Appointments dilemma

As an aside, as a former long-standing Heritage and Culture and Leisure board member and briefly an ESC one in this term, I was intrigued that Peter was now an honorary member of the Museum Management Board, a body I didn’t know existed as a kind of quango. I can’t recall such an entity at any time from 1997 to 2018 inclusive, but times change and the Japanese summer and art exhibitions are excellent. Nevertheless, the argument that smaller boards control wider areas suggests decision-making can also become more diffuse. But at least the fears, often vented by the extensive arts supporters and community, that culture risks being undermined may be groundless if these bodies have a successful and meaningful role in implementing policy and resources.

However, Peter Gillson, with his role and expertise as the chairman of the Population Employment Advisory Panel, makes some key points and arguments that should be both answered in the States and at a public inquiry by relevant committees and bodies.

I must admit I was something of a lay expert on the old housing law, having researched it for 30 years, sat on Housing, helped constituents with anomalies, etc. My voting record from 2011 shows I was not and am not a supporter of the new population law on many grounds. A softer reform and implementation of the old housing law would have sufficed and not led to the current disastrous shortages of care, retail, hospitality and tourism staff, and would not have undermined the rental differences between open and local market accommodation. I have some sympathy and empathy with Deputy Yerby’s principled stance on this issue.

However, the new policies have brought some incremental improvements, perhaps in the ability of trained HR staff to recruit professionals and allowing greater statutory clarity on residence rights beyond a period and for Alderney and Sark people.

But Peter Gillson’s article, especially if read in conjunction with the wisdom of former deputy minister Graham Guille, poses a huge anomaly, if not a black hole. The dilemma is this: if four good, reasonable and competent candidates for a senior management role, public, private or tertiary, reach a shortlist and go before an appropriate appointments panel, and I’m assuming no unjust jiggery pokery here, and the one that impresses the panel the most is non-local, what does that mean? All are capable of doing the job, but one has the edge... [Then] up with the significant costs of a new person or family inflating the housing market demand and the glass ceiling staying in place for the disappointed local applicants.

And when the law is respected by the personnel director signing a statement that no local candidate was really suitable, how true is that? What makes someone the best? The logic of the pro-population regime scenario as outlined by one of its key creators, the former deputy Gillson, suggests they could be breaking the law by subjectively selecting the ‘best’ candidate when others could have done the job more or less as well but didn’t shine so brightly on interview or a kind of hustings night performance.

But if making a shortlist and process which proves the local candidate has most of, not all, of the key skills and capabilities and could do the role, then aren’t we guilty of a sham kangaroo process of a kind of constructive dismissal, even of inviting non-local candidates to participate alongside qualified residents. Apart from the relocation bonus they might get if appointed, they are surely at a logical disadvantage by competing with candidates who are locally qualified candidates of more or less equal merit and credibility.

A proper inquiry into these issues would tackle this paradox, as well as whether politicians these days have any place or right to interfere in appointment matters or sit on recruiting panels. But I also worry that the Gillson think-piece raises the spectre in the final paragraphs of perhaps further resignations, instability and stress at a human cost, and a material cost to the taxpayer and this island’s children and teachers and wider education community.

But much as I salute the courage of leading islander Deputy Meerveld in his attitudes, questions and actions, I do think it important we separate the political performance of the ESC board from the merits of the education proposals before us in September.

DEPUTY JOHN GOLLOP

28, Rosaire Court,

Rosaire Avenue,

St Peter Port,

GY1 1XW.