THE rather embarrassing collapse of a 12-month investigation into a skip operator’s alleged tip fraud at Mont Cuet without anyone being charged raises a number of questions which Public Services is reluctant to answer.

The first is what was the department and police looking for in the first place. According to the family-run skip company that has borne – and survived – the brunt of a protracted inquiry, the claims of cheating were made by a rival.

Not so, says PSD. Routine checks by staff highlighted irregularities in tip operation and income, triggering an internal audit and referral to Guernsey Police’s commercial fraud department.

At first glance, that looks compelling, certainly sufficient to justify a thorough review and any difficulty it might cause to tip users.

However, in response to this newspaper, PSD admitted: ‘It is not possible to quantify with any degree of accuracy or certainty the size of the discrepancy.’

In other words, it has taken the authorities 12 months not to find what they didn’t know they were looking for.

With the evidence emerging from Treasury and Resources and Health and Social Services about the state of public financial accounting, it is entirely possible any ‘irregularities’ are down to lax controls, something T&R is desperately trying to improve across the States.

PSD has also chosen to be economical when asked about the cost of this investigation. Two employees have been suspended for 12 months on full pay. At average rates, that equals £68,000-worth of wasted taxpayers’ money and the department also says that ‘staff time was employed to cover some of the duties’ of the suspended individuals.

No, we don’t know what that means either, but it is a masterly piece of obfuscation from the PR company employed by PSD to avoid its being interviewed on a matter of intense public interest.

The suspicion is that the department employed two others to cover for those on suspension, taking the direct cost of this bungled affair to £136,000.

Since the department won’t apologise to the couple whose lives and businesses they nearly ruined, the taxpayer shouldn’t expect any answers either.