A lack of trust is no laughing matter

EACH week that goes by, the esteem in which this Assembly is held takes another knock.

Environment has reached a new nadir in flim-flammery over the Town crossing, its nervous indecisiveness and appeals to others to guide its decision paints the States as a whole in a bad light.

It reflects an old trick departments use when a policy starts to be questioned or becomes unpopular: all of a sudden it's not the individual department's policy, but the States as a whole. Pass that buck along.

From the closeted board room, Environment's members probably feel their decisions are following an evidence-based logic. But they need to take a step out of that world because, from the outside, it looks farcical.

The department made the decision to change the layout as an 'experiment', they protest, whenever anyone says that going back to two lanes is a U-turn.

In making that decision, they became responsible for the layout, so they could no longer look at it as a historic quirk they inherited and therefore could ignore.

They knew this, and they also knew that, under the advice they were agreeing to, advice that is questioned vociferously by others, they could not go back to two lanes and a courtesy crossing.

They may leap on the experiment argument in their defence but, in reality, by making the change, that 'experiment' was only ever going to get tweaked – the board was acting under and accepting expert advice that change was needed, that meant the same advice dictated that the experiment could never be pulled.

Now it has been told to do just that by the hastily formed working party of senior politicians, it agreed, and now it wants to go back to that same group for more reassurance before acting because it got more evidence to back its original stance that you cannot have two lanes and the courtesy crossing.

Environment should be more upfront about this traffic advice it is receiving – and any other reasons for their reluctance to revert to the original layout, because at the moment it is hard to find anyone who is backing its confused and stubborn stance.

Public Services, too, should front up with the health and safety advice that led to the cruise tenders moving which has put so much pressure on that area.

The lack of trust for the public to be given the full picture is a worrying trend that is tainting this fiasco.

PSD has turned down requests to release the health and safety reports because it says that doing so would harm the island's competitive position, containing as it does information about its cruise ships operations.

It will not even release a redacted version with this 'sensitive' information taken out.

Just what data PSD is worried about in there we don't know, but it is no secret it wants to grow the cruise liner industry – and it is often keen to tell us. Its love of the cruise industry is also laid bare through the ports master plan.

This is a damaged States, and, because of that, trust has been eroded in it.

In the past, the public may have acquiesced when told by officialdom that something had to happen; not now, and especially not with this States and these two departments.

The damage is already done, the public needs to see the evidence with their own eyes to make a judgement.

You can see the board members and senior staff squirming now while faced with that type of thinking – after all, the elected members were voted in to make these decisions on our behalf, they will say, while the staff are professionals, understanding things beyond us mere mortals.

Trust works two ways.

The States not trusting the public with key information just heightens the distrust the public has for them and the decision-making process.

Both departments should find a way to get more information into the public domain, not hide behind closed doors making faceless announcements from spokespeople.

The public can't help but wonder what else goes on.

When the access to information code was brought in, those who questioned its relevance asked what it was that people thought the States was hiding from them.

Well, here we are. Not that the code has helped get this information out there just yet.

The solution to all this might just need some more radical thinking – hopefully that is what the working party will bring about, or at least some more common sense.

The chief minister has said this working party is 'not a flash in the pan group', and will be looking at a long-term solution for the seafront.

With no timeframes on its work (and an election looming) it will be interesting to see how much it gets done.

Past Policy Councils have form with setting up groups to look at the seafront, only for their work to fade into obscurity.

Given the immediacy of this issue, it is unlikely that will be allowed to happen, but it does pose another question of what happens when this all gets passed on to the next Assembly with a new system of government.

The working party meets today to discuss Environment's latest bit of procrastination.

With Deputy Jonathan Le Tocq away, it will be chaired by the Home minister Deputy Peter Gillson.

Members include known critics of Environment's handling of this situation – Commerce and Employment minister Kevin Stewart, Deputies Barry Paint and Mary Lowe, as well as Deputy Lester Queripel, who has been somewhat quieter on the issue. Environment minister Yvonne Burford and Public Services minister Scott Ogier are the other two members.

How did the cruise liner passenger cross the road? It might sound like the start of a bad joke, and so far it has been, but that is indeed the question that needs answering.