Public expects more from the States of Inaction

ONE year on and we're all entitled to ask ourselves why this States is so interminably dull.

Perhaps we should take refuge in a States of Inaction. After all, it is much easier to live up to that than it ever was for the last term's States of Change to live up to its deluded moniker.

Guernsey also thrives on stability in an unstable world, or so we are told.

But four years of doing nothing but cross your fingers and hope is a recipe for failure – even more so given that Brexit leaves the island in such a vulnerable position, whatever the message of goodwill from the UK and others is.

Three years remain and yet we still do not know in what direction this Assembly wants to take the island, what its 'big, bold' plans for ensuring a strong economy are, how it will transform secondary education, what its thinking is on transport links both up in the air and at sea or how it will ensure the demographic does not cripple Guernsey's finances.

There are reasons for this.

The first message States members got, and rightly so, was one of financial restraint and savings.

It was a shock and awe start to proceedings.

Guernsey had been locked in a run of deficits and was about to break its promise on delivering balance again.

For all the back patting when that balance was achieved, the reality is that the vast majority of the recovery was based on one-offs and unsustainable measures.

That financial message has combined with a passive line-up of new faces entering the Assembly to create an environment where it seems politicians fear anything fresh and are unable to make progress.

That has also no doubt been heightened by the buy-in to the panacea of the Policy and Resource plan.

The principle behind that plan is absolutely sound, just as the principle behind all its predecessors by different names was.

Agree on what is essentially a manifesto for government, the overarching guidelines into which all your other work will fit, understand you cannot do everything so priorities need to be identified and that with a consensus system something is needed to bring order.

It is the painful amount of time it has taken to execute it that is the concern.

This States is frozen without agreeing its priorities.

That runs to the capital programme too.

Again we wait until June before we find out what the committees are planning to build – an extended runway, sea defences, a new school, a way to get fuel to the island, sorting out the old wards at the hospital and the like.

When this new States took up office, these projects would already have been on the table.

A year, then, to get the broadbrush schemes to the States, and then, if the last programme is any guide, many more years before they become a reality.

While the construction industry may take heart from the waste strategy finally being given the OK, that was a legacy issue and one that itself was delayed.

The pace of change is glacial.

Messages coming from some politically is also that the P&R plan may flatter to deceive, that members have decided that no money means no action and a business as usual philosophy.

Perhaps this will be an Assembly where reform means changing the way of working to save money rather than a rush of new services – but it need not be an either or.

The public will welcome evidence of value for money being achieved, that in itself is a success story, but that does not stop new services – this States more than any other has to learn to prioritise, that if it wants something new it just has decide what it is not going to do at the same time.

Easy to say in words, of course, much more difficult to achieve in reality.

Brexit aside, and that is the result of others' actions, legacy issues have dominated the first year in office.

Whether it is secondary education, population management, island-wide voting, waste, or same-sex marriage the big ticket items have all been inherited.

Dithering over education is already casting a cloud over this States, one that it needs to lift before the impression sticks that indecision rules.

Transport is one area where the public expects.

Those expectations are not being met at the moment, indeed nothing this government has done has taken things forward.

Talks with Condor and Jersey appear to be going nowhere very fast, deadlines have already been missed, so the status quo remains.

We are fed nuggets of other parties being interested in a passenger service south, but there is no chance of that being delivered this summer.

So for all the strong words of condemnation – and we heard more of them when problems hit sea travel during the Easter holidays – so far all the public sees is bluster.

If this is the best that we can expect, there needs to be some honesty about it.

The Aurigny strategic review is months overdue.

In the meantime Guernsey's airline is dipping further into travellers pockets and dropping its friendly identity while struggling to meet the expectations of Alderney.

This States is drifting.