ONE of the leading supporters of the island’s current system of government made a very telling remark while commenting yesterday on the problems of ensuring that States departments restrain their expenditure.

The Policy Council, there to coordinate corporate policy, was under-performing, he said. ‘…in terms of joining up departments, it does a poor job’.

He is quite correct and the issue for the island and its politicians is how to ensure that the joined up government promised in the 2004 reforms is actually delivered.

The difficulty is that the changes needed to ensure corporate performance across government are likely to be unacceptable to him and the 26 other deputies who signed a letter in this newspaper describing the current system as a very pure form of democracy.

Why? Because ensuring that a department behaves corporately – whether that is keeping expenditure at or below RPI or implementing a decision to have paid parking or negotiating a settlement that keeps the airport open – ultimately means telling that department what to do.

If members want to delegate authority to the Policy Council to resolve disputes and conflict between and within departments, that would be a material step forward in the States of Guernsey becoming a cohesive unit acting in the best interests of the island.

It would, however, also require ministers and their boards to surrender at least some of their executive power to run their departments as they see fit – and the council itself would have to be bound by collective responsibility.

Under a model in which the council was the ultimate problem solver, the airport dispute would never have happened. The Public Sector Remuneration Committee would have been told to stop being intransigent and put together a package, similar to that recently negotiated, which broke parity from other employee groups and was part-funded by productivity gains.

In other words, PSRC would have been told to do something its officers and political board were wholly opposed to.

Nevertheless, the point made about the Policy Council not enforcing corporate behaviour is at the root of government’s unacceptable performance.

So when will the 27 ‘consensus’ deputies empower the council to operate as it should?