Preparations to incorporate the utility are continuing for now but politicians behind the project remain unconvinced about the benefits of the island’s unusual commercialisation model.
The States Trading Supervisory Board is now weighing up whether to ask deputies to reverse the previous States’ direction to restructure Guernsey Water along the same lines as Guernsey Electricity and Guernsey Post.
‘The work with Guernsey Water is proceeding very well, it has a very advanced capital plan, and the discipline of commercialising the entity is a good thing to go through anyway,’ said STSB president Mark Helyar.
‘Whether we actually press the button on it finally, I have not decided and neither has the board.
‘A lot of this seems to be driven by the desire among trading entities to disentangle themselves from process.
Listen to the full interview with Deputy Helyar on the latest Guernsey Press Politics Podcast
‘The issue for me is that you shouldn’t spend money to disentangle yourself from process – you should change the process.’
Speaking on the latest Guernsey Press Politics Podcast Deputy Helyar indicated that the objective of giving the utility more freedom over issues such as procurement could be achieved while avoiding the disadvantages of incorporation. That may still require use of a budget of hundreds of thousands of pounds set aside to work towards commercialisation, but would ultimately leave Guernsey Water as an unincorporated trading arm of the States.
‘Guernsey Electricity and Guernsey Post still rely on the States either for guarantees or direct lending or organising their finances,’ said Deputy Helyar.
‘Does it really require you to go the whole hog [commercialisation]? I think it just needs States members to step back from interfering in the businesses and allow them to operate professionally.’
An independent review of Guernsey Water carried out by the Wales Audit Office 20 years ago concluded that commercialisation would not be worthwhile, but a more recent report by consultants commissioned by the STSB recommended incorporating the utility.
The previous STSB claimed that the utility was being prevented from developing its full potential and that commercialisation was needed to free it from civil service control over functions such as IT, recruitment and pay.
Should deputies insist on the incorporation of Guernsey Water, the STSB would no longer provide operational oversight of the business and would instead become the shareholder on behalf of the States, setting high-level objectives for operationally independent boards of directors.
The previous States also agreed in principle that the airport, harbours and States Works should become incorporated businesses.
Deputy Helyar said he ‘could not see the ports being anywhere near commercialisation this term’ and that States Works was ‘working quite well’ under encouragement from the STSB to act more independently and commercially.