We need power to enforce efficiency, says Treasury
Monday 9th March 2009, 11:30AM GMT.
TREASURY wants to clamp down on bad practice in the States.
It will take a report to the Assembly in the summer to give it more power to allow it to ensure departments tackle any inefficiencies identified in the ongoing fundamental spending reviews.
‘In a large number of areas, Treasury and Resources can suggest improvements or savings that could be made but we can’t impose them on departments,’ said minister Charles Parkinson (pictured).
‘Generally we need to have a much more disciplined approach to spending public money and accounting for it but there are a number of other areas – it’s not simply financial, for example the case of property – that need to be subject to mandatory regulations. Similarly, in areas like IT, there needs to be mandatory standards across the States.’
There needed to be much more discipline across the organisation, he added.
‘You can suggest, for example, in the procurement area that certain procedures be followed, but if a particular department doesn’t want to follow them it will just do what it likes,’ said Deputy Parkinson.
Regulations would allow Treasury to start weeding out bad practice, he added.
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Isn’t it strange that all these various States members all want POWER, to do their job.
They were voted in because; (rightly, or and it now seems wrongly) people thought they could do the job; now they also want power, as did another mistake in choice-
What I now wonder is this; will he also ask for protection if he doesn’t get his way–
What sort of Government has Guernsey got? a load of wimps it seems.
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In this case T&R are right. There is no point asking politely for efficiency. Efficiencies have to be enforced. If there was ever an argument for ‘power’ it would be for Treasury to be mandated.
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I suspect that it’s not lack of power that’s impeding cost saving measures; it’s lack of guts.
Many local residents will have personal knowledge of one, or more, gross inefficiency in a States department from overmanning and spanish practices to badly drawn contract terms and downright theft of public assets. I don’t know of any commercial organisation that would (or could) tolerate such losses.
These are matters that are often tolerated or even encouraged by management at all levels for the sake of a peaceful working life. No politician, as far as I can ascertain, is prepared to admit this. Many States managers have lapsed into a kind of jobsworth lethargy. It’s only when States committees act decisively to deal with their managers and accept it is going to make them very unpopular with their staff and their staff’s families that anything will change.
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You may all be right-
however as I see it: we were a Dependency- that didn’t work “lack of will power”
so now we a Despondency.
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