MUCH political currency has been made out of the word change in the past year. But change is coming. If slowly.

Last week the Wales Audit Office was back to help answer the question of how to overcome serious deficiencies in Guernsey’s government.

As part of that, it and the Public Accounts Committee, which will bring this key report to the States, have been corralling islanders to have their say.

At Thursday’s public meeting the media, civil servants and deputies outnumbered others in the room.

It might be that islanders already know they want the States to improve, they just are not that bothered about how that happens.

There is a dichotomy in this because some States members are so obsessed with the how that they have been accused of trying to straightjacket the whole process within the consensus model with a requete to be debated next month.

When you listen to that debate you will no doubt hear Deputy Matt Fallaize, who will lead the motion, make much currency out of an answer given by Auditor General for Wales Jeremy Coleman on Thursday.

He was quoting it to a small group of deputies and keen political watchers afterwards:

‘We’re not saying the machinery of government in Guernsey needs to be changed to any particular model,’ said Mr Coleman.

Depending on your interpretation, that means stick with the status quo and tweak, or, we are not here to dictate an outcome, especially at this stage of the process.

During a break in the public meeting, one deputy spoke of these interpretation fears.

At the moment you can hear what you want to, depending on your argument.

The hope was that by the time this is debated in the States the report’s recommendations would be definitive.

One crucial point from the meeting was that Mr Coleman did not believe the changes introduced since they reviewed the States early last year have been the answer.

When the report was passed to the Policy Council, it seemed to believe the States Strategic Plan and other moves forward were enough – just remember its decision to ‘park’ the report and use it as a benchmark to measure progress against.

He was asked during an earlier workshop with deputies whether the WAO would have reached a different conclusion on its finding that ‘the States does not have a clear strategic direction or agreement on its strategic objectives and desired outcomes’ if it had done its work now.

‘Frankly, the answer is no, we would not,’ he said.

‘Clearly you are better placed than you were a year ago in that the island has a strategic document. But even so, we don’t believe that on it’s own is enough to achieve compliance to this principle. It’s not a matter of having a strategy, but using it as the basis for everything you do.’

So the message is something needs to be done and one representative from the WAO said that was also reflected in the consultation with deputies and civil servants during the week. But just how far will PAC dare to go?