Policy plan an unwieldy and disjointed beast

WADING through the Policy & Resource plan you cannot help but feel that some committees are simply deaf to the financial maelstrom the island is heading towards.

What was designed as an exercise in prioritisation reads in some places as a simple grab for new money – the very opposite of what was intended.

Go back to the reform of the structure of government and you can see that there is a disconnect between what was expected and what has been delivered.

It is difficult, for instance, to describe the 347-page plan as 'reasonably straightforward, flexible and un-bureaucratic' as was intended – the very criticism laid at the door of all previous attempts to do this.

It has, like others before it, grown into an unwieldy, disjointed beast in need of a good editor and some continuity.

It lacks consistency from one committee's policy plan to another, leaving the reader the impossible task of deciding just what this government actually stands for and wants to achieve.

Perhaps that could be forgiven as a first effort, if we could identify any guiding hand in all this to show us the way.

This is where you would expect Policy & Resources to step in as was, indeed, intended:

'The Policy & Resources Committee would work towards ensuring that the Principal Committees' policy plans are co-ordinated and consistent with the States' objectives and with each other, including identifying any conflicts and areas where prioritisation is necessary, before they are submitted to the States for debate and resolution.'

Instead of taking the lead, P&R has taken a light-touch approach:

'The Policy & Resources Committee does not consider it necessary to include a detailed appraisal of committees' policy proposals here, as it will be the responsibility of each committee to take forward its own priorities and report against progress in due course.'

What this embeds is the very silos that the plan was designed to breakdown.

If P&R is not willing to look across all the committees' work and advise where one clashes with another, or intervene and redistribute money where, say, an important health policy cannot be pursued while another less important area of work can go ahead in another committee simply because it has more loose change, then who can?

We have waited more than a year to find out what this States wants to do and even now it is not finished.

The report states that further work is needed on the prioritisation of workstreams.

This is precisely what the plan was meant to do – unlike Ronseal, this is not doing exactly what is says on the tin.

Perhaps this has been driven by the time frames – we had been promised this plan by June and so now we have what can best be described as a work in progress to meet that deadline.

Given how long it has taken to get to this stage, further delay would have left the States in an embarrassing situation.

While some presidents seem to view P&R as a controlling ogre, this document reveals it as much weaker than that, unwilling or unable to rock the boat too much.

Of course we cannot judge this new system of consensus government simply against this one test – but it remains a key milestone.

Perhaps the States will show its teeth when the Policy & Resource Plan is debated and we will see some prioritisation and redistribution.

More likely, of course, is that each committee will sit back and commend itself on a job well done, while warning others off micromanaging their budgets.

Some presidents will tell the States that they are already maxed out and cannot do any more without extra resources.

There is also a lesson for those who believe in the power of debate and States directions.

What committees have done when asked to prioritise is rapidly drop policy work that the last Assembly directed them to do against their will through amendments.

So just because the States votes for something after hours of debate, there is no reason to believe it will actually happen.

Admittedly these are usually the amendments that are born of gesture politics and you can see why the committee would want to be shot of them, but what a waste of time and resources in the meantime.

If you take the positives, P&R's medium-term financial plan is digestible with a clear message.

These finances remain at the heart of everything the States does.

Committees have been afforded the opportunity to take a step back and consider what they are doing and why – and, shock, some of them told P&R that developing their plans have allowed them to prioritise forthcoming work in a way they had not done before.

It makes you shudder to think what they were doing before.

Read between the lines from P&R's summary at the start of the plan and you feel that it expected more from the principal committees.

Take this, for instance: 'The committee has some concerns that there may not be sufficient staff resources available to deliver all of the identified priorities within the anticipated timescales.'

But then it takes the approach that it is best to 'allow the committees the opportunity to deliver all their aspirations'.

That is the worst of consensus government – identify the problem but then leave it hanging in the air.