A CALL yesterday for there to be a secret ballot in the States to decide whether members of Public Services should be sacked or not is a disturbing indication of just how little progress there has been in trying to adapt Guernsey’s government for the 21st century.

Back in February 2008, the respected academic consultant Dr Graham Robinson produced an excellent – and as yet to be acted upon – report on the role of the States as employer.

Apart from, as the case with the last handful of similar independent reports on specific problems, highlighting the island’s inadequate system of government, Dr Robinson also had the following conclusion to reach:

‘…there may be a tendency… to avoid difficult conversations involving uncomfortable or potentially embarrassing issues. Such avoidance may well be considered inappropriate within a public sector bureaucracy but is, nevertheless, understandable. This presents a particular challenge to those charged with discharging a range of employment-related responsibilities’.

That was said about the effective management of the civil service, but the resignation debate yesterday also highlighted the fact that a significant number of deputies do not have the courage to say openly to their political colleagues that they feel they are doing a poor job.

Not only is that a sorry state of affairs from those supposed to be setting policy – and from whom paid officials are expected to take a strategic lead – it also means islanders cannot rely on at least some members to vote the way they believe is right for fear of giving offence.

Whatever happened to integrity? Whatever happened to adherence to their own code of conduct, which requires members ‘well and faithfully’ to discharge their duties, chief of which is to act in the public interest?

Daily, in public and in private, individuals who have been elevated to positions of trust and responsibility are found wanting and removed to prevent more harm, yet the States of Guernsey, uniquely, believes it can avoid such issues.

For everyone else, it is the manner in which such sensitive things are handled that counts.

Yet for the States, avoiding responsibility or blame is all that matters.