It seems that no one in our States can go to the lavatory without calling in consultants

Heaven only knows how much that cost, but it’ll be a nice few quid, that’s for sure.

But that’s not all. Apparently there appears to be no one in the thousands of people that make up the hired help that lot in the Big House employ who has enough between their ears to sort The Times advertisement out, so guess what? Yep, right on the button. And as Frank Walker’s bosom pal Jeremy Paxman says when he’s being polite on University Challenge, it’s your starter for … well, seeing that it’s the States of Jersey, just think of a number in excess of a hundred thousand – quid, that is.

They have employed consultants to sort out the ad. It seems that no one associated with our all-singing, all-dancing government and its staff can go to the lavatory without first calling in consultants.

Isn’t it a wonderful thing, the internet? I looked up the website as suggested in The Times and found that the advertisement is ‘powered’ (where do they dream up these expressions?) by something called GatenbySanderson. So I looked them up as well.

‘We are GatenbySanderson,’ I read, ‘one of the UK’s most successful and established executive search and selection consultants.’

I bet they are, and if that’s the case they won’t come cheap, that’s for sure.

I wonder if there is one among the 53 elected Members who’s got the bottle to ask someone exactly how much that little exercise cost.

Hang on a minute. Does ‘search and selection’ mean what I think it says – that they find the applicants for these two high-powered jobs (boss of the whole States personnel department and then boss of the Health and Social Services personnel department) and then make the selection? I certainly hope not.

There was a time when that lot in the Big House used to employ what they called an establishment officer and from memory I can recall that Ron Gray (who later became States Greffier) filled the post, with Brian Le Geyt leaving the teaching profession to become his deputy, aided and abetted no doubt by a secretary who answered the phone and made the tea, and the statutory office cat.

Now, with the possible exception of social work, carrying out the personnel function (the trendy name is human resources), has become one of the biggest growth industries known to man, and if it has a function then it has managed successfully to conceal it from bolshie little crapauds like me.

Make no bones about it, this industry is massive. The other evening I put on my investigative columnist’s hat – I say that just to wind up some of the morons who, if you read their banal offerings under the online version of this recruitment story, clearly consider themselves experts in investigative journalism but whose expertise probably amounts to little more than getting as far as Page 3 in red-top tabloids – and looked up the Health and Social Services job on the internet.

There’s a nice illustration to make it easy for simple country boys like me to understand these things, and under this new director of resources there is a team secretary and a projects manager.

Then, on the next layer down, there is an interim case manager, a human resources manager for community and social services, a human resources manager for ‘hospital’ and a medical staffing manager.

Please don’t put the paper down, because I haven’t finished. Under all those managers there are no fewer than ten human resources officers and two human resources assistants. It wouldn’t surprise me that the new personnel director and all those managers, officers and assistants haven’t also got a supporting staff to look after what might loosely be called administration, as well as feeding the office cat, of course.

And all this lot come under heaven knows how big a Health and Social Services hierarchy, plus of course the standard army of consultants.

No wonder they’re talking about the need for a new hospital. With that lot running the place it’s a wonder there’s any room for the occasional patient here and there.

Without putting too fine a point on it, surely the time has come for someone to admit that the whole shooting match is totally out of control. And I haven’t even started talking about the other job that we’re paying GatenbySanderson to find and select – that of head lad or lass of the whole of the public sector on the sixth floor (and perhaps even bits of other floors for all I know) of Cyril Le Marquand House.

If the personnel function of just one department (and before any smart alec tells me, I know it’s the biggest) merits a battalion of directors, manager, officers and assistants, what’s the staffing levels for the crowd who oversee the whole shooting match?

I’ve just poured myself a healthy slug of calvados because I went weak at the knees when I thought of the money we’re paying this crowd. It wouldn’t surprise me that young Philip Ozouf at the Treasury is going to suggest printing £100 and £200 notes any day now. After all, if you pay this lot in 50s they’ll need two Co-op carrier bags (matching hand luggage, as Herself calls them) to take the loot down to the bank every Friday lunchtime.

At the risk of kicking off the mutual admiration society once again, where are you, John Arrowsmith, when your Island really needs you?

And finally… Can someone have a word in the shell-like of the wife or partner of a well-known Island figure who drives a fairly distinctive car? She seems to think that the speed limit between Beaumont and St Aubin is sixty-plus.