How did KPMG report fall so short?

As KPMG’s ‘clients’ for the housing report, it is fair to say neither Environment & Infrastructure nor Employment & Social Security is impressed.

Which, given that the report cost the taxpayer £100,000, is a matter of some concern.

While external consultants have long been attacked as poor value for money, it is not usually the commissioning politicians who put the boot in.

The blunt and very public dressing down for the accountancy firm by presidents Barry Brehaut and Michelle Le Clerc indicates their frustration.

Perhaps they expected too much. Policy & Resources says it was unrealistic to imagine KPMG’s report would solve all of the island’s housing issues in one go.

But if consultants are to remain part of the political process – and there is no sign that the States is losing its taste for employing ‘expert’ outsiders, quite the opposite – then the gap between expectation and delivery should not be allowed to get so large.

Part of the solution to that must come in more explicit and binding briefings and better ongoing contact between the consultants and the political board or senior civil servants.

It should not be possible, for example, for KPMG to spend 11 months researching and writing a 118-page report which misses out key areas.

Yet one of the committees’ complaints is that the report focuses almost exclusively on the private housing market and does not properly address the rental sector or housing quality standards.

Such areas are ‘critical’ to an understanding of the local market, yet E&I and ESS commissioned and signed off a report which missed them out.

KPMG, for its part, could rightly point out that it is difficult to come to clever, insightful conclusions without all the relevant information.

Its authors waste no time in drawing the attention of readers to the limitations of the data available. Benchmarking was done ‘where possible’ but sometimes the information was just not there.

Anyone who has tried to do research in Guernsey will recognise that scenario.

Given the amount of taxpayer money at stake (and professional reputations), Scrutiny should see what lessons can be learned from this public spat.