Why the bigger boys ended up being caned

CAST your mind back around 20 years or so ago – longer, if you include the oil crisis of the ’70s and the recessions of the ’80s and ’90s – and concerns were being expressed about the size, cost and fitness for purpose of the States.

These were generally countered with ‘cut to the bone’ and ‘civil service to be proud of’ arguments, usually mustered by those with a vested interest in the organisation or else who were supposedly overseeing its performance.

The Harwood reforms of 2004 were a sort of recognition that the political process wasn’t delivering as it should or delivering the results islanders wanted. Those reforms were, obviously, compromised close to death when finally debated and so arguably made matters worse.

Our early adoption of zero-10 in 2008 and the casual way government at the time assumed the resulting £80m.-100m. revenue shortfall would cheerfully be mopped up by the peasants caused a modest revolt among we taxpayers.

As a result, business groups, ordinary islanders and this newspaper were successful in forcing the States to acknowledge that it would have to meet the zero-10 ‘black hole’ revenue shortfall half-way by making savings of its own.

That triggered FTP, the so-called financial transformation programme, which saved little but at least taught civil servants how to charge for the services they previously provided for free.

It also sparked a memorable report – which was so horrid if you’re a public employee or States member that it was buried alive. Not surprising, given it established that ‘departments have, in many instances, been able to provide “gold plated” services or, indeed, services where there is no clear rationale at all for government intervention. There has also been no imperative to deliver services efficiently’.

By pretending the Tribal Helm/Capita report didn’t really exist, our leaders were spared troubling questions like, ‘what are you doing about it, then?’

Nevertheless, irritating comments about the size, cost and fitness for purpose of the States continued. The global financial crisis was distinctly unhelpful in that regard. So we had A Framework for Public Service Reform, which has about seven years still to run.

Meanwhile, Education, Sport & Culture was embarrassing even its own colleagues with bizarre behaviour, tragic decisions and a carelessness with public funds that was breathtaking.

Bigger boys called in PwC. By handing over a lot of sweetie money, PwC wrote things about Education that, after much squabbling, tears and playground scuffling, saw them on their way.

Unfortunately – and not a lot of people know this – PwC was quite rude about the school prefects who hired them.

States pay policies are a mess and inconsistent. ‘Significant discrepancies in standard working hours, overtime allowances and compensation structures exist amongst committees.’ And they can’t even get RPI pay increases right.

HR in the organisation is lamentable and not able to support a transformation programme: ‘There is a perceived lack of clarity over the ability to remove staff through severance or redundancy processes and there seems to be a lack of alignment in messages received from HR in this area.’

Managers even felt unable to remove people they didn’t need. ‘In order to drive financial efficiencies, it is important that managers are able to identify posts that are no longer required without the current post-holder being viewed as a blocker to removing the role.’

Perhaps even worse, government seemed powerless to get rid of people gaming generous sick-leave provisions (six months’ full pay, return for two weeks, fall ill for six months on full pay; repeat).

PwC was more diplomatic: ‘It is considered very difficult for the States to transition employees on long-term leave out of the organisation, resulting in significant ongoing costs with roles remaining unfilled for significant periods of time, causing pressure on day to day operations.’

There was a lot more, including IT unable to transform anything and the fascinating disclosure that the States rents private rooms for meetings – at our expense – because it doesn’t know which of its own are empty, available and free.

But you get the drift. The ‘lean, mean, cut to the bone’ line we’ve been fed is baloney. The States, in many respects, is dysfunctional.

In Jersey, they’ve brought in a hatchet squad to shake things up. Why? Because the States of Jersey’s pretty poor too: ‘[staff] don’t often realise how damaging the defence of vested interests, and/or self-interest by public servants, can be to our economy. This is, in part, because we don’t operate as a single public service.

‘Secondly, our public services themselves are a curate’s egg. Some bits work well, but others – and a fair amount of services fall into this category – are quite frankly way below what you would expect, and lower than comparable services in other countries.’ Ouch.

But that applies to Guernsey too, which is why States chief executive Paul Whitfield has embarked on his own (less confrontational) reform process and gave us an update in his annual report this month.

You have to work at it a bit (who writes this stuff?), but public sector performance and managing out that poor performance; inadequate IT; improving the quality of HR and its ability to push transformation; pursuing value for money; and enhancing leadership/management are all there in the crosshairs.

Mr Whitfield’s oppo in Jersey, Charlie Parker, is enforcing reform. Senior jobs are going, ministerial departments axed. Guernsey’s transformation programme is more consensual. It wants to take employees and 14 or so unions along with it.

It’s one reason employee ‘pulse’ surveys will be held this year (no poor-taste jokes about detecting whether staff have one, please) because ‘engaged employees are more productive, take less time off, and make customers and service users happier.’

Well, yes. Quite so. Meanwhile, beleaguered taxpayers themselves will feel happier if next year’s update has a bit more red meat delivery on what’s actually been achieved now the reform foundations are finally in place.

After 20 years, it’s not much to ask.