The outgoing E&I committee is urging the States to hurry up and develop its IT systems so that anyone receiving public services for their own private benefit can be charged.
The Committee for the Environment and Infrastructure is mandated to “protect and enhance the natural and physical environment and develop infrastructure” across the island.
This includes running Guernsey’s public transport services, the driver and vehicle licensing systems, and overseeing Open Market inscriptions.
Some of E&I’s remit is managed in a money-making way through fees, but the committee says it could be earning even more money for the island if the States’ IT systems allowed it too.
It issued a warning over “lack of progress” in this area in its ‘end-of-term report’ issued as part of the wider update to the Government Work Plan, ahead of the election in June.
Each States committee was asked to provide an update on work it has done since October 2020, and what challenges and priorities remain as part of a ‘roadmap’ for the island’s next government to follow.
E&I used its ‘end-of-term report’ to claim delays in updating IT systems are costing the island money.
“One of the Committee’s frustrations over this political term has been the lack of progress with respect to IT systems development to introduce an e-commerce function that would enable the more efficient booking and billing of certain public services for private benefit that currently have to be provided free of charge, simply because the administration costs of manual invoicing would outweigh the revenue,” wrote E&I.
“This is something the Committee has asked for throughout this political term, and which it hopes can be progressed as soon as possible, as it makes sense from both a policy perspective and an income generation perspective.”
IT issues have plagued the States more widely during this term of office, with a major data room service outage affecting the whole of the States of Guernsey’s IT systems between November 2022 – January 2023, while more recent IT upgrades have caused delays in the processing of rebates by the Revenue Service.
A £200million IT contract signed in 2019 was “mismanaged from the start” said a report published earlier this year, while the Office for the Data Protection Authority held concerns over whether peoples personal data was at risk as a result of these issues.
Other challenges and priorities for E&I
The Committee for the Environment and Infrastructure has claimed many successes during the 2020-2025 term of office.
Led by Deputy Lindsey de Sausmarez throughout, E&I has led on the “very successful development and introduction of the Electricity Strategy” and focused on on-island transport which “has paid dividends in significant improvements”, it said.
The committee’s work has ranged from giving al fresco dining permits for the Quay a shake-up to “a great deal of proactive, cost-effective work…on coastal infrastructure, strengthening the island’s vital defences against tidal inundation and increasingly frequent extreme weather events”.
In terms of priorities for E&I to pick up after the election in June, the current committee has highlighted “that the island needs the development of a wildlife law, a crucial piece of legislation that exists in most other jurisdictions, but that Guernsey does not have”.
It also wants to see progress on reforms to transport taxation, “as per various States Resolutions,” which requires the input of Policy and Resources.
“The Committee is particularly keen that fuel duty is reformed, to address the growing inequity and unfairness in the current system as well as to put income generation on a more sustainable footing going forward,” said E&I.
“The Committee very much hopes that this is also something that will be prioritised by the incoming Policy & Resources Committee and progressed as soon as possible.”