Departing minister quits with broadside at “dysfunctional” leadership and top civil servants blocking reform

Tuesday 03 November 2015

An assistant minister has quit her job saying that the Council of Ministers lacks strong leadership and that senior civil servants are blocking savings and efficiencies in the public sector.

After a year at the Treasury, Deputy Tracey Vallois has resigned, painting a picture of disorganisation at the top of the Island’s government, which she described as “dysfunctional”.

The 32-year-old Deputy – who spent six years chairing Scrutiny panels before going on to the executive after last year’s elections – says that she was promised that she would be delegated particular responsibilities, but that it never happened.

She says that she will return to a backbench or Scrutiny role, but that she has doubts about ministers’ plans to respond to the looming £145 million black hole in public finances.

In an interview with Bailiwick Express, she said: “Actually working inside the ministerial circle is a bit hit and miss. To a certain extent, it’s dysfunctional. You hear them talk about productivity all of the time, but they don’t actually do it themselves.

“And for me, I’m a very organised individual, so that’s a huge frustration, seeing people who are running the Island and how disorganised they are. From my point of view, it does not seem as joined-up as it should be – as much as they like to say it is. And that’s from the inside.”

Asked what was missing, she said the answer was simple: “Leadership. Strong leadership. For the type of change that has got to happen – and it really does have to happen – the public sector needs to change with the times and we need to modernise and we need to have a customer service focus.

But in order to do that, we need strong leadership and I do not have the confidence that we’ve got that. It’s not all about talk – it’s also about action.”