Chief minister’s invested power too extensive

May I suggest that the heart of the problem is the power which is invested in the chief minister. If this is compared with a public company he would be the chairman, chief executive officer and director of finance rolled into one. In this position he has had control of the States budget, has been able to introduce his pet projects (assisted dying), able to withhold two reports from members of the States and the public produced by PwC and generally acting as a dictator (by his decree that the States shall not revisit the extension of the runway).

A new structure of government might be considered to remedy this situation: a board consisting of the presidents of each committee with its chairman the chief minister, together with a new president of finance. In 2016, the board would have met to decide the urgent priorities which the new government would attend to and discuss the ways in which these would be tackled. It might have to meet several times, perhaps daily, in order to make sure that the States meeting would not be wasting time.

The job of the chief minister would now become the role of facilitator. If, for example, a committee was having trouble in keeping to a time scale, he might confer with the president and offer additional secretarial facilities or bring in expert advice (of which there is much available on-island without bringing in help from the UK). The long drawn out new education structures might have been helped in this way and saved many parents from anxiously waiting to know when and where their children would be schooled.

Just the thoughts of an old codger who would like to see some improvements to our present way of dealing with the tribulations which affect our States.

DON SUMMERS

ADDRESS WITHHELD

Editor’s footnote: Deputy Gavin St Pier declined to comment.