Who might want ‘An Impossible Job’?
WHEN he was the manager of the England football team, Graham Taylor agreed to allow a documentary to be made about England’s attempts to qualify for the 1994 World Cup. It didn’t go well. England didn’t make it. And the documentary ended up quite differently to how the producers, and Taylor himself, probably thought it might. They called it ‘An Impossible Job’.
Closer to home, might we consider the newly-titled Head of the Public Service role in the States of Guernsey similarly to be ‘An Impossible Job’?
Yes, it immediately attracts interest because of the £190,000 salary package. Although high for the public sector, is it out of kilter for a high-performing chief executive delivering the reforms the public sector so clearly needs?
The answer in part depends on whether the responsibilities of the role identified by the salary can indeed be delivered – and to what extent inevitable political input is aligned with the new Head’s reformist agenda.
In other words, is the island’s senior civil servant there to serve their political masters’ whims, or manage the civil service into a lean, capable, efficient organisation that’s fit for today’s economic and fiscal challenges?
Indeed, can one person alone change the culture and approach of a public sector of 5,000 individuals?
The previous incumbent lost his job despite promising to transform the service, cut 200 posts and save £10m. – and the failure to deliver that. Perhaps a case of right plan, but wrong timescale.
Jersey’s new chief executive, Suzanne Wylie, a fresh arrival from Northern Ireland, has spoken about how she believes her new island has the capability to be in charge of its own destiny, and shared her enthusiasm that the community should take a stake in that.
But Guernsey’s record of such delivery remains sluggish. The island is traditionally better at responding to external threats than shaping new opportunities and delivering them.
In short, there is much riding on the shoulders of whoever emerges as the first Head of the Public Service in this newly-cast role – and much historic evidence that the new job description is unlikely to be deliverable. An Impossible Job?With responsibility for 5,000 staff and expectations of being able to ‘inspire, motivate and drive forward an ambitious change programme’, who might want the new ‘Impossible Job’?