Delayed debates hardly the first signs of Sarnia Spring

BEHIND the scenes, Guernsey's fledgling government of change is taking shape.

Although you would not really know it unless tuned into the grapevine.

Every new States goes through a period of learning, when all the pre-election hype of making a difference evaporates into the reality of learning the day job.

This States, however, really does not have the two-year-plus settling-in period normally associated with a new Assembly.

For starters, it has a £30m. deficit to deal with.

Which is why, with all the talk of a 'Sarnian Spring' espoused by those political wags prone to hyperbole, some of the initial decisions by the Policy Council at first glance seem somewhat out of kilter. The debate pencilled in for the States Strategic Plan, which can be seen as the Assembly's manifesto, has been delayed until next year.

So no early decisions on the direction we are heading in – but the opportunity was there if members had wanted to press on now.

That somewhat nullifies this year's Budget debate – although it still could include a key decision on whether to spend savings from the financial transformation programme on new services or instead use them to cut the deficit.

It seems as though the decision to delay the initial SSP debate could have a silver lining – it was after all scheduled to be a taster discussion, not one for hard and fast decisions.

That agenda-setting debate will move forward from nearer the end of 2013 to the first quarter of next year.

The Policy Council has also made some decisions on its subgroups, which have in the past been so key in driving forward different policies.

We have fewer than pre-election, for starters, so more issues will be discussed around the full Policy Council table.

Gone are the Energy, Environmental, Population and Strategic Land policy planning groups.

But it has left the rather curious position of Chief Minister Peter Harwood, pictured right, chairman of the Policy Council, not having a vote on the Social Policy Group – an area that he campaigned on and also gave his first official speech about.

The official explanation from Frossard House is this:

'The reason the chief minister is a non-voting member of the Social Policy Group is that if the chairman of the Fiscal and Economic Policy Group also had a vote on SPG, it would represent a majority of the Policy Council (i.e. SPG would comprise of six voting members, all of whom are ministers, effectively creating a quorum of the full Policy Council) – something the Policy Council has always considered inappropriate for any of its subgroups.'

Frossard House said the key point was that the SPG chairman is a member of FEPG, and vice-versa, so the link between these two important areas of policy development is strengthened and enhanced.

It's just that one has a vote on both, the other just on one and the chief minister can arguably be seen to be rather nullified around the table.

Does it matter?

While it is important to remember that neither the Social Policy or the Fiscal and Economic Policy groups have delegated decision-making powers, they do lead the discussions.

The make-up of all these elements of government may not seem that crucial at first glance.

But that is to do a disservice to the role that each individual can play in shaping policy – what they bring to the table sets the initial agenda and direction before it heads back up to the Policy Council and eventually the States.

Streamlining the groups seems to make sense given the development work already done on things like the population management and energy plans, but then neither of these has been concluded.

Elsewhere, departments and committees are also sorting their own working parties and membership of different groups that never really break cover – perhaps because some of it is too much about time filling and not enough about policy development.

But that is for another column...