Guernsey Press

Covid times are no guide for the future

THE States’ internally-produced Covid-19 review will obviously be seen to have failings. A job done internally saves paying consultants thousands of pounds, but some would argue that the work lacks depth – despite running to more than 100 pages – and real, effective scrutiny.

Published

But as it’s largely considered a review of a job well done, that's not surprising.

In some areas it comes across as a skim read, with little analysis. For example, we know how the States spent £74m. in business support payments – but we don’t get thorough discussion or assessment on whether this was truly essential, represented value for money, or could have been addressed in a different way.

The report considers parliamentary scrutiny of the actions of the Civil Contingencies Authority, how its emergency regulations were scrutinised and kept under regular review, and how senior committee presidents regularly responded to oral and written questions from their fellow deputies.

That scrutiny was well-intended, but now, in hindsight, all seems rather ‘lite’.

But one thing this Covid review should not be used for is as supporting evidence for the development of executive government.

Evidence that things ‘worked well’ under the CCA through Covid don’t give legitimacy to those discussions in more regular times.