Clinging to a parachute payment
THE pay earned by States members aggravates enough people without much prompting that you might have thought that deputies would be savvy enough to recognise that anything above and beyond might not go down so well.
Yet now we have the prospect of deputies who lose their seats at June’s general election picking up a ‘parachute payment’ of £4,000, which they will be owed for the privilege of being rejected by the electorate.
It’s recognised that such payments are made by governments elsewhere but pursuing the argument that deputies may well face ‘reduced employment prospects’ and deserve some financial support doesn’t really go much further than the approximate month or so that the money might last. It was a tone-deaf suggestion and for 17 members to vote for it is doubling down on that.
The same debate sparked Deputy Peter Ferbrache to get to his feet to bemoan that too many of his political colleagues do appear to be ‘in it for the money’ and particularly, making work for themselves to justify a full-time salary.
It’s a conundrum. We expect our elected representatives to give full commitment to serving us, but we don’t want to see them making themselves too busy. Yet while we believe it’s entirely appropriate for a deputy to operate part-time, we want them to appear fully committed.