Substance and structure

The first was the news that Premier Inn is investigating opening a 60- to 100-bedroom hotel in Guernsey. This is obviously very good news. It would be a boon for the building industry, the tourist industry and the economy in general. The fact that Premier Inn is publicly considering the idea is positive.

Against that positive background I found the quote from Deputy Dawn Tindall to be disappointing: ‘My immediate reaction was “great, we can start talking about it now”.’ Not quite the initial response I would expect from Economic Development’s lead on tourism.

I was half-way through drafting this column when Monday’s Press arrived. Immediately taken by the front-page headline about the effectiveness of our government, there was a change of plan, saving you from my thoughts about the lack of an island infrastructure plan.

In case you missed Monday’s Press, the majority of the item seemed to be largely based around an interview with Deputy Matt Fallaize, who made some very interesting and possibly revealing comments about the effectiveness of the new structure of government.

One comment was his belief that the new structure could have been more effectively introduced in the hands of the previous States. It may be true, but also a concern because surely a good political structure should have enough checks and balances to be capable of operating effectively whoever the deputies are.

That sentiment does not bode well for the future.

I agree that the biggest single structural change was the abolition of the Policy Council and the creation of the Policy & Resources Committee. I admit to being amused by the sentiment that the new structure is better placed to cope with the challenges we face – I cannot recall this Assembly actually solving any of the challenges we face.

I am ambivalent about the change because I think the old Policy Council structure could have worked had it operated in a different way.

Although I was a member of only one Policy Council, the impression I have is that previous ones worked in pretty much the same way. That time and again they tried to lead policy development rather than policy co-ordination.

You are probably thinking that is a strange statement to make, after all leadership is needed and if not the Policy Council, then who?

Before explaining what I mean, we should note that in our committee-based consensus government it is the Assembly, our parliament, which makes most of the policy decisions. Think of secondary education structure, air- route licensing, even milk retailing, planning policies. All of those policies were approved by the Assembly.

This is significantly different to an executive form of government, such as the UK, where policy is determined by the Cabinet, albeit within parameters set by their party. The Cabinet only needs to refer to Parliament for funding and legislative changes.

Back to the Policy Council. The best way to explain my comment is to consider how the council dealt with States reports.

Before publication, any departmental report would be submitted to the Policy Council for comment. We would receive a copy to read, as well as a summary produced by the Policy Council staff. Both would be discussed in a Policy Council meeting. The problem was those discussions were more often than not a mini States debate, debating all of the political issues raised by the report.

In politics there is more often than not no definitively correct answer. Take the two- or three-school question, for example: both structures are capable of producing good results. Against this background it’s not surprising that ministers had differing political views – sometimes diametrically opposing views – on the same reports.

The result of this was that many of the letters of comment focused on the political issues raised by the reports and were either not supported by all ministers, or had to be vague to enable all ministers to agree to them. Either way the Policy Council was often accused of lacking leadership or trying to act like a cabinet.

Within our committee-based consensus system it would have been far better had the Policy Council not tried to pre-debate the political pros and cons of report, but focus on three key areas: validating or questioning the financial aspects, confirming to what degree the propositions complied with the strategic plan and whether the timing of the report was co-ordinated with other departments.

In that way the Policy Council would not have been trying to lead political debate, rather it would have been leading the governmental process.

The problem was not one of an inappropriate structure, more inappropriate style of leadership.

Often we heard comments that the then chief ministers did not have the ‘tools in the box’, that they could not even hire or fire other ministers, I have heard the same said about the position of the current chief minister. The problem with such comments is they are appropriate for an executive government where the cabinet set policy, but not for our committee-based consensus government.

A chief minister would only need to have the ability to ‘hire and fire’ his team if they formed the senior policy- deciding body. In our structure the Assembly is the senior policy-deciding body, so it is correct that the Assembly determines those positions.

Whatever structure of government, it all comes down to two things: the quality of the deputies and having leadership which operates appropriately for our consensus system.

Monday’s Press included my comments on the former and the latter is a concern for a future column.