ONE OF the significant benefits of the latest pay deal struck with the island’s 1,700 civil servants is that it recognises that times change and so, too, must employer and employee attitudes and relationships.

Moving to a partnership approach, as recommended in the airport firefighter tribunal report, is long overdue, not least because it provides scope for productivity settlements – buying out inefficient and outdated ways of working.

The industrial tribunal involving Unite the union and prison staff can also be seen as part of that process in the sense that the issues at the heart of the dispute appear to be about the management of change.

From what is in front of the tribunal panel, there seems little doubt that reform is needed and that previous prison management has been poor in making the necessary changes, leaving the current team with a particularly difficult task on their hands, and one that needs them to take staff with them.

Such discussions will become more commonplace and, as we reported last week, have touched Health and Social Services, where the chief officer has pledged to bring the department’s spending back to its States-agreed limits.

No one should underestimate the significance of that statement. After years of hand-wringing and protestation by other departmental leaders, official and political, that it couldn’t be done, someone with the necessary relevant experience has said after about 100 days in the job that not only can it be done, but it will be.

That is a wake-up call to his colleagues elsewhere who last year burned through millions of pounds of taxpayer money rather than exercise restraint.

It is now clear that financial control and reporting at HSSD – which last year spent £293,150 every day – was lamentably poor, as it is elsewhere.

That is recognised by Treasury and Resources and steps are being taken to rectify the deficiencies.

There is a long way to go but there are signs that some key areas of the States spending juggernaut are embracing change – and that will trigger the domino effect anticipated under the financial transformation project.