What’s wrong with revealing a secret?

Because it’s not, let’s admit this, an interesting subject. Entry to the public gallery in the States Chamber will not be ticket-only over the next fortnight, crowds will not clamour at the entrance for a glimpse of Philip Ozouf or Geoff Southern, and no one will eagerly tear through their JEP to find out about the latest developments.

From a distance it looks quite good, with millions of pounds, job cuts, school milk, dire threats about communities and economies in crisis and all of that sort of thing, but up close, trust me: massive snoozefest. Dulls-ville. Yawnathon.

But wait! What’s this? Leaked plans, you say? Senior managers to go? Ministers axed? Secret meetings in hotels? Is there perhaps something interesting in this plan after all?

To recap: leaked plans published on Thursday call for the axing of three States departments, the outsourcing or incorporation of pretty much any States department that takes in money, and the cutting of anything up to 15% of senior States management posts.

This is a cutting plan with a difference – and the difference is that someone has actually sat down and thought about it for a moment, rather than just swinging the nearest axe at soft targets like school milk, the thermostat at the General Hospital or the wages of foreign language assistants in classrooms. In that sense, and in the sense that it’s a decisive step instead of the usual fiddling about at the edges, it was good news.

Except that it wasn’t. The biggest public-sector union, Unite, did not respond calmly, seeing privatisation (sell-offs) and an end to blue-collar jobs in the plans that called for incorporation (turning public bodies into States-owned companies) and an end to senior management jobs.

And on the Council of Ministers, the main talking point was how the plan had got out – prompting some very strange remarks going round the emails – and then how to minimise it, prompting a JEP newsroom colleague to ask why anyone had to meet behind closed doors to come up with a secret plan to do the job that they’re meant to be doing anyway.

Within the public sector, a message went out to clarify matters and reassure staff … except that it didn’t really do either.

So, here’s the question: how isn’t this plan coming out a good thing? Who loses? How is it not good news that ministers are looking at all the options and considering taking a bold, radical step, just like they said they would?

• Read the full column in Tuesday’s JEP