Has Environment earned the right to play?

THERE is a turn of phrase favoured by rugby summarisers of 'earning the right to play'.

In the sporting context it is all about having a solid platform on the pitch before moving forward, spraying the ball around and attacking.

But it would be a sound political philosophy too.

Not so much about earning the right to play, although some cynics will suggest that is exactly what the more meddling members of the political classes do, but about earning the right to act, to make decisions and make changes.

So has this Assembly, with less than a year to go before the dust settles on its legacy, earned anything?

Has it built the trust required to come to the public for more of their hard-earned money to spend as it looks increasingly willing to?

Perhaps that platform should have come from the Financial Transformation Programme and its promise to weed out any inefficient savings.

Much was achieved, but millions are still being frittered away because of a lack of joint working.

That platform is also about something much less tangible – building public confidence in the political process.

Each new Assembly has to do that. Although they start with an air of public goodwill in the afterglow of the election, that soon wears off if decisions are being made which do not stand up to scrutiny or lack common sense.

It is easy to dent public trust – perhaps even more so with the swirl of opinion so easily built in a small island. People are no fools, whatever the more elite-minded might think.

They will spot the emperor in his new clothes and now they are likely to say so. Much of the public consternation with this States comes about because it has a credibility problem, or at least some departments do, and that infects the rest of them.

Had the Environment Department come from a position of strength and proposed its latest funding proposals for the transport strategy it may have been met with a level of acceptance. It has not.

A combination of its own bad handling of the strategy, the inability to sell its vision to gain wider acceptance or even articulate what that vision actually entails, and the States muddling of the decision-making process, has left it struggling.

Already the public protest has been planned – it must be unprecedented to get people to the streets so quickly on the same subject.

This rally will no doubt become the focus for anyone who feels discontented with this administration, and tagging on the seafront traffic changes should ensure a decent turnout – and a somewhat mixed message.

Policy-making in Guernsey often finds itself rooted to the middle ground – parties entrenched in more radical ideas balanced out by those who stand against any change. It is the nature of the committee system.

So far Environment – and the States as a whole which backed the strategy and then picked it apart – has hopelessly failed to find where that ground of acceptability is.

It is trying to find ways to fund a strategy to which some are outright hostile, and those who support it are muted in their response – maybe because it is full of those good intentions but without the concrete proposals to coalesce around.

The department has taken a hit over the seafront traffic changes, damaging confidence at exactly the wrong time as far as its funding plans are concerned.

That it has come back and said that paid-for parking clocks are a no-go should surprise no-one – it has already argued this.

The parking clock amendment was more of a device to scupper paid parking than it was a funding solution.

If deputies want to keep what is left of the traffic strategy they have to fund it and this has almost reached desperation stage.

Even Environment strikes a tone of resignation within the report outlining its proposals.

It half-heartedly backs increasing fuel duty, but acknowledges all this does is raise money and will not 'in itself deliver any significant change in behaviour'.

Gone too are free buses, with discounted fares used to incentivise bus travel.

It is almost like the Billet is sighing at you: 'the benefit would clearly not be as significant as free bus fares', it states.

And Environment is trying again with a first registration duty, based only on emissions and at a much lower cost.

'However, the duty, when set at such a low level and applied as a one-off duty on first registration, is unlikely to have a strong influence on buyer behaviour and therefore will not play a significant role in incentivising a more efficient fleet as the originally approved propositions would have done.'

Quite.

There is a danger that the tone of the document alone has done for the strategy, making it so clear that it is raising money but not achieving behavioural change.

That is only reinforced by the Policy Council's letter of comment.

'The Environment Department's preferred approach is unlikely to affect behaviour in terms of vehicle use or acquisition but does not conflict with the principles of the Strategy and, as structured, would raise the appropriate levels of funding without being significantly inflationary,' it states.

The public will be left to wonder just why, then, does the States need an extra £3.5m. Where is that money going?

Much of it is swallowed up by the bus service, then it is £150,000 for bus infrastructure; £420,000 for cycle infrastructure; £330,000 for pedestrian infrastructure; £200,000 for public realm improvements and £150,000 for disability transport measures.

So it is again a question of trust – has the department earned the right to go on a £3.5m. spending spree in these areas without making it clear what it has planned?

We are about to find out.