ON PAGE one today, we set out the reasons why Island Coachways has withdrawn from negotiations with the Environment Department over running the scheduled bus service – and it does not make comfortable reading.

In a letter to all States members, the directors make clear their frustration, their anger and their sense of betrayal as a result of the traffic strategy in the latest Billet d’Etat.

For anyone who has read the report, that reaction is hardly surprising. The document reads as openly hostile to Island Coachways, appears highly critical of its motives and actions, and is nakedly opposed to private sector involvement.

While ICW felt it was in a partnership, the department could not wait to dump an operation that it cannot control.

And almost irrespective of the concerns this raises about the way government handles relationships, there is a far wider issue at stake.

Successive strategies and initiatives have set the States on a path that acknowledges departments should only be engaged in delivering essential services that cannot or should not be provided by the private sector.

Yet Environment, confirmed on radio this week by the minister, seeks to take over the service. The prospect is terrifying. Fifty new civil servants, all entitled to gold-plated pensions, working a five-day week and claiming overtime for anything outside Frossard House hours… It beggars belief.

More worryingly still, those at Environment who would privatise the bus service display in the Billet d’Etat a complete lack of commercial understanding or recognition of long-term financial planning and investment.

Is Island Coachways ripping off the island? Only if Environment hasn’t scrutinised the ‘open book’ approach to ICW’s accounts, which would indicate how much management is paid, what profits are taken and whether they benchmark with other such utilities, and whether any cash is being syphoned off elsewhere.

At a time when Guernsey is trying to reduce government, the last thing it needs is for Environment to burden the taxpayer with a bureaucratic bus service.