POLITICAL reaction to the Treasury minister’s withering condemnation of his profligate States colleagues and their reluctance to do what they said they would do – keep expenditure at or below RPI – indicates that many deputies have yet to see the scale of the problem facing them and the island.

This is less an argument about consensus versus executive (or some other form of delegated authority) government and more about the inadequacy of the underlying mechanics for managing its administration.

For a generation or more, Guernsey’s bureaucracy, including elected representatives, have ridden a tide of rising revenues. There was no need to economise, so departments have expanded accordingly.

Financial systems and controls are also inadequate, which means that although States members agreed to restraint they have, almost without exception, failed to deliver it.

Unlike private organisations, the States of Guernsey has no grip on the number of staff it employs – up 171 in just a year – or on payroll costs which, at a time of alleged austerity and when islanders were having pay freezes, went up 8.8%.

Payroll costs at the Crown Officers and courts, for instance, rose by 20%, more than £500,000, because someone thought it a good idea to fill all the vacancies at a time of global economic meltdown.

What deputies should be doing, instead of bickering about systems of government, is demanding an immediate end to recruitment and insisting that payroll costs are held at or below RPI – 2.2% versus the 8.8% actually received.

The States were advised in 2003 to introduce performance-related pay and to end what Treasury coyly terms ‘incremental drift’ – paying duffers full whack and then some extra just for being there another year.

That has not happened, nor has the Policy Council, or whoever is supposed to be in charge, tackled the ability gap of some of those responsible for running departments.

When one department’s spend goes up by nearly a quarter in two years, it clearly needs help parachuted in, but that didn’t happen because, like the firefighter debacle, no one is mandated to stop problems becoming crises.

The States of Guernsey has some huge reform issues to tackle – but with no one leading the charge.