Burden of equal pay should not be borne by the public purse

However, during the debate Deputy Lyndon Trott revealed the potential year-on-year costs in respect of remediation of pay for affected public servants to be in the region of £50m. before pension considerations are taken into account.

This amount is considerable; that the statement was presented in a way that suggests there is no hope in reducing that impact as evidenced by Deputy Trott’s seemingly sagacious, sad and sober comment, ‘Tackling it will probably involve tax rises’, is indicative of an unwillingness on the part of the current Policy & Resources Committee to propose, debate and implement reasonable mitigation strategies to ensure that the burden is no more than can be reasonably borne by the public purse. Furthermore, the revelation by Deputy Chris Green regarding the marked increase in the establishment number of the States of Guernsey is a further sign of a culture of bad faith so as to avoid confronting the issue.

I firmly believe that equal pay for equal work, as enshrined in Article 23(2) of the UN UDHR, is a right that has long been missing from island public pay policy and that it has resulted in disincentives for capable and competent women to enter our public services. Ensuring the gap is bridged is the responsibility of our elected officials, yet so is the requirement to minimise the impact whilst still retaining top talent of both genders.

There is an urgent need to develop an action plan to ensure that an equitable and fair approach, agreed by all stakeholders, is adopted to provide a satisfactory solution to this issue. The aim and objective should be driven by needs assessments, supported by a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis and must include a review of current public employee positions with the goal to reduce the establishment figure whilst ensuring that islanders continue to receive quality, timely services; position replacements should be required to meet toll gate criteria before being re-advertised, operational effectiveness should be applied to ensure that management structures operate at optimal efficiency, redundant and complex procedures should be reworked to be fit for purpose, duplicated functions within departments consolidated into one dedicated function and automation employed to eliminate errors, improve turn-around time and reduce manual inputs.

I would like to reinforce Deputy Dawn Tindall’s call for a comprehensive assessment of the tangible and intangible benefits that are likely to accrue as a result of implementation of pay remediation, irrespective of any other actions proposed or adopted by the States of Guernsey, in order to provide some context for further debate around pay remediation.

MARC BREHAUT

Kandel,

Grandes Rocques Road,

Castel.