COMMENT: There’s no room for flakes in the Island’s government

FLAKE – it’s a chocolate thing that goes on your 99, a small piece of something that has broken off or peeled away from a larger piece or, in the case of the States Assembly, an unreliable person who agrees to do something but never follows through.

Okay, so that last bit isn’t strictly true. The Assembly isn’t a person, for one thing.

And a lot of the time the decisions made by our politicians in the House do get followed up on, albeit with varying speed and success.

But this week Deputy Montfort Tadier reminded us all that sometimes the Assembly can be a bit flaky, and he warned that that risks undermining Jersey’s political process.

The Deputy is annoyed, you see, about the States’ continued failure to recognise the anniversary of the so-called Corn Riots, despite the Assembly agreeing to a proposition to do so five years ago.

Back then, Deputy Trevor Pitman had his proposition for official recognition of 28 September 1769 – a day when hundreds of Islanders protested in the Royal Square against the price of food – agreed by the Assembly by 21 votes to 19. However, since then, the date has not been formally recognised once.

Deputy Montfort Tadier said that ‘too often we see States decisions being ignored’. And he said that 28 September had a special place in Jersey history.

How you feel about the Corn Riots specifically and their importance or otherwise is not the real issue here.

It’s the principle of making a decision and following through with it.

In this specific case, there’s clearly been a problem with whoever, or whichever department, exactly, is responsible for organising it.

Deputy Tadier says that typically the Bailiff would help to mark such days with a speech in the Assembly or similar.

And the proposition itself referred to a number of different ministers and departments, with each being asked to look into different aspects of honouring the day.

Of course, those in power are at fault. Someone should have been made responsible for overseeing it and ensuring that the Assembly did not end up flaking on its promise.

However, the Deputy and his fellow backbench politicians who pushed for this proposition must also accept that they too could have, some would say should have, done more to get it done.

It’s true that many of our politicians are very busy indeed, and that some very important decisions do get implemented swiftly and professionally by ministers and their departments.

But there are those, like this one, that fall through the cracks.

And it’s up to backbenchers, the media and the public to help stop that from happening.

This proposition may not directly be about changing people’s lives, saving money or making money, or sending a message out to the rest of the world, but the States agreed it – five whole years ago.

And the message that not dealing with it sends out to Islanders is one that local politics cannot afford when faith in the system, and in Jersey politicians more generally, is as low as it is.

Meanwhile this week in a related message, Chief Minister Ian Gorst said that quick progress needs to be made before the next election on implementing the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry recommendations, otherwise they risk being ‘left on the shelf’.

He says that the groundwork for the changes needs to be laid before the election in May 2018 to avoid derailing the bringing of the eight main recommendations made by the inquiry panel into force.

He’s right, of course.

Because Jersey has been here before, albeit not with quite as much clout behind the recommendations perhaps as the inquiry had.

There’s been countless reports on care services in the Island in the past two decades – Williamson, Bull, Thoburn, the Scottish Care Inspectorate and Varley among them – that have made long lists of recommendations, some of which are still on the shelf.

And we cannot afford to let that happen again, particularly because in this case there are very real lives – and vulnerable ones at that – being affected every single day.

The government, just like any organisation, needs to prioritise, and we expect it to.

But ultimately, whether it is a decision to formally recognise the Corn Riots of 28 September 1769, or a recommendation that was accepted by the States to introduce a truly independent inspection arrangement for the Island’s children’s services which will have the confidence of children, staff and the wider public, both need to be done.

Because there simply is no room for flakes in government.