States must get serious over GWP
ONE of the regular criticisms laid at the door of this current States, as Chief Minister Peter Ferbrache will allude to in his series of articles this week, is that the government is a dead duck, a zombie States.
The updated, slimmed-down, Government Work Plan begs to differ. It says, in impenetrable fashion at times admittedly, that government is doing quite a bit, and cracking on with its priorities.
It’s keeping pace with the Moneyval evaluation, has reviewed our approach to population and immigration, is trying to move forward with housing development, is poised to debate the new electricity strategy and it’s got funding and legislation in place to support children and young people.
If the States is looking for an exam grade in this results season, maybe it is claiming a solid C. The uninitiated might be hard-pressed to work it out, however. The report to the States for the October debate is very hard work to comprehend, balancing itself between describing it as a ‘valuable tool’ and then ‘simply not deliverable’ in this political term.
Policy & Resources intends that the report should outline a ‘more achievable body of work’ for the remainder of the political term, reducing the number of priorities and rethinking on how to deliver.
With the electorate torn between wanting a smaller, cheaper States, or ‘gold-plated’ services when they want them, the future of the GWP and its priorities, could or should be critical in setting new aspirations for government, and its demands on taxpayers.