"Politicians have lost control of the machine"

Monday 08 July 2019

The powers of those truly accountable to the public have reached an all time low with this States assembly, according to Deputy John Gollop.

The St Peter Port politician has been in Guernsey's government for 22 years, and been a keen observer for longer.

"A deliberate attempt to separate thinking committees from doing committees, which has led to a lot of confusion."

He was giving a speech at the launch of the Islanders Association's 2020 campaign - where he looked in detail at how government has changed in the last few  decades, and he also gave his thoughts on what those changes have meant, and could mean for the future. According to him, a gradual loss of 'political discretion' was at the heart of changes.

"Over the past two decades we have seen the end of one seat parish Deputies, we have seen the end of Douzaine representatives, we have seen the end of Conseillers and we have seen the end of Ministers, and we will soon see the demise of parish district deputies," Deputy Gollop said.

"We are now also seeing, we think, the end of civil service chief officers, chief executive officers, and chief secretaries, and maybe the end of political sovereignty and control of our boards. We must scrutinise these revisions and insure we stay involved in those boards and get more democratic."

Deputy Chris Green, the current President of the Scrutiny Management Committee, is one of three politicians involved with the committee. In 2004, the States had 11 scrutiny roles for the elected, which has since been reduced to three. 

The crux of Deputy Gollop's speech was that over time, an ever-decreasing number of 'senior elites' had reduced the powers of deputies. This, he said, had led to more power being put with the civil service, but as that had happened, the elected politicians' power over that service had reduced, meaning an increasing amount of control is outside the reach of the public. 

"In my time the senior elite have significantly reduced Deputies powers. To cite just some, we saw the privatisation and commercialisation of telecommunications with no political board any more, we have seen the same of the Post and Electricity. When I was first a member it was possible for five or so States members to sit on those boards and have a direct say. A new planning system has come in to play as well, where 98% of applications are delegated to officers. Our development plan denies effectively the discretionary powers of members." 

The current three senior figures of P&R, Deputies (L-R) Jonathan Le Tocq, Lyndon Trott and Gavin St Pier. Deputy Gollop said despite its faults, the old policy council had 11 seats on it. There has been a significant political loss at the centre of power he said. 

Deputy Gollop was very critical of policy 'vehicles' which could not be amended by successive assemblies of the States, much like the current Strategic Land Structure and also like the vision some of the States currently have for the Seafront Redevelopment Programme. 

"We have a States Trading Board structure which in a sense is a reconstruction of public services, which itself was a reframing of the Board of Administration. STSB controls a huge amount of wealth in the island, with only three deputies on board. It manages at arms length ports, works, waste, assets, energy and the airline. We have seen delegation of arts funding. We have definitely seen a delegation of tourism policy as well, no longer are the days of the Tourism board. 

"We have seen generally the inability of Economic Development as a committee structure to regulate transport policy, although they did bring in changes such as open skies, but they no longer have the ability to effectively oversee licenses. That belongs to another committee, the Transport Licensing Board. There was a deliberate attempt to separate thinking committees from doing committees, which has led to a lot of confusion."

States Chief Executive Paul Whitfield is currently rebuilding the highest echelons of the Civil Service, aiming to have fewer chief secretaries covering all of the committees. Deputy Gollop called the new roles 'Super Chiefs'. 

And this continuing trend of 'cutting back' the powers of the elected will continue in Deputy Gollop's opinion. He said that under the 'new order' of the civil service, with fewer senior staff, covering more ground. This was particularly concerning to him since he felt funding decisions and resources were getting further and further out of the reach of the assembly.

"I can predict the cut backs will get larger under the new order, the new civil service structure that is being imposed, and elections of States members will be even less meaningful with zero populist control or accountability. I believe this will be a reoccurrence and only with a majority for the Islanders will we be able to get our island back," Deputy Gollop continued. 

"We most certainly do see an inequality of resources between members and departments. If a politician happens to be a president and is sympathetic to the direction of travel, they will generally speaking get officer support, or increasingly the support of Policy & Resources, but if you are an ordinary member who has the joy of being on a committee, you are at a real disadvantage, because anything you wish to challenge, you have to do entirely of your own resources with no secretarial help.

"We are moving toward an even leaner structure of Super Chiefs that will have wide powers over people and resources. Regardless of inefficiencies or efficiencies, you can see a pattern here, whereby the number of members and scrutineers, and the ability for political structures and diverse committees have all been reduced, as have the powers of members to sit on operation boards. 

"To give you an example of the paradox, we were promised only last year by senior figures that we would see a reduction of roughly 200 jobs. We didn't see 200 reduced this year. We didn't see 20 reduced. We saw an increase of 50 more. 

"Now, the politicians have lost control of the machine. That is why a better formula for the future is the politicians, candidates and public working together in an association."

Pictured top: Deputy John Gollop.