AS THE extent of the States absence of commitment to its own policy of restraint has been emerging since publication of the 2009 accounts, the key question is why politicians, particularly ministers, have allowed it to happen.

We concluded last week that the reason was simple: deputies do not care about taxpayers and extreme caution has to be taken in accepting any ‘commitment’ they might give, especially on vital issues.

Further evidence supporting that view emerged in the Assembly on Friday when, in extraordinary scenes, the Treasury minister was attacked for daring to criticise his colleagues’ profligate tendencies.

Unbelievably, one of the Treasury minister’s own Policy Council colleagues – the 8%-up-in-one-year head of Social Security -  tried to transfer blame for the inflation-busting expenditure onto T&R itself by saying the department should not have given them the money in the first place.

‘If you don’t want a department to spend unspent balances, don’t include them in the budget,’ he said.

His view, shared by many others in the Assembly, exposes the absence of any self-control, any restraint or any commitment to the policy of keeping expenditure at or below RPI.

This is exceptionally grave. Spending this year should be held to no more than 2% and no one can have any confidence that it will be.

As the accounts say, while the financial outcome was better than expected, ‘this improvement has only arisen due to unanticipated income tax receipts, an element of which are not recurrent, which have masked an almost 10% increase in the net expenditure of departments and committees, which is simply not sustainable’.

While Guernsey has a deficit in its finances, the accounts also show that had departments done as they promised, restraint would have wiped it out.

As it is, deputies have burdened every taxpayer with a debt of nearly #1,000 by departments not living within their means – and that is set to rise.

Even Greece is tackling its expenditure crisis but here, politicians can’t be bothered to.

Or else are not up to the task.