A DEPUTY who was encouraged to leave a States department for highlighting what he regarded as serious issues that his board was not adequately tackling has raised valid questions about how the political system deals with dissenting voices.

In Mike Hadley’s case, he is asking for the Assembly as a whole to consider his resignation from Health and Social Services because he believes he has done nothing wrong and should not be forced off a department he passionately wants to help and be involved with.

His colleagues, however, feel his outspoken criticism makes him unfit to remain as a corporate board player, so he has to go.

Deputy Hadley argues that without a formal opposition in Guernsey there has to be room for dissenting voices and that disagreements should not be the trigger for being forced off a department’s political team.

It is a compelling point. Many of the concerns he raised, initially in private with the department, are of substance and are being ignored because they are in the ‘too difficult’ drawer. In other words, raising them highlighted the department’s lack of success or unwillingness to tackle them.

One of Deputy Hadley’s targets was the effect of housing policies on recruitment at the hospitals and the cost of employing locums because full-time staff won’t come here on a five-year licence. It is hardly a secret that Housing’s line – which it says is following States policies – impacts upon public and private operations and sometimes damages them.

Yet voicing these concerns is frowned upon because, well, departments shouldn’t criticise each other and you never know when a favour will be needed from Housing. Don’t annoy it in case a licence is refused.

No, the department does not operate that way, but the perception that it might stifles debate.

The issue here, however, is whether such concerns have validity and should be tackled and the reasons why a department as a whole affords a greater or lesser priority to resolving them.

What Deputy Hadley’s stand highlights is the in-built reluctance of all departments to reveal anything that might show them in a poor light.

Sacking him will simply reinforce government’s ‘secrecy first’ bunker mentality.