A REPORT by the National Audit Office on how the States safeguards – or, more accurately, is not safeguarding – the island’s heritage was completed as far back as September 2007 but released only yesterday.

That delay, whatever its cause, is a reflection of the foot-dragging that has so bedevilled the proper care and presentation of what might be called Guernsey’s treasures.

The deficiencies in the system that the NAO has uncovered are all the more surprising given the wealth of talented and committed individuals that work in these areas, often in poor, cramped conditions and always without sufficient money.

Guernsey’s heritage assets have been starved of money for years and, the NAO notes, the responsibility for them is shared among 12 separate departments or organisations, which explains the lack of direction and commitment to funding.

When Guernsey’s committees were amalgamated into the much bigger departments, concern was expressed that heritage matters would suffer by going under the wing of Culture and Leisure, which was seen as having a bias towards sport.

Now, the NAO’s first recommendation is that Culture and Leisure should take a much stronger lead in gingering up everyone else with heritage responsibilities, which is revealing.

Its other key recommendation is that consideration should be given to transferring responsibility for heritage matters to a largely States-funded but independent body, such as a trust, as happens in Jersey.

Breaking out of the public sector, bureaucratic, politically-charged mould that has so let down heritage locally is an obvious and long overdue move. But islanders should not count on it happening.

The department the NAO says should have done much more to take the lead in this area does not explicitly rule out establishing a trust – but its formidable list of objections might provide a clue to its mindset. Instead, it says, even thinking about change should wait until Culture and Leisure has built a new museum store.

So instead of looking for a creative solution, islanders should continue to back the very system blamed for the mess heritage is already in.