Action, vision, direction
In keeping with his previous record, the president of the new Policy & Resources Committee is making an immediate fist of patching over some of the self-inflicted wounds of this States over the past couple of years.
Maybe this is the Guernsey version of the Brexit ‘bonfire’ of regulation that was going to happen, or indeed, a similar promise from P&R v1 that it would get rid of hundreds of extant resolutions from States decisions that were never going to be addressed?
This week’s decision to scrap the Bordage Seath building project makes absolute sense. The approach was largely flawed at the start, and as the political sides became ever more deeply entrenched, was reaching farcical proportions. The States knows this hospital key worker housing is a problem, and is patently addressing it – why complicate matters?
However, this P&R, this States, also needs to move on from simply engineering quick fixes and plucking low-hanging fruit.
It could argue that 15 months of ‘power’, with time slipping past by the day, isn’t enough time to create and pursue a vision. But when the fixes dry up, what next?
Without a vision and a direction of travel, Guernsey is going nowhere. Some day a lead committee has to identify that direction, while still needing to drive action, and not just keep patching over the problems.