For this plan to work it needs to hurt

Call it what you will – the Policy & Resource Plan, Future Guernsey, the States Strategic Plan, the Government Work Plan – the ambition remains the same.

It is no easy task. The last Assembly got bogged down in a painfully slow process that ultimately served no purpose. In a consensus political system it failed because there was no mechanism to force committees to ditch their pet projects.

As a result, prioritisation was non-existent and the plan just became a long, expensive and unattainable wishlist.

Policy & Resources is setting out with some optimism that this time will be different. It has talked to committee presidents, checked in with business and charity leaders and demanded that States members truly accept that this time there really is no money or staff for anything bar the essential.

Perhaps it will work. Let us hope so, because P&R is not exaggerating when it says ‘the need is great, time is short and finances are limited’.

The economy was already failing to generate the sums government needed even before the pandemic struck last year. Lockdown 2 will hinder the strong recovery the island hoped for and needed in 2021.

With luck, vision and good Covid control the economy might grow by about 1% a year for the next decade and raise an extra £1.4bn.

It sounds a lot but it’s nowhere near enough.

Nor is there enough fat on the public sector bone to make up the shortfall in cost-cutting.

Short of mortgaging the island’s future with some hefty borrowing or taxing islanders into oblivion, the only answer is to focus on the essential with a united Assembly and genuine prioritisation.

It starts easily. The top two priorities of Covid recovery and Brexit write themselves.

Where it will get sticky is when committees see their best ideas, including those among the longlist of 40 recovery actions, whittled away.

But if the Government Work Plan ends up pleasing everyone then it is not doing its job. It needs to hurt and leave some States members cursing their misfortune.

If they have genuinely bought into the process they will accept their fate.