Deputies drove deal onto rocks through meekness

THIS States' overwhelming desire to show a united front on everything has backfired spectacularly when it comes to the opportunity Condor presented to run an inter-island passenger service.

We learned last week that having been knocked back by Policy & Resources when asking for help with finding just £125,000 to underwrite the trial, Economic Development did not consider taking it to the Assembly to get a deal done.

Why? Economic Development president Peter Ferbrache shrugged his shoulders and said it was about joined-up government.

It's unlikely he will roll over so meekly when it comes to a runway extension which so many are so sceptical about, but this Assembly is fast being characterised by an unwillingness to challenge or rock the boat, by a desire to stay either on message or unheard.

In another sign of the obedience being shown, there has not been a written question placed in more than six months.

The Condor deal shows what can be lost when the States does not want to be seen publicly in disagreement.

That ship has sailed until next summer, but if it had gone to the Assembly there is every possibility that the combined economic and social case would have won members over and the money found.

Policy & Resources sits in control of a £6.8m. pot which is designed to facilitate exactly this type of initiative.

Yes it was a punt, yes there were serious caveats being applied to some of the modelling, yes it should have been on the table much earlier, and yes States financial backing of private enterprise is always a difficult sell, especially with a company which many islanders feel has let them down.

But travel links are one of the dominant themes of the domestic agenda that need to be solved.

At the moment all we can see is fiddling, delay and procrastination.

That Future Guernsey Economic Fund has paid out to Guernsey Finance, marketing tourism, the Digital Greenhouse and Locate Guernsey to a total tune of £1.3m. last year.

Last year's Budget laid out what the fund's objectives were.

This includes ensuring reliable, sustainable and affordable sea and air links.

That is a slam dunk in this case.

Where any application to use the money probably fell down was having measurable economic and fiscal benefits – note there is no mention of social contributions.

Because we know from Deputy Ferbrache's speech in the States last week that any economic benefit analysis was of the back-of-a- fag-packet type, with a litany of ifs and buts.

That may not have stopped committees or the States in the past, but it does now.

Extracting any information about the offer has been like watching a dripping tap.

Indeed, it was only because of the willingness of Deputy Ferbrache's Jersey counterpart Lyndon Farnham to expose the financials of the offer that we are able to make any kind of a judgement.

We still have no clarity about how the bid fell short of Policy & Resources' requirements, but no doubt they would have been keen that Economic Development looked at its own budget for any headroom – it came in £400,000 shy of its authorised spend last year which indicates there is, to use a technical term, plenty of wriggle room.

Of course, Economic Development's predecessor, Commerce and Employment, also effectively kiboshed work under its watch because it argued it did not have the budget and at the time Treasury and Resources was not willing to play ball.

That was the review that Cicra wanted to carry out into potential market abuse with a significant States contract.

In 2015, C&E underspent its authorised budget by £500,000. In 2014, this underspend was more than £500,000.

Perhaps Economic Development feared being told by the Assembly to get a deal done by reprioritising, but whichever way you cut it, whether it was within the committee's budget or the wider States budget, there was plenty of money available to make things happen.

Instead, islanders in both Guernsey and Jersey are left with a day trip offering by sea that is extremely limited in the number of trips and limited in time.

Of course, there was another player in all this and it was Condor.

While its initial bid required £250,000 underwriting from Guernsey, that was knocked down to £125,000 in a text message to Deputy Ferbrache from Condor's CEO Paul Luxon.

There remains a healthy scepticism bordering on distrust of Condor politically and from the public ever since it cut its fleet.

It is a legitimate question to ask whether the taxpayer should be rewarding it with any underwriting.

Some more transparency on its accounts and calculations to receive that help would be welcomed, but unlikely to be forthcoming, with the words commercial sensitivity ringing loud.

Tension and challenge are a healthy part of a functioning democracy. Trying to keep most things behind closed doors, with massaged media messaging, does the public a disservice.

As Condor has demonstrated, the public and political appetite for change and an element of risk taking can be much greater than those working behind the scenes might anticipate.