JERSEY has too many arm’s-length organisations and is over-regulated, the Island’s top civil servant has told a room full of business leaders.
Dr Andrew McLaughlin, the government’s interim chief executive officer, said that many of these organisations delivered services “which, as a public servant, you would say are discretionary and not the essential role of the state and not public safety”.
Dr McLaughlin was addressing a packed room at this month’s Chamber of Commerce lunch event.
He argued that the Island had too many arm’s-length organisations and too much regulation.
“Jersey does not have a model for regulation that reflects its small-island constraints, and maybe one is overdue,” said Dr McLaughlin.
But the Jersey Care Commission’s chief inspector, Becky Sherrington, who was in attendance, told Dr McLaughlin that the Island had “a history of things going very wrong on this Island without transparency”, and that the hospital, ambulance and mental-health services should be regulated “without delay”.
In his wide-ranging speech, Dr McLaughlin also drew attention to Jersey Property Holdings, saying that the portfolio – which has a value of just under £1 billion and a £7.5 million annual maintenance budget – was “asking for trouble”.
The government risked “degradation in public assets, a deterioration in your public realm, and frankly, a visual shabbiness that ill befits a wealthy, well-invested safe-haven financial centre, the Jersey business model,” he said.
Asked by another attendee whether there was “language issue” with the government not understanding businesses and vice versa, he said: “I don’t agree with you.
“But on the issue of government talking to business, I think you can always perfect this – but there’s seven ministers in the room today, and they’re here. We’re very well represented here.”
He added that he “would ask some questions” of the business community, adding: “The government supported the business community massively during Covid and after Covid; we’re still supporting the business community massively on some levels.
“We’re one of the biggest banks in Jersey in terms of supporting all sorts of business models, all sorts of charities, all sorts of sectors who could not function, who do not yet have standalone strength after Covid.”
He said he felt “there needs to be some acknowledgement that the government has extended its balance sheet massively to support the economy in the past four or five years, and its balance sheet is still out there – it’s not come back in yet.”
