shed those L-plates as soon as possible. Guernsey belatedly introduced something similar (although less intense) in 2020.

We all want representative democracy and a broad church in the States Assembly – but we also want people there who know what they’re doing and how government is supposed to function. If you insist on having an executive government of 38 individuals, it’s pretty much vital they can all work together for a common cause.

As former deputy Alister Langlois handily put it: ‘Each member of the States Assembly brings unique combinations of skills and experience to their job as a democratically elected representative of the people. Combining those different backgrounds in a way that makes government and the legislature efficient and effective is a significant challenge.

‘That challenge can be made easier if members have a more shared view of how the system operates and the behaviours which lead most effectively to consensus while accommodating a wide range of political views.’

That, I think, is the nub of the current public dissatisfaction with government. That it’s no longer collectively trying to solve the problems through what used to be called good old Guernsey compromise.

Can those skills be passed on? In other words, can prospective States members be better prepared for the tasks they face and – crucially – primed on the best way of discharging those duties through collegiate working in a team of 38 rather than, as now, viewing it as a case of defeating opponents?

Yes, it’s a big ask but it seems to me that making completing a mandatory induction process part of the eligibility criteria for standing for election would help successful candidates hit the ground running. It would also provide them with an understanding of public finances and how the system works and hopefully avoid individuals or political groupings making manifesto promises they have no hope of delivering.

It’s worth remembering too that no other remunerated position with such responsibility and influence over the lives of others is offered without requiring any relevant CV, experience or knowledge of the position, while island-wide voting has reduced electors’ ability to ‘recruit’ the most suitable candidates.

The other thing is something like this is long overdue. One of the Recommended Benchmarks for Democratic Legislatures promoted by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association is the upskilling and professionalisation of elected representatives, something we’ve not taken seriously to date (and neither has Jersey to be fair).

Accept island-wide voting is a failure, go back to the parish/district system and perhaps this upskilling is less important, although still desirable.

Retain IWV, however, and it becomes essential if Guernsey has any chance from 2025 onwards of resolving the structural challenges it faces by electing people who know what they’re doing.