By Ben Shenton
IN 1999, the States decided it needed a bus transport strategy. The incumbent bus operator, the JMT, who had served the Island for decades, was replaced by Connex after a States-organised “independent and fair” tender process that was, after investigation, actually a complete dog’s dinner.
In 2004, the belief of the losing bidder’s senior executives that it had been unfairly discriminated against in the tendering process led to the formation of a Committee of Inquiry (the full report, 214 pages, is available on the web – published 2 August 2005).
Under particular spotlight was the role of St Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft, who was appointed to manage the tender process on an independent basis. When the Committee of Inquiry reported to the States, they noted: “Regrettably, although most of the witnesses were perfectly happy to assist in this process, Connétable Crowcroft of St Helier was not. He appeared to treat the Committee of Inquiry with arrogant disdain.” The Constable suffered considerable memory loss and the inquiry noted that: “We consider this to have been a highly irresponsible approach”.
The Committee of Inquiry questioned the fairness of the tender process. The final report from those recommending the appointment of a new bus operator contained subjective negative comments against JMT that “had no place, absent a similar assessment of the other tenderers, in what was meant to be an objective examination of the documents submitted”. Those who volunteered to assist in the inquiry into the bus services contract had to review over 5,000 documents during a nine-month period.
Despite serious deficiencies by both civil servants and politicians being confirmed in the final report, no action or sanction was taken against them. This lack of action led to one of the honorary Committee of Inquiry members to question whether he had completely wasted his time. Twenty years have passed and, judging from the debacle that is the ferry tendering process, no lessons have been learnt.
The actions of Richard Corrigan, a senior civil servant who was supposed to independently oversee the ferry tender process, yet voted for DFDS in a public poll, could be explained either as an act of sheer incompetence or alternatively highlight an intent similar to the underhand actions that removed the JMT i.e. a government conspiracy to remove the incumbent.
The Jersey political figures involved, particularly Deputy Kirsten Morel, now look totally inept thanks to his actions, but for some bewildering reason he would rather look incompetent than make a public-sector employee accountable. In the private sector I doubt Mr Corrigan would still have a job as, with credibility destroyed, he would be considered a liability.
Maybe he kept his job because he was actually working towards the unofficial intention, the removal of Condor. You are supposed to learn from your mistakes, but 20 years after the Jersey bus tender fuff up, we appear to have another complete fuff up – you can replace the word fuff with another…
Events are further complicated by the fact that Ports of Jersey is a commercial company with a profit motive. Therefore, the best tender for Ports of Jersey (most profitable) may well not be the best tender for Islanders, who want good value, cheap, regular and reliable transport.
Furthermore, my experience of the Harbourmaster/Ports of Jersey is there is absolutely nobody they could not fall out with, so there may well be a strong bias against Condor (the incumbent), just as there was against the JMT all those years ago.
Perhaps this is why they are helping DFDS in their bid by covering the cost of the berthing trials. As Ports, wrongly in my opinion, consider themselves outside the Freedom of Information legislation we cannot check the extent to which they have assisted DFDS, both financially and through advice. So far, if you include the £700,000 a month paid since January to keep freight vessels in reserve, the taxpayer has spent well over £7,000,000 on the process.
One of the reasons I am stepping down as a political commentator at the end of the year is because I’m “losing my religion”. I’m completely losing faith in this island, something I never thought would happen.
We have gone from a small island punching above its weight in finance, tourism and agriculture to a bloated jurisdiction run by invisible government mandarins with dubious motives who seem to have only their own best interests at heart. The unrestrained growth of the public sector announced last week, and the lack of credible spending controls, does not bode well.
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Ben Shenton is a senior investment director. He is a former politician, Senator, who held positions such as minister, chair of Public Accounts Committee, and chair of Scrutiny. He also assists a number of local charities on an honorary basis, and can be a bit gobby.
