While the amendment to the Policy & Resources Plan does not move the power to hire and fire civil servants to deputies, it does take strides in tying the States of Guernsey and the States of Deliberation closer together, and making the people in charge of delivering a committee’s plans more accountable to those elected by the people.

It all comes at a time when deputies’ concern over the civil service becoming increasingly divorced from what they were trying to achieve appears to be peaking.

During debate, Deputy Emilie Yerby said members had been expressing worry over this for some time now, but it appeared that Policy & Resources – the official States’ employer – were not listening. This, she said, was only made more clear when P&R members Deputy Gavin St Pier and Deputy Jonathan Le Tocq submitted a further amendment to replace the original, which was submitted by Deputies Michelle Le Clerc and Heidi Soulsby.

Deputies Michelle Le Clerc (right) and Heidi Soulsby proposed and seconded the amendment. Deputy Soulsby clarified it was not an attack on the civil service and nothing to do with any recent appointments. 

This replacement P&R amendment – which was easily defeated in a one-sided vote – sought to tone down what the original amendment would achieve, and argued the States would be playing a dangerous game if they supported the original because of the potential implications that it could lead to there being less impartiality in the civil service, and also the potential for regular constructive dismissal cases.

But nonetheless, the amendment was supported by the majority of the States, winning a vote with 30 for, six against and one abstain. 

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Deputy Le Clerc clarified that her amendment was not going to stop the current ongoing reform work to the civil service either. 

“This is not an amendment to take control, but rather one that is seeking to allow some political input to be given,” she said.

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Paul Whitfield, the States of Guernsey’s Chief Executive, is currently in the throes of bringing in a total overhaul to how his staff is structured. 

Further to that, the explanatory note from the amendment itself reads: “The structure of the civil service has recently changed to one in which most of the Senior Officer roles are expected to work cross-Committee. This amendment revisits the Rules on civil service accountability, putting mechanisms in place to ensure that the new structure is truly cross-governmental, as it is intended to be, rather than simply the centralisation of services to P&R. It is timely to consider this issue during the debate on the P&R Plan, as an effective public sector is essential in enabling the States to deliver its priorities.

“It must be remembered that the States is elected by the people of Guernsey, and so is (rightly) held accountable by the public when services fail or do not come up to standard, just as much as when policy does not reflect the needs or expectations of the populace. There must be effective lines of accountability between the States and the public sector which reflect the democratic character of the States.”

During the lengthy debate that took place surrounding this issue, Deputy Matt Fallaize took the assembly through the amendment piece by piece, arguing it was not as risky or unreasonable as P&R were making out.

Matt Fallaize

Deputy Matt Fallaize questioned Guernsey’s long-held belief that the civil service should be held at arms reach from the government. 

He referred to a longstanding belief in the States that the Civil Service should be entirely impartial, and ‘held’ as far away from the elected politicians as possible. This belief, he said, was ‘hogwash’. 

“The claim that the government and the civil service needs to be kept apart needs to be tested. Successive States have let themselves be convinced of this, but why should it be impartial,” Deputy Fallaize said.

“It [the civil service] is meant to be indistinguishable from the political direction.”

Deputy Barry Brehaut did interject Deputy Fallaize to argue that it was far more difficult for a civil service in Guernsey to achieve this, because rather than following one government with one manifesto, it had to serve one government with, potentially, 38 manifestos. Further to that, Deputy Lyndon Trott said total impartiality was necessary to ensure if an outgoing committee who believed X was replaced with a new committee who believed Y, the civil servants would still be able to work in their jobs.

But Deputy Fallaize clarified this was not about supporting political motives, but rather having the civil servants be willing to follow a committee’s lead: “The civil service should still be impartial in the advice it gives to a committee, this is not about what they believe, it is about their preparedness to execute the politics of the elected government”. 

During the debate, it was unearthed that a number of deputies believed this was not always what had been happening. It was also aired that deputies, including Deputy Fallaize, felt that Guernsey’s culture of not having strong political leadership left a vacuum that was filled by the civil service – something he suggested could be changed.

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Civil servants working for a committee are expected to be able to turn on a dime if political policy or will changes on a topic. For Education, they would have found themselves working on a two school model after months of working on the three school model. This happened after the new Education committee came to power. 

One point that was repeatedly raised throughout the discussions, which started toward the end of Wednesday’s meeting and continued on through until lunchtime on Thursday’s meeting, was that deputies already felt they should have been being consulted on appointments that affected their committees. It was a matter of courtesy and expected practice. 

Deputy Emilie Yerby, however, said this was not happening nearly enough, which was why they now sought to ‘codify’ the ideas. 

“The civil service must not be able to impose their own political agenda,” she said. Deputy Yerby also referred to other countries like Sweden and Denmark – strong examples of good governance, she said – as places that went further than this amendment would take Guernsey. 

In closing before the vote, Deputy Gavin St Pier, who was opposing the idea, said if it did pass he and the rest of P&R would take away the amendment and look to draft it into a policy letter, to get the ideas into legislation. Whether this will happen quickly is yet to be seen.