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Rather than set up a new Housing Committee, some of the politicians already responsible for housing have suggested employing six new civil servants costing £430,000 in total instead.
The matter is likely to come to a head around the time of Guernsey's 2025 Budget debate which is due to be held in November.
Several deputies - led by Deputy Sasha Kazantseva Miller - have already outlined their plans to get the States to set up a new committee, taking effect from next summer.
If that happens, it would be given overall responsibility for housing policy, which is currently split between Policy & Resources, Environment & Infrastructure, and Employment & Social Security.
Deputy Kazantseva Miller has said that would cost £155,000 out of next year’s budget, as well as diverting housing budgets from those three other committees into it. She has previously said it would lead to faster housebuilding and clearer accountability.
The committees which currently oversee housing and planning policies have expressed concerns with the idea in official letters of comment published ahead of the debate, however.
Meanwhile, Environment & Infrastructure has placed its own amendment asking for an additional £430,000 per year instead, to recruit six new policy officers to deliver on housing.
Pictured: Six new civil servants could be employed to work on housing alone, if the States agree.
Environment & Infrastructure said the money intended to set up and run the new housing committee would be better spent on additional civil servants within existing teams, saying doing otherwise would cost at least £110,000 more as senior officers would need to be appointed and salaries for deputies within it would increase.
It added that the work it seeks to do is already “well underway” and warned that splitting out responsibilities would lead to a conflict of interest, “duplication and delay”, and lead to 'big government'.
“The Committee does not consider the creation of a new political body will accelerate progress and delivery of housing, nor that a Committee for Housing will achieve this in a more streamlined way than through the current political structure. An additional committee would in fact introduce further complexity.
“Neither the Committee nor officers are aware of any examples of work being slowed down by the current political arrangements. There has never been a delay arising from a constraint around a committee agenda: such bottlenecks that have arisen have been in terms of officer resource.”
Employment & Social Security said a new housing committee “would not have the desired effect of accelerating delivery of the States strategic objectives on housing.
“Members agree that this outcome would most effectively be achieved through the provision of additional Housing Strategy staffing resource focused on the delivery of the various work streams
“The Committee believes there is considerable benefit in keeping policy and operational responsibility for States-owned social-rental housing, the Affordable Housing Development Programme, and the States’ relationship with housing associations under the same mandate as political responsibility for other forms of social assistance.
“The Committee does acknowledge however that communication with the public and States Members about progress against strategic housing objects and communication about which Committee is accountable for which elements could be improved.”
The Development & Planning Authority said setting up a new committee might “add to rather than resolve the coordination problem.
“It is assumed that the DPA’s present responsibilities for planning policy development would remain unchanged, and that it would simply consult with the proposed new Committee at the appropriate stages of Plan preparation, in the same way as it does with the Committee for the Environment & Infrastructure and the Committee for Employment & Social Security currently.”
If the Committee for Housing took on more responsibilities over planning policies which affect housebuilding this could “raise serious issues of conflict of interest” given its other proposed functions, the DPA added.
P&R pours cold water on housing committee as argument hots up
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