IS A public register of deputies’ attendance at meetings any real guide to the amount of work they are doing? The answer is yes – but a pretty poor one.The real debate shouldn’t be over whether such a record should be published, but rather what its format should be and which meetings it should cover.

Firstly, there are the monthly States meetings. There’s always been a public roll-call at the beginning of each day’s sitting, so it’s always been possible for anyone interested in such statistics to compile attendance league tables. Alas, what these can’t do is reveal those members who clock in at 9.30am and then disappear to deal with – presumably – more pressing engagements during the day.

Surely keeping a free diary for three days a month to ensure their presence at parliamentary sittings is the least deputies should do in return for their States members’ salaries. Naturally they’ll occasionally be ill or prevented from attending for other unavoidable reasons, but regular absenteeism from States meetings shows a real lack of commitment.

Then there are the main committee meetings. Again, if you’ve agreed to serve on a department, it’s only reasonable to turn up for the large majority of its meetings. Not to do so is grossly unfair on one’s colleagues. Unlike the States itself, I wouldn’t be quite so rigid in expecting a 100% attendance. I know from experience that a talented but busy committee member with an 80% attendance record can bring far more to a department than a member who is always there but very rarely offers any useful input.

Where the public register has really failed since its introduction is in respect of meetings below full departmental level. Frankly, the format of working groups within departments varies so widely that it’s impossible to compare members’ workloads across boundaries.

In some departments, every work stream has a dedicated sub-committee, which qualifies for a tick in the register. In other departments, the members are just as busy but within less formal structures, which means their workload goes unrecorded. As a result, headlines suggesting that Member A is much busier than Member B are often misleading.

Of course, there could be a time-consuming and pointless exercise to standardise the way departments work to ensure the register compares like with like. Far better would be a simplified register that only shows members’ attendance at States meetings and the main committee meetings.

Even then, the public should be aware that going to meetings is only a fraction of a deputy’s work and we shouldn’t confuse a perfect attendance record with an excellent work ethic. Even less so should ticks in attendance registers be confused with effectiveness as a politician.

How should we judge which deputies are cutting the mustard? Well, I’m not usually given to quoting the Bible, but in this case I will: ‘By their fruits you shall know them.’

On a separate issue, the ICT revolution has given rise to a whole new set of questions over what hardware States members should be provided with at taxpayers’ expense. Gone are the days when the only publicly-funded aid to communication was the line rental on their telephones. These days the minimum expectation is that every deputy should be given a personal computer.

In Jersey, there are plans to go even further and give every member a trendy Apple iPad. Should Guernsey follow suit? While no one wants to be technophobic over such initiatives, the acid test must surely be whether such gadgets really add to a deputy’s effectiveness. Even if they do, there’s the supplementary question of why on earth they can’t just buy them out of their expenses allowance. Surely it’s what the allowance is there for?

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, I personally find the sight of members – often the chief minister – playing with their BlackBerries during important debates hugely disrespectful to the democratic process. I doubt it would be tolerated if they suddenly started reading a daily newspaper or a novel in the chamber, but what is the real difference? Don’t believe it’s because they’re always engaged in relevant research…

As for the countless chains of emails that go between our deputies most evenings, they are often cringeworthy. Of course they should have modern tools to do the job, but a flashy medium does nothing to improve a poor message. Rubbish in – rubbish out.On a roll