IN WHAT many will regard as a surprising admission, Health and Social Services minister Hunter Adam has apologised for the way his department handled the release of a report on the quality of the wheelchair service it provides.

That was prompted by two things: criticism by this newspaper of the ‘justification’ provided for releasing an abridged version of the full report and a subsequent very frank exchange of views between the minister and Guernsey Press journalists.

Following that, Deputy Adam said yesterday: ‘I accept that the handling of the wheelchair report was misjudged and, as minister, I must accept responsibility and apologise.’

That is a significant step and we applaud him for taking it.

In doing so, he will be well aware of the implications of his actions. On his behalf, HSSD officials were issuing reasons for denying States members access to a critical report on the acceptability of the wheelchair service that were, bluntly, not believable.

They did so, we argued, to try to cover up the real extent of the faults in the service and, in so doing, misled deputies and islanders.

That is profoundly disturbing. The motive in doing so might have been benign – trying to minimise community concerns and avoid having to say that the original report needed additional work on it – but nevertheless cannot be excused.

Islanders and wheelchair users would have been happy to hear the department acknowledge the criticisms, explain further investigation was required and set out its timetable for responding to the findings.

Instead, what could have been positive PR for HSSD – an open-minded acceptance that it had issues it was committed to resolving – became a disaster raising questions about the credibility of some of its utterances.

Playing things down and trying to sit on critical reports really is not an option for Health or any other States department.

It is just one further reason why the island needs a freedom of information procedure.

In the meantime, the Health minister is to be commended for first trying to open up his own department.