ONE of the most disappointing aspects of the Health and Social Services’s ‘full pay for no work’ fiasco over an employment issue that has dragged on for two years is how little regard has been paid to the taxpayer.

That was compounded yesterday by the Policy Council effectively supporting the department’s wall of silence tactic in refusing to discuss the financial consequences of an individual remaining on HSSD’s payroll while not working.

The council has also adopted weasel words to avoid the real issue of a workplace incident that has been allowed to drag on for an unacceptable length of time and at ridiculous public cost.

Insisting, as does HSSD, that issues of confidentiality prevent any discussion, the council’s spokesman added, ‘In all such cases these are matters between the employer and employee…’, conveniently overlooking the fact that it is the Policy Council who is the employer. Indeed, it commissioned Dr Graham Robinson to look into the way in which it discharged that role and its wider human resources responsibilities.

Yet its formal statement yesterday deliberately seeks to avoid those HR responsibilities, which is doubly unfortunate.

This newspaper understands that the handling of the consultant suspended, cleared but not allowed to return to work was escalated to Policy Council level but, as far as is known, nothing has yet been resolved. So when will it be? What is the total cost to the taxpayer of this incident and who should accept responsibility for what is so manifestly unacceptable?

What this episode illustrates is one of the central concerns raised in the Robinson report for the council, that there is what he called an ‘endemic reluctance to engage in difficult conversations’ and why there needed to be major reforms.

If islanders have two big concerns about government generally it is over the amount it spends and the lack of accountability.

In this particular case, something has clearly gone awry, it has cost an enormous amount of money – but no one will accept responsibility.

Perhaps worse, the knee-jerk reaction from those involved is to try to hush-up what’s happened.

Islanders are right to feel let down.