Richard Digard: Blame game

It’s the one question that really matters in this whole sorry saga. Who sat back complacently congratulating themselves on a job well done when £42m. later we have a MyGov digital process that provides nothing, and a Revenue Service transformation process that is unfinished, makes life worse for staff and customers, and is already on its last legs?

So who is to blame for this colossal – unconscionable, it was called in the States last week – waste of public money? For needlessly stressing staff trying to make it work? For misleading taxpayers that their money was being used for worthwhile projects? For letting this sham drag on, un-called out and hidden?

You’ll never know of course. The system will circle the wagons, those guilty of incompetence will remain anonymous, their pensions intact. But – unusually for this States – they will be tracked down.

For make no mistake, the process of discovery that the States chief executive and Policy & Resources have put in place to understand how so much money can be spent to achieve so little will be relentless.

The reason is that the responsible have, in the eyes of CEO Boley Smillie, committed the most unconscionable crime – spending public funds with nothing to show for it; for no benefit or purpose. Just because they could.

The problem, of course, is that what’s been uncovered confirms what many of us have been saying for decades. That the States is incompetent, poorly run and lamentably scrutinised. That States members really do not know what they’re doing and have no control or little interest over what happens to your money.

Before you throw up your hands in horror at that, consider two things.

One: ‘This is a major exercise in lifting the drains to get a grip on things that were clearly allowed to drift with inadequate oversight or action for too long,’ as Gavin St Pier told the Assembly.

Two: If States members had been doing their jobs properly and competently, bungled IT projects costing taxpayers nearly a grand each would not be coming as an embarrassing surprise.

Now, there are some honourable exceptions to this broad-brush analysis, some pockets in the States where staff are well managed, and value for money is hard-wired. But this is far from the norm.

Again, as an example, look at the surprise when it emerged the States Property Unit adopts no key performance indicators to inform its activities. What? These things are available off the shelf, are routinely used in the UK, and manage things like costs, utilisation, occupancy, maintenance backlog, condition grading, income yield, void periods, energy/carbon efficiency, and classify assets by function or portfolio type to map them to the organisation’s strategic, service and financial objectives.

Basic stuff really. But despite having a person in charge (director of estates) we do none of this and the unit’s routine capital spending has increased in the last four years, from £2.2m. in 2021, to more than £7m. in 2024.

Apologies for being blunt, but I’d expect rather better performance from one of my directors, especially when Scrutiny Management puts him in the spotlight and asks, ‘How do we know if you’re doing a good job?’ Er, you don’t, was the takeaway.

Unfair to single out one individual (although I’m not naming him)? Well, the States of Guernsey has more directors than Hollywood and they cost you and I a fortune. There are 157 whose payroll cost is up to £135,000 a year, 50 at £135,000 to £154,999, 46 at £155,000 to £174,999, 23 at £175,000 to £194,999, and 20 costing between £195,000 to £219,999 a year.

I’ve left out the super-elite on £220,000-plus (more than 20, topping out at £330,000-plus) on the basis we’re talking about mid- to senior managers who are supposed to be keeping the show on the road. And on this crude analysis, there are around 300 of them costing you and I more than £38m. a year, or a hundred grand a day.

But they’re failing, which is why Deputy St Pier’s shock and awe statement from P&R included this (his emphasis): ‘I must stress that this is NOT just about fixing old problems. It MUST BE about putting in place the discipline and the culture that means we do not end up here again.’

Yes, this failure of purpose is endemic, deep-seated and cultural. Underachievement, lack of rigour, is baked into the system. Hence Deputy St Pier’s comment about lifting drains and inadequate oversight.

How could this happen? Well, to quote then treasury lead Mark Helyar back in the summer of 2021, in his much-ignored Jurassic States critique, an awful lot of people like it that way.

Speaking of sharply rising States pay costs, he said: ‘This is unsustainable, and is happening primarily because our system of government allows every committee and their staff to do largely as they wish without any visibility or accountability to members of the Assembly, P&R, any other committee, or the public.’

That this has come to a head (again) is down to a new CEO who actually listens to his troops – ‘Chief, we’re screwed by useless IT and meat-head managers…’ – and intends doing something about it.

Forget the seven-point task list Deputy St Pier outlined, the CEO’s approach will be more direct. Who’s been paid? What for? Who signed the cheque? Why was it authorised? It will be a revealing process and highlights where accountability really rests for rewarding suppliers for providing rubbish.

It will also disclose responsibility gaps – what did States members know and when didn’t they know it? At one level, it will help answer the question of what the point of deputies is. If for keeping tabs on value for money, project delivery and implementing change then they too are doing a rubbish job.

Perhaps the self-imposed restrictions on States member involvement – operational v. political – too conveniently lets deputies off the hook.

Sorry, Mr Bureaucrat, it’s not operational if it doesn’t bloody work. But when did a civil service manager last hear that? Or a deputy know enough to issue such a challenge?

Perhaps Deputy Helyar was only too right – members really do like it that way. All the fun of deputying and none of the responsibility when it goes wrong.

Well, it has gone wrong, spectacularly so, and at your expense. This Assembly’s fingerprints might not be directly on the failure. But by hell they’re all over putting it right.