Guernsey Press

Guernsey: a work in progress

Suffer from that nagging feeling government doesn’t really know what it’s doing? That’s because all too often it doesn’t. Richard Digard explains

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HOW about this for an assessment of that august but infuriating body we all love to hate? ‘This States is a policy vacuum, which is why there is constant fractious bickering and very little is being achieved. [There is] very little understanding or trust of the policy frameworks that exist and the [committee] presidents who try and enact them. Consensus needs policies built on evidence not “popularity”.’

It’s from former deputy Sarah Hansmann Rouxel in a discussion on Twitter, hence my additions in brackets. It also follows on from my previous column here on why government is pants at planning plus a lively conversation I had the previous week with deputy chief minister Heidi Soulsby, who took me to task for apparently criticising the Government Work Plan.

Interestingly, her corrective of my views involved a discussion of the difference between strategy and planning, the GWP being much better than what went before it and that, anyway, it’s still a work in progress and desperately needs slimming down.

The point to make is that whatever plan or, indeed, strategy the States attempts to put into place, it’s by definition retrospective. As Deputy Soulsby says of the GWP, ‘the basic problem is we’re always trying to prepare a manifesto after the election’. That, in turn, creates the problem identified by Ms Hansmann Rouxel: that there’s a policy vacuum.

In the good old days – that’s prior to zero-10 being introduced on 1 January 2008, a policy development which neatly coincided with the global credit crunch, and more lately Covid – that didn’t much matter. Money was pouring in, committees had more than enough of it to do much as they pleased and overspends were of no account.

From then until now, you’ve witnessed a generally profligate government system trying – not very hard, especially by private sector standards – to get to grips with a succession of ‘new normals’ while still being very reluctant to live within its means. The tax review, threats of GST and the predicted £85m. structural deficit show just how reluctant.

Deputy chief minister Deputy Heidi Soulsby. (Picture by Luke Le Prevost, 30759091)

But, as Deputy Soulsby told me, there are some encouraging signs. Previous incarnations of what’s now the GWP were basically a wish list of everything committees wanted to do. Saying no wasn’t then an option. Today’s GWP is much more slimmed and more targeted on what the island needs to do, especially post-Brexit and (hopefully) post-pandemic.

Crucially, departments and politicians are becoming used to spending only in areas identified in the plan as priorities – pandemic, Brexit, recovery and re-shaping government – with 10 top ‘recovery actions’, including housing, education, transport, the economy and population.

But the GWP’s still too big in scope and needs to be scaled back. That’s to happen shortly, with Policy & Resources recommending what should be dropped so that actual States activity is much more closely aligned with desired government outcomes. An attempt, if you will, to fill the policy vacuum identified earlier.

Step back a bit and you can see that the way we operate in this vital area is deficient. We’re still trying to put in place a system that joins up community aspiration (largely undefined in the absence of party politics and pre-election island manifestos) with the capability of government to meet those aspirations within the money available.

This partly explains why reshaping government is a priority area – expect much more news on a central commissioning team aimed at cutting through bureaucracy and red tape and speeding up implementation – as more outsourcing is pursued.

As the Plan says, ‘Government itself will deliver only that which it is best placed to carry out and will establish new ways to work in partnership with our community’s private and third sectors to more effectively deliver key projects and vital services’.

The other thing that’s become apparent in these difficult times is how important individual States members are. This is how a letter to candidates in the Jersey Evening Post put it ahead of their own forthcoming general election:

Will your salary as a States member be greater than the last salary you earned before entering the States? Have you run an organisation with a hundred or more employees? Have you ever run a successful company with a turnover of over £1m.? Do you have professional qualifications?

You get the drift. Does the scale and complexity of running autonomous micro-states demand a different type of ‘politician’ – more technocrat than populist tub-thumper? You’ll have your own views on that, but one question I’d expect Deputy Soulsby’s reshaping government initiative to ask is whether it’s too easy to become a deputy.

Not the election itself, that still takes a bit of effort. But in terms of financially inducing anyone with a desire to stand while leaving it to island-wide voting to return someone simply because they’re a bit of a lad on Guernsey People Have Your Say.

Yes, it’s a fraught area, but is it wrong to ask whether candidate capabilities ought at least to reflect today’s requirements of public office in the absence of party political vetting?

Mandatory police checks? Proficiency with words and figures? Relevant previous experience? Knowledge of States affairs and public finances? A pre-election induction process highlighting the purpose, goals and values of the organisation?

The other area of concern is how poor the Assembly is at self-scrutiny.

Note, not opposition. These days, there’s plenty, but sadly based on personalities and rank tribalism.

No, I mean thoughtful, measured and researched challenge with a view to refining and improving policies and performance.

Whatever the Scrutiny Management Committee does is hampered by resources. Particularly the absence of a Public Accounts Committee and, especially, no auditor-general providing independent, robust assurance about the stewardship of public funds.

Similarly, one of the GWP priorities is to ‘implement/maintain minimum necessary measures to monitor the impact of government work’. In other words, the States does a lot of stuff with your money and has no way of testing whether it’s been effective and therefore even necessary.

For a supposedly mature democracy, we still have a long way to go.