Reform to make States more efficient is “painfully slow” - report

Tuesday 06 October 2015

Despite millions of pounds and several years’ worth of work and political promises, progress on reforming the public sector is “painfully slow” with no clear strategy, secretive plans and mysterious budgets.

That’s the view of the Public Accounts Committee, who have published a major report on the Public Sector Reform Programme just as politicians start to debate financial plans.

That project which began in March 2013 with a budget of up to £16 million was designed to make the States more efficient by modernising pay and appraisal systems, and by reviewing efficiency and productivity right across the 8,280 people who work for the public sector.

The report – which is understood not to have gone down well with the Council of Ministers – highlights that spending has been under-reported, and that no evaluation was done at the end of phase one of the project, which was meant to have been completed last December.

And it says that ministers refused to let the Public Accounts Committee publish key reports and minutes of discussions about the project, laying confidentiality restrictions on some of the evidence that they handed over for the report.

But there are notes of optimism in the report – the committee say that there is evidence of fundamental reforms in some individual departments, although they say there is no “tangible evidence of reorganisation of all human resources, major modernisation of IT infrastructure and rationalisation of the States of Jersey property portfolio”.

In his report, PAC chairman Deputy Andrew Lewis said: “My committee is encouraged to see evidence that change has begun; however, the speed of that change has, in the eyes of many stakeholders, been painfully slow.

“In our view there has been an unhelpful and ultimately unnecessary lack of transparency that needs to be addressed.

“Change management programmes are successful when all key stakeholders journey through the programme together and know how far they still have to go to reach the finish line.”

“If the pace picks up, and if reform projects concentrate people, places and IT to deliver the services Islanders need then the programme can still deliver a lasting legacy for the benefit of all Islanders in the long term.”