Two cheers for overdue document

Against such a background, it took a very special kind of bureaucratic contrariness to publish the long-awaited States growth and diversification strategy, with minimal notice or fanfare, just as the whole Island was about to embark on the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

Alternatively, the low-key timing may have been deliberate, in which case the Economic Development Minister responsible, Senator Alan Maclean, might start this vitally important process with a question mark against the true depth of his department’s confidence that new ways can indeed be found to stimulate growth without increasing immigration, increase Jersey’s international competitiveness as a finance centre, start high-value new industries and create more jobs for Island residents.

Those are the very laudable general strategic aims contained in the otherwise rather slim document which has emerged from all those months and years of deliberation. The proposed strategy is unexceptionable as such – in fact, in some senses, it amounts to something of a statement of the obvious – but short on detail. This may be partly because it encompasses States-backed stimuli which are already being applied, such as the success of Jersey Finance in its trade missions to the east or the claimed introduction of 128 enterprises and 937 jobs already under the Locate Jersey ‘inward investment’ banner.

In fairness it may also be because, while there is recognition that even in free-enterprise Jersey market forces require at least a touch of government intervention to achieve the right results, it is not the business of the States to dictate exactly what new enterprises should emerge to continue the Island’s well-known progression of prosperity from knitting to farming to tourism to finance and beyond. That is a role for the creative and imaginative entrepreneurs Jersey now keenly needs to encourage and accommodate, as it has so often in the past.

To that end, the one major new initiative contained in the strategy document, a proposal to set up an innovation find with an initial £10m of public money, is itself a bold and positive step towards the elusive goals of growth and diversification.

So too is the clear statement on future training policy, insisting that courses must be aligned more closely with the needs and nature of the island workforce, both now and in the future.