RELEASE yesterday by Guernsey’s spending watchdog of the outline of the independent assessment it has commissioned into the effectiveness of the island’s governmental process is an important step in the evolution of the States.
Regular readers will be aware of this newspaper’s long-held concerns – shared by a number of recent consultants’ reports on various aspects of government performance – that the current system, despite its 2004 reforms, does not deliver the joined-up approach that was promised.
The Public Accounts Committee’s involvement, while it seeks to test the validity of that view, is significant in other aspects.
Firstly, a key value-for-money element of governmental scrutiny is satisfied that this is a live issue. In other words, the grounds for questioning the fitness for purpose of the current system are sufficient to justify £55,000 getting the answers.
Islanders, of course, will be able to respond readily to the six chief questions to be posed by the Wales Audit Office without the need for spending the money. The WAO, however, will be able to provide evidence-based justification for its answering yes or no to matters such as whether the States performs effectively.
Since even the most avid of supporters of the current system would agree that matters could be improved, the issue will be what the WAO recommends to take things forward.
The reality is that unless and until an executive or ministerial system of government evolves, no substantial progress will be made. ‘Government’ by a committee of 47 meeting monthly is guaranteed to create the problems that already exist.
Equally, however, there are a substantial number of islanders and deputies who will strenuously resist any moves for the Policy Council to assume executive powers and diminish what they regard as the democratic right of the Assembly to become involved in every decision of substance.
Can visible improvements be achieved without someone or somebody clearly being in charge? We would say not, yet there is an argument for saying things muddle along despite that.
But what can be predicted is that the WAO’s report and recommendations will be the start of debate about more reforms – not the end.