No confusion on need to keep firms afloat

But when it gets it wrong the States should have the good grace to hold up its hands and say so.

Businesses struggling in the latest lockdown and wanting to claim for co-funded payroll support were asked to agree to seven points in an online form before they could get any further.

Point ‘e’ reads: ‘I understand that it remains the intention of the Policy & Resources Committee to publish information of those organisations claiming financial assistance through the scheme.’

Tick the box if you have read and understood that.

For those who needed clarification there was a link to a helpful bit of key information.

‘To ensure transparency of ongoing payroll funding, it remains the intention to publish information of those organisations claiming financial assistance through the scheme.

‘This may include details such as the name of the business or self-employed individual, number of employees claimed for and the total amount claimed.’

Somehow people got the idea that this meant Policy & Resources planned to publish information on organisations claiming financial help and it might include names.

But no. This was not the case. There was ‘regrettable confusion’ due not to the committee’s own claims process but ‘because of extensive misreporting, especially on social media’.

Being generous, it’s an alternative interpretation.

Rather than admit its own website had caused the ‘confusion’ P&R now says that it ‘has no intention of publishing details of individual claims, nor has it ever stated that this was the intention of reserving those rights’.

Quite how ‘it remains the intention to publish’ can be interpreted as reserving the right to publish is hard to understand.

Putting aside how many opportunities P&R missed to set the record straight and how gracelessly it has set about so doing, the real concern is that small businesses might have held back from making valid claims as a result.

They should now get on with it. The funding is not charity. The more firms that can be kept afloat during the pandemic the more jobs will be retained and the better the island will bounce back.

There should be no confusion about that.