DISCLOSURES this week that the operation of Guernsey’s MRI scanner was put at risk over a pay dispute will be troubling for many islanders.

One of the reasons they pay tax is so that essential services can be provided for their benefit and on their behalf. The rider in that understanding is that those taking the money use it in a responsible and sensible way.

What Wednesday’s industrial tribunal showed quite clearly, however, is that those with their fingers on the purse-strings are bereft of common sense and completely unconcerned about the consequences of their action.

It also highlights the complexity of the employer-employee relationship that exists within the States since there were effectively four parties – Policy Council, Health and Social Services, the radiographer herself and the Public Sector Remuneration Committee – in the dispute.

But perhaps the worst aspect of this is that although the PSRC refused to give the radiographers a fair salary for their level and responsibility on the basis of saving money, it does nothing to stop the States payroll costs as a whole rising remorselessly by more than RPI year on year.

It wasn’t even a case of the States’ negotiators needing to make a stand on a point of principle. The radiographers were not some militant group holding a pistol to the head of the employer but skilled and trained specialists whose professional body had suggested a new rate of pay in line with added responsibilities.

Had PSRC been allowed to get away with its blinkered approach – and it is revealing that the tribunal unanimously awarded the full increase without adjourning to consider its decision – a Guernsey-born person doing a vital job would have left.

Not only would have it been difficult to replace her, a housing licence may well have been necessary for an entire family and it is unlikely anyone would come here for below the market rate. That would have left the HSSD faced with paying locum rates perhaps 50% higher than before – and with no scanner cover in the interim.

It’s a twisted logic that seems aimed at harming islanders’ interests, not safeguarding them.