THE government has ‘absolutely improved’ upon the strategic priorities set out in 2018, according to the Chief Minister.
Senator John Le Fondré made the comments during this evening’s Ask the Ministers event, which gave the public the chance to directly question several ministers – including Deputy Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham, Infrastructure Minister Kevin Lewis and Home Affairs Minister Gregory Guida.
At the end of the live session, the panel was asked if they felt their collective term of office had been a success, particularly when compared against the strategic priorities set out in 2018.
The government’s Common Strategic Policy for 2018 to 2022 contained five strategic priorities – put children first, improve Islanders’ wellbeing and mental and physical health, create a sustainable and vibrant economy, reduce income inequality and improve the standard of living, and protect and value the environment.
Senator Le Fondré said: ‘We have to accept that Covid took two years out of our plans, so from that perspective – taking that into account – we have absolutely improved on every one of those CSPs. We have put a lot of long-term thinking and projects in play and we are seeing some of the benefits of those now but a lot of the benefits will come through later.’
Senator Farnham said: ‘[It has] probably been the toughest four years of my life – the last two years with Covid extremely so – and I am extremely proud to have worked for the people of Jersey.’
He added: ‘For me, working with fellow ministers and officers to get payroll support and business support measures in place, which protected jobs and livelihood through the pandemic, was something I shall always be very proud of.’
Deputy Lewis said: ‘Further to that, setting up Fort Regent as a vaccination centre, the team now have done an absolutely superb job – we are not out of the woods yet but obviously Covid is on the decrease and long may it remain so. We do recognise we have an ageing population so we must do the best [we can] to keep both young and not-so-young fit and healthy.’
Deputy Guida said: ‘We have been swimming against the current for several years and the sad thing is our biggest achievements will disappear. Test and trace was an international success, we have been doing it better than almost any other country in the world – in a years time nobody will remember where that was. So unfortunately our best achievements will disappear but there are many other things we have brought in.’
He added: ‘If I talk about home affairs we have brought in a lot of legislation, we have weathered Brexit and we are probably going to come out of it in a good position – so there are successes.’
