RATHER more than 12 months ago, when consultants Tribal were preparing to publish the first States of Guernsey fundamental spending review, it was clear things were bad.

Just how bad emerged when the Billet d’Etat was released in February: ‘Historically the resources available to the States to fund… its services have exceeded the funds needed to efficiently deliver those services. Requests for resources were met, revenue overspends did not generally occur and a financially profligate culture was able to flourish.

‘Operating within this funding environment has meant departments have, in many instances, been able to provide “gold plated” services or indeed services where there is no clear rationale at all for government intervention. There has also been no imperative to deliver services efficiently.’

That withering critique, combined with a formal States resolution to restrain expenditure at or below RPI, ought to have been a wake-up call.

Yet even as the consultants were asking their probing questions in 2008 and the need for economies was there, departments were still splashing the cash and continued to do so last year.

Education’s spend, for example, went up by 11.4% over those two years while Health and Social Services rose by 22.3% – very nearly a quarter. The Home Department’s went up by 6.8% last year and the Policy Council’s by 20%.

All other departments and committees saw net expenditure rise by 5.8%, well ahead of inflation.

In other words, no effort has been made to economise and, as we have seen from the hand-wringing excuses from various ministers, yet again no one is to blame and no one accountable.

Since the profligacy is clearly continuing, how much above RPI will this year’s ‘restrained’ expenditure be? With little more than six months left in which to get its books in order, the States must be making dramatic steps 2010 to economise, yes?

Actually, Treasury does not know. Reliant on the departments to provide that information, Guernsey’s ‘chancellor’ is as in the dark as the rest of us – but the suspicion is there.

Indeed, a member of HSSD writing here yesterday, said that the States asking for more money to spend shouldn’t be a crime.

Wrong. What government is doing to taxpayers is immoral, misleading, dreadfully cynical and bordering on criminal.