The States’ seven principal committees, of which ESS is one, failed to publish their work plans by the end of June, which is when Policy & Resources expected them. ESS partially blamed the delay on turnover in committee membership following the resignation of Deputy Collins and Deputy David Dorrity, who had been leading a savings sub-committee.
Deputy Collins yesterday reacted angrily to the claim and pointed the finger at other, unnamed members of ESS.
‘It is outrageous of ESS to say that,’ he said.
‘Actually, one of the reasons I left the committee was the lack of planning and the lack of policy work being done.
‘It is the very poor attendance of other deputies on the committee over the past year which led to the work plan not being published by the end of June.’
He invited the public to make their own judgments about which members were and were not putting in the hours when meeting attendance records are published in due course.
Deputy Collins has since been back at Edward T Wheadon House, shadowing members of staff in the operations team based there.
‘As politicians we come straight in at board level and have no real clue what is happening on the ground floor, which is why I have been keen to talk to staff at all levels, and I have been being doing so since December last year,’ he said.
‘It’s a shame some members of ESS are unable to do this shadowing as they are off-island for various reasons.’
Following his departure from ESS, Deputy Collins has resumed the role of finance lead on the Housing Committee. He hoped to help Housing drive the construction of more social housing, for which the previous States agreed to make available a £150m. borrowing facility.
‘As well as the additional rental income repaying the loan, building or buying social housing will also reduce the Income Support bill, as currently ESS is having to pay very high weekly rents to private landlords because of a lack of social housing,’ said Deputy Collins. ‘I am sure this will help resolve our finance crisis more than GST, which, if introduced, would increase inflation, raise private rents, and drive more young people from their island.’
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