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.”