A 43 to three vote in favour of spending nearly £10m. on creating a new centralised computer system for the States is the first significant indication that government is serious about becoming leaner and more efficient.

To that extent, the overwhelming majority in favour of it is encouraging and will have surprised Treasury and Resources, whose minister was apprehensive that the package might not go through.

It is not, however, all good news. An inevitable consequence is that 50 civil servants – quite possibly rather more – will lose their jobs as a result.

From a taxpayer perspective, that will be a welcome dent in the ever-increasing burden of paying for public services. But for those caught up in the rationalisation, it will be a difficult and anxious time because those who will become redundant have yet to be identified.

Typically, anyone working in finance, HR, IT or procurement is now at risk as the SAP [‘Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing’] super-system removes duplicated efforts that have built up over the years and replaces them with a single, central centre under the control of T&R.

The package is also unusual in the level of authority the Assembly yesterday passed over to Treasury and the senior civil service team running the financial transformation programme.

Firstly, departments at officer and political level have been told they have to use the SAP business system and, secondly, all departments and committees have been instructed to devote sufficient resources to make the project a success.

Policing that falls to the FTP team and, since all chief officers now have new contracts making them directly accountable to the States chief executive, those resources will be found irrespective of the effect on pet departmental projects.

Probably for the first time, individual ministers and their political boards have voted to reduce their autonomy and submit to a coordinated, centralised programme that when fully implemented will further expose their expenditure, staffing, including those training or sick, and their current and future costs, and highlight the true price of running an existing service or a future one.

Done properly – the real challenge – this is a ground-breaking project.