Traffic strategy stalled in last-chance saloon

SOME things must sound much better in the political boardroom than they do when put out into the public arena.

Take Treasury's position on road tax.

It likes road tax – really, it thinks it should be introduced to fund the transport strategy because, when tied to emissions, it can cause behavioural change that was at one point at the heart of the plan.

But it won't be acting on that instinct with a move to make it happen. There will be no amendment.

Instead it has passed the responsibility onto the heads of the States as a whole, neatly sidestepping being tied to any legacy issues.

Leadership? Hardly, but the holder of the purse strings is so tied into process and keeping control of revenue-raising that it is in something of a dilemma.

New taxes should come as part of the new tax strategy, it says, just as rises in fuel duty – which Environment is proposing – should come as part of the annual Budget.

In all this, T&R has one very clear message that is right on the money – if this Assembly cannot agree how to fund the strategy when it debates the issue again at the end of this month, than all resolutions that require funding should be scrapped.

This is the proverbial last-chance saloon – it's just that T&R does nothing to help achieve that funding.

In its own stealth-like way, by creating doubt and uncertainty, it could just be signalling the end of the strategy.

Not that Environment is helping.

In an effort to get something, anything, in place, it has put before the States every option under the sun.

Yes, it has a preferred selection, but in desperation everything is there just in case someone can get 24 States members all to coalesce around one idea. Even paid parking remains, should anyone really be brave enough.

Incidentally, Environment, too, sees the merits of motor tax, likes it, but has not proposed it.

That's politics for you – sometimes, from the outside looking in, it starts to resemble a farce.

What is lacking from all of this is a leader to offer direction.

The States is fractured over the transport strategy, not only how to fund it, but also what it should be achieving and how.

Normally after this type of situation has played out over major policies – for instance with zero-10 – once a decision is made and democracy has spoken there is a settling of the split and a drive to make what has been decided work, whether you agreed with it or not.

Credit where it is due for the politicians who can achieve that in the consensus system.

Not with traffic. Indeed, never with traffic.

No one in the most recent administrations has shown the type of leadership needed to unite the divisions post-debate enough to keep a strategy alive.

The suspicion will be that there is little chance of the issue settling down, even if funding was agreed.

Too many people have too much to say, especially in the run-up to a general election.

Remember, there have been other protracted dramas with policy played out in the States, issues that have spanned different generations of politicians. Just take waste as an example.

It took more than a decade to settle on export, having given support to two different waste plants. The filling tip helped to focus minds on that issue – there needed to be a solution.

Politicians do not feel the same kind of pressure with the traffic strategy.

They can happily go along pushing things further down the road because, the bus contract aside, there are no deal deadlines to meet, nothing concrete, everything from whether there is a traffic problem in the first place remains debatable in their minds.

In that environment, there is no need for anyone to compromise on their beliefs just to achieve a result.

It is a nightmare scenario for the civil service.

The hidden factor in all this is the staff time that is wasted as politicians play at politics.

Each time a fresh investigation is launched, it mounts the pressure on those behind the scenes to do the research.

It must also be disheartening and demoralising to see the previous work destined for the scrapheap.

All the time, it's costing more money.

It also means that other work is not being done on different projects. That is not a way to achieve efficiency or good policy-making.

There must be some hope that the new structure of government might help stop these unfunded strategy situations, because there are others, such as pre-school education.

Today, politicians meet to debate whether to slimline the number of committees and marry up policy and resource in the hands of a senior committee.

This should help minimise the policy drift that can occur, although it will never be able to eliminate it completely under the consensus system.

But that is all for the future.

In two weeks' time, deputies will not only be debating how to fund the traffic strategy, they will be deciding whether they want one at all.

If they do play out the nuclear option, what is the future then for the board that was elected because of its links with the strategy in the first place?