Grant cuts leave committee looking aloof and alone

Cowardly and contradictory more like.

Economic Development has struggled for purpose this term. Now, in pulling some £70,000 of funding from the sports and arts, it has shown itself to be out of touch and staggeringly aloof.

Its justification – only forthcoming once others had broken the news and used in the loosest possible terms here – is that there will be greater economic benefit spending the money elsewhere.

In its arrogance it has refused to expand on this at all and say where.

It has also refused to provide any of the evidence on which it based the decision.

This committee has form for being secretive and insular, but really if you are going to cut funding in a way that is going to impact on thousands of islanders and visitors, the very least you could do is set out the case properly.

This is a move that has taken everyone by surprise, cooked up in the dark corridors of Raymond Falla House in a stark reminder of just how far we are still to go to get any sense of joined-up government.

At the same time that Economic Development has pulled its support of sports and the arts, it wants permission to take control of £7m. of taxpayers’ money to spend on its pet projects.

The question must now be whether you can trust the committee’s judgement or ability to sell its message.

It does a wonderful job of talking down the economy, its recently-released vision is full of bluster and recycled ideas and precious little else.

We are already more than a year-and-a-half into this term, yet there is little to show for it.

Holding this decision up to the mirror of approved States strategies shows it to be an outlier.

Economic Development is responsible for the Visit Guernsey 2015 to 2025 strategic plan. You might remember its target of 30% growth in the value of the tourism economy, an increase in visitor numbers from 309,000 in 2014, to 400,000 by the end of 2025.

It has five strategic aims, the second is strengthening the islands’ unique product offering.

And what does it say is part of this offering?

Well it just happens to be culture and the arts and sport and leisure.

It lauds the Guernsey Photographic and Guernsey Literary Festival in that vision, and names such as Lydia Pugh, all of whom are aghast at the cuts.

No one is saying cash should be handed out without accountability, but the number of visitors attracted by events supported by these grants and the amount of money they would put into the economy make it difficult to fathom what the better investment the committee has on its mind. Then there is the wider community benefit that wouldn’t even figure in the economists’ heads.

It is a £70,000 cut that manages to slash through all the themes of the recently-approved Policy & Resource Plan, which wants to make us a happy and healthy place to live, indeed the happiest and the healthiest.

Whether it is the economy, quality of life, community or Guernsey’s place in the world, this decision undermines it.

Take a look at the committee’s 2018 budget and you can see it has decided to cut £140,000 from its grant and support schemes spending.

But you can also see other areas on the rise – finance sector development up £126,000 from £665,000; business innovation and skills from £458,000 to £542,000.

Economic Development’s Budget is down by £60,000 in total – to £6.235m. – in that light the sports and arts cut looks particularly heavy-handed.

And this just returns you to the point that the committee is refusing to explain what it is doing and why.

Broad headings tell you very little of where the money is going, what the expectations are of that spend and how success or otherwise is being measured.

There are no doubt members of the committee preparing the rather lazy argument that savings have to be made and that requires difficult decisions.

They may be calculating that all these events will survive without what was already meagre financial support.

If we know one thing, it is that government has learnt how to lean heavily on others to provide the type of sports and arts offering the community and visitors deserve and expect – it intends to do so more too.

But it is simply hypocritical to laud and piggy back on the success of these people one minute and forget them the next.

Could all these events survive in their current form on pure commercial terms?

It’s very doubtful.

This is a move that will lead to more chasing and eroding sponsorship potential, a vicious cycle that inevitably leads to scaling back what is on offer.

They rely heavily on volunteers in the first place in any case.

Economic Development, like any committee, will rally against having its budget micro-managed, against being seen as weak by U-turning in light of the public response.

But in the absence of any justification for what it is doing, it is lining itself up for just that.

This is also where a strong, effective and timely Scrutiny Committee investigation is needed.

Pull the committee out of its bunker to answer the questions it is refusing to – at the moment it is simply treating colleagues and the public with contempt.