A council of compromise

WITH eight out of his ten choices in place and a total of six new faces on the Policy Council, Guernsey’s chief minister will today be pretty pleased with the outcome of yesterday’s ministerial elections.

The aim, after all, was to pull a team together to help steer the States and to meet the undoubted challenges that government will face over the next four years of its life.

And as he reminded members at the start of the process, good government is about the ability to make difficult and occasionally unpopular decisions in the interests of the greater long-term public good.

It is a phrase that he will need to repeat more than once – and to convince islanders that the States really is acting in the best interests of the community at large.

The difficulties faced by the former House, some of its own making, have been well aired and what is needed now is a clear new beginning whereby the States and certainly the council are seen to be acting in concert.

For the new ministers, there is much to be done. Quite apart from mastering their brief, some of the bigger departments have exceptionally challenging tasks ahead.

Public Services, for instance, has to advise the House on the island’s sewage and refuse problems and to deal with the airport runway issue.

In all, more than £150m.-worth of tapayers’ money is involved at a time when capital funds are restricted.

But perhaps an even more onerous task faces the new Environment minister.

The department’s role as planning authority has been roundly condemned in an independent report and its lack of support for ‘Fred in a shed’ business attacked by Commerce and Employment.

That has to be resolved, yet the public perception is that the department needs to be run by someone with especially green credentials.

Yet while it has to set environmental policy, Environment also needs to dovetail States land use, land use planning, traffic management, public transport and road safety within States policies and the Government Business Plan.

That requires a pragmatic approach and if one thing will set this House apart, it will be the ability to compromise.