Why must we always have the biggest and costliest?

Then it grew again and those then in the corridors of power decided that no longer would some of the larger individual departments have a personnel department – all matters would be handled centrally from the 6th floor of that big white edifice in The Parade.

Then at some stage or other that idea was thrown out and they went back to having personnel people back in the departments, although I can’t for the life of me recall anyone announcing that there would be any great savings from these swings and roundabouts shenanigans.

Then, of course, came the Big Name Change, which meant that thereafter the function of all the personal bods – who, if they had a function managed extremely successfully to conceal it from me – would become the function of all the Human Resources bods.

These people, as everyone knows, are responsible for three principal functions – recruiting, which governments being governments, is an extremely busy job, wage negotiations, which these days means simply sending out letters to unions telling them that there’s no cash in the kitty so ‘see you next year, lads’, and keeping the staff happy, which means endless meetings with groups and individuals telling them what they’d missed while off sick, on holiday or – as seems increasingly to be the case – suspended, as well as generally reassuring everyone that they had a job for life.

Alright, so I exaggerate a trifle but you get the general drift.

I’m writing all this because Herself – who goes through this newspaper with a fine tooth comb and is able to tell me, when I’m listening, the ancestry of roughly half the local people mentioned in court reports – drew my attention (as my cousin who used to be in the police used to say) to the situations vacant columns the other evening.

Clive Jones, who is head lad (chairman, as it happens, and that is relevant) at the Jersey Financial Services Commission, is looking for a commissioner – 20 days a year and probably a nice little earner but I won’t apply because most of the days will probably coincide with nice tides at the breakwater. Anyhow, it’s sounds a pretty important job.

Then there’s 75 grand a year on offer for head of finance at something called Ports of Jersey, which I suppose means that someone has finally seen sense and recreated the old Harbours and Airport Committee where Brian Mellor used to run the whole shooting match and still have time for a chat every time I saw him in town.

Indeed, there are a whole host of vacancies in the public sector and the recruitment website at workingforjersey.com makes interesting reading for those, like me – when Herself is out with her mate – with a bit of time on their hands.

I suppose all this confirms that in my opening few paragraphs I did exaggerate a bit but it’s really to make the point that we do employ people who are able to handle the recruiting and appointment process for every sort of job from a deck hand on the States tug – yes, there’s a vacancy for one of those at close on £450 a week – to an FSC commissioner.

Well, we do have people able to handle the process for nearly every sort of job. However, if you’re interested in becoming the chair of the States of Jersey Development Company – I can’t believe I just wrote ‘chair’ when I thought that was something you bought in a furniture shop – or indeed a non-executive director of the same organisation then I’m afraid it appears (to me, at least) that there’s no one here able to handle that.

Inquiries, for those who have an interest in the job (rather than an interest in how much it’s going to cost us taxpayers), are directed at an outfit called Odgers Berndtson, which operates from some no doubt expensive offices in Hanover Square in London W1.

Odgers Berndtson describe themselves as the United Kingdom’s ‘pre-eminent executive search firm’ and I don’t doubt that for a minute. Neither do I doubt that something with pre-eminent in its blurb and a Hanover Square address won’t come cheap, that’s for sure. They’ll have a fee which no doubt will fit like a hand in a glove to their plush West End address and their pre-eminent whatever.

Perhaps these two jobs are so top of the range that we need a platinum plated agency to sort out the application forms – or, as I strongly suspect, identify likely candidates from people they’ve dealt with before – but I am told by someone in the business that it would be perfectly practical and possible to sort out the applications here.

Of course, that lot in the Big House have got previous for this sort of cash hungry activity as I found out last year when following up an advertisement (again through a UK recruitment firm) for a small handful of people to get on the gravy train which regularly stops at Health and Social Services.

They just don’t get it, do they? Why has it always got to be the biggest and the best? There again, I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies. After all, they also could have employed a couple of consultants at a couple of grand plus a day each to advise on the appointments.

And finally,

A few weeks ago while in nostalgia mode I referred to a horse called Lady Golightly. There was one called Poppy Golightly running at Wolverhampton the other day and I backed it at 10-1, thinking the winnings could be invested in Calvados. The horse is still running and I have a dry throat.