A 30-14 vote yesterday against delaying urgently-needed improvements to the way the island’s elderly are accommodated at Maison Maritaine and Longue Rue House was a refreshing victory for pragmatic government.

It can also be seen as a verdict on departmental political board members who decide to go off-piste for unsound reasons and threaten to damage carefully-constructed social programmes.

Yes, the four Health and Social Services Department rebels had a point. The detailed funding method for paying for extra-care homes was not in place, as they argued, but it was not a valid objection.

Why go to all that bother before knowing whether the States was prepared to endorse the principle of extra-care – aimed at providing more independence for seniors – and was willing to meet the capital cost?

Equally, why delay much-needed improvements for bureaucratic arguments over shifting money between departments when that wrangling can actually go ahead in parallel?

The reason, of course, is that the independent fiefs that are the departments want to preserve their hold on budgets and their right to veto anything not in their narrow interests and that is so much more difficult to do when a commitment has already been given.

More pressingly, however, is what happens to the HSSD four who caused all the mischief. They cannot remain on Health because there can be no confidence that when they sign up to a policy or course of action that they mean what they say. How can the minister operate like that?

One, the deputy minister, has already indicated that he might resign and should do so because it is the only way he can stick to his principles. His dissident colleagues should follow for the same reason, but will be reluctant to do so.

But if they do not, where does that leave the minister? Can he really continue to chair a team who said they supported the department’s view on extra-care housing but then changed their minds?

Or will HSSD just carry on – dysfunctionally – as though nothing has happened?