NEWS that a majority of Health and Social Services Department members are now opposing a radical change in the delivery of care homes for elderly islanders is bizarre, to say the least.

Barely is the ink dry on the report that they endorsed with the Housing Department for the £30m. rebuild of Maison Maritaine and Longue Rue House when four out of the five are seeking to delay something that all, including the Policy Council, says is needed urgently.

What has caused this – how the new homes providing more independence for their occupants will be funded – is also puzzling. That changes as radical as those proposed to the way the island views the provision of care for the elderly were required was comprehensively flagged in the report and accepted by all parties.

It was also acknowledged that funding would have to change equally fundamentally. Indeed, Policy Council applauded the joint approach, which also involved Social Security and the Guernsey Housing Association, and noted the funding implications as work in progress.

Treasury and Resources went further and highlighted some of the steps that would be needed and looked forward to helping to develop a sustainable funding model.

It declared: ‘For the record however, [we] cannot foresee circumstances in which any future States would fail to allocate adequate funds to facilitate the on-going provision and maintenance of social housing.’

Yet now, after three of the leading States departments have invested huge amounts of time into examining this in minute detail, after T&R has identified what needs to happen next and the Policy Council has backed the proposed changes, four deputies say they alone have seen a fatal flaw.

They may have, but that seems unlikely.

And in any event, given the agreement that more work is needed on how to pay for the extra-care housing, is that reason enough to stop an urgently-needed change in its tracks, especially when the development is already on a tight schedule?

This newspaper is critical of unravelled government but the extra-care project is as joined-up as it gets.

It does not need to be derailed at this late stage.