Government Reform

Changes to the code of conduct process to reduce the propensity for it to be weaponized. Given the substantial increase in code complaints it is clear that there is either an increase in poor behavior, or, the system is weak and allows for weaponization. This needs to be determined as either reason needs a response.

Update the Guernsey civil service code to ensure accountability is included appropriately. The Guernsey civil service is responsible and accountable for day to day decisions and execution of policy. They clearly cant be responsible for policy and policy outcomes, but poor execution of policy (for example, the outsourcing of IT in 2019) must be a Civil Service accountability. Certainly there could be poor policy outcomes from good execution, that must remain the responsibility of politicians. But if a poor outcome and is not just poor policy decision making, it is poor execution, this needs to be acknowledged to get better outcomes in the future. The UK civil service code recognizes this reality and I believe it is a serious detriment to Guernsey that the Guernsey code does not. Adopting this approach wont just improve operational outcomes, it should make performance management easier within the States.

I believe there needs to be a governance overhaul of all committees. Terms of reference need to be reviewed and updated, a schedule of delegation agreed from the States (that is publicly available) to committees and from the committees to the civil service (and officers and appointed persons). Along side, there needs to be an improvement to how papers are presented at committees. All papers should have minimum standards such as (a) who the paper is for (b) a sponsors comment (c) executive summary (d) what the issue the paper is seeking to address (e) analysis undertaken and conclusions from analysis (f) multiple options ranging from do nothing to maximum change. Having discussed with multiple deputies, it is clear that these simple things are not uniformly in place and I believe that these changes would make decision making much better at committee level.

The adoption of a services and deliverables importance grading across all committees. Committees cannot afford to treat all things being done as “critical”. Not everything is critical. Governments job is to allocate resources to get politically desired outcomes. Political imperatives change over time, as such services and deliverables desired change and what was critical and important yesterday, may not be as important today. To enable tough decisions to be made, understanding what is “critical” “important” and “nice to have”, politicians need to decide that. Details of what framework I think is needed is set out in my “Economics” section.