IF DIGESTING a document the size of today’s population report is likely to cause eye strain, distilling it into its key points is no less a task.

In 187 pages, the paper attempts to sum up the laws currently governing housing and population, outline the faults and suggest how the island might walk the high wire between protecting its standard of life and obeying human rights laws.

In doing so, it seeks to be both a consultation exercise and a framework for the future. Little wonder that it took the group two years to get there.

Which makes it all the more perplexing that islanders get just 10 weeks to both read and respond.

Those who do take the trouble will find a quality report that seeks to cut through the Gordian knot of the island’s population issues with a series of radical proposals which, if approved, will affect every person in the island.

Nothing is set it stone, its authors insist.

Which is just as well. For somewhere along those two and a half years many will feel that the ultimate issue for the population group has been lost. As a result, instead of answering the question, ‘How can we improve the island as a place to live?’ the group appears to have addressed: ‘How can we avoid falling foul of the law?’

If stopping people from winning appeals in the courts was the ultimate aim, then the framework does the job. The lawyers advising the politicians will be very happy.

Those employers and employees battling the current laws will find less comfort.

Head teachers, for example, looking to recruit from the UK will find their lot has got worse. It was already hard persuading good teachers to relocate with the current five-year deal.

Under the proposals, level two permit holders (i.e. teachers, nurses and police) would get just four years before being shown the door (with no hope of return for another four years).

Any teacher worth their salt will start job-hunting within two years.

And so the revolving door of good staff spins ever faster.