Auditor-General for Wales Jeremy Colman, who led the devastating review of the Guenrsey States.

THE highly-critical Wales Audit Report into the way the island is governed will be debated after all.

The Policy Council, while denying it has backed down on the issue, is standing aside to allow the Public Accounts Committee to bring forward a report based on the major concerns raised in the WAO review.

That should include proposals to change how the island is run.

In September, the council said it did not want the WAO report debated.

PAC chairman Leon Gallienne, dismayed by the council’s passive reaction to the report, placed an amendment to last week’s States Strategic Plan debate to prioritise the issue. But he withdrew it at the last minute, telling the Assembly he had been told by the council to go ahead with a report if he wanted to.

‘The Policy Council have written to PAC with positive instruction – giving authority for my committee to bring a report to the Assembly at some time in the near future,’ he told deputies.

Speaking yesterday, he said: ‘When Policy Council felt they were not in a position to go forward straight away, obviously this gave us some concern and as a board we considered how to take this forward.’

In retrospect, he said, that proved advantageous.

‘We thought looking at it again in April could turn into May or June and that could prove too long.

‘The fact that Policy Council did not want to do this until April, and we thought this was too long so worked on the amendment, has given us the time to analyse the reaction of people who live on this island. It has also given us time to see how our political colleagues responded to it.’