Guernsey Press

External help is there – States should use it

CONCERNS expressed recently to the States Assembly and Constitution Committee that some committees were creating an elitist society by co-opting non-elected members to their ranks were as muddle-headed as they were misguided.

Published

Any problems – real or perceived – with non-States members on committees rest entirely with the department itself, as they have freedom to hire and fire at will. And that is the greatest strength of the non-States member system.

Deputies are, by definition, amateurs and are supposedly representative of society at large. Rarely are they elected for any specialist skills they may have. Therefore, they are in the hands of civil service advisers, frequently generalists themselves, when it comes to technical and complex issues.

The benefit of non-States members is that they can be enlisted specifically because of their skills or experience – having, say, worked in marine construction – to assist discussion on, for example, developing the eastern seaboard. Similarly, Education has co-opted academics to help its work.

The point critics miss is that the greatest value of non-States members is that they are (or can be) senior figures by virtue of having been around the block and demonstrated their ability to add value.

Assembly and Constitution Committee president Carl Meerveld is right that there needs to be more consistency over how posts are advertised and filled – open tender avoids accusations of cronyism or padding a committee with yes men and women.

It should go further than that, however. The benefits of non-States members have long been recognised by the Assembly but frequently talked down by certain deputies who say they lack electoral legitimacy. As non-voting members there in an advisory capacity, such a charge is irrelevant.

Guernsey has many people adept in finance, business, governance, engineering or IT happy to give of their time, but not stand for election. Committees have the ability to tap into these skills, although not all do.

Sacc ought to be pressing committees to improve their own performance by tapping into the pool of talent within the island and using NSMs.

The norm should be to do so – with departments made to explain why they have chosen not to.