In the post yesterday, Guernsey’s deputies received a three-page briefing document from Housing explaining that if the extra-care homes project is delayed – as a majority of Health and Social Services members wish – that there will be about £1m.-worth of remedial work required to keep Maison Maritaine and Longue Rue House habitable.

The reason is that the project is carefully timetabled and the proposed rebuild of both residential homes is scheduled to be completed in early 2014. Any delay, certainly long enough to resolve future funding issues, would blow that off course and more money would be wasted on buildings long past their best.

That is not new, of course. Treasury and Resources makes reference to it in its Billet d’Etat letter supporting the extra-care development. It accepts that neither building is fit for purpose and that remedial work is not value for money.

While the row over funding might seem rather arcane for most islanders, it is also highly significant in the way the States views long-term, complex projects that, despite acknowledged loose ends, are backed by Policy Council and Treasury.

It is probably no coincidence that the move to delay extra-care came after the Billet d’Etat was published and after T&R’s comments were available, indicating how the homes might be funded.

Since that potentially affects the budgets of HSSD and Social Security, their members are seeking to protect their turf. Their own funding difficulties must not be underestimated but is the fear of the unknown sufficient to derail providing adequate accommodation for the island’s elderly?

In particular, if the delay does go ahead, where does that leave T&R? In effect, the Assembly would be saying that it has no confidence in its view that what it says is an ‘urgent and therefore overriding need’ to replace the homes requires suspension of the usual i-dotting and t-crossing that so bedevils government here.

Rather more cynically, should the narrow self-interests of two departments prevent a more strategic approach to resolving difficult issues?

Put another way, is it really beyond the scope of those involved to secure a payment method as the project goes to design and tender stage?

T&R certainly does not think so.