'States must protect itself from allegations, or even perceptions, of discriminatory practice'

FOLLOWING a career spanning several decades in both public and private sectors locally, I have come to the conclusion that by far the best thing human resources can do for any organisation is to put the right people in the right jobs – and keep them there. Everything else flows from that; good profits (or budgets met), satisfied customers (or service users), happy shareholders (or voters), business or service goals achieved and legal obligations met.

That being the case, it follows that the process used for staff recruitment ought to be the absolute best we can make it. Comprehensive job descriptions, person specifications and key criteria are crucial and the interview panel must be the best people we can field. Panel members must be trained, competent and rigorously objective and, therefore, it is no place for ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ politicians. This is especially true at a time in Guernsey when we are increasing the scope of our discrimination legislation and politicians are forming themselves into prospective parties with common ideologies. The States must protect itself from allegations, or even perceptions, of discriminatory practice or attempts to politicise the civil service.

It has been argued that a politician should sit on the recruitment panels for senior posts that report directly to a committee – chief officers and the like. I totally disagree. Any post-holder (apart, perhaps, from the head of the civil service himself) has another post-holder above, so if a committee decides someone is not doing their job properly, there must be a mechanism to deal with it. The States of Guernsey, as an employer, does not vest staff management responsibility in politicians (only dictatorships do that) and selection interviews are entirely an operational matter. That said, a committee may properly be consulted on overall staffing structure or even on the creation of a particular new post, those could be genuine areas of policy, but the decision as to who occupies the post is an entirely operational one.

There have been stories of discontent emanating from all levels of the Education service for many months now and whilst any organisation going through this amount of change will have a few casualties, I understand that the schools are haemorrhaging teachers at an alarming rate. I therefore agree with deputies Green and Inder that there is a strong case for an external review to examine not only the recent recruitment episode, but also the events that led up to it. That must include the alleged ‘legal advice’ given to the Education minister and the absurdly general statement that the States ‘does not comment on personnel matters’. Transparency is key here and only by shining the brightest of lights on this matter can the tax-paying public have confidence that ESC can be trusted to handle the huge tasks in front of it with fairness and good governance.

ANDY CASTLE, MCIPD

andycastle@suremail.gg

Les Traudes.