CHANGE is known to be a painful and difficult process. Issues often arise from either the pace – too fast for some, too slow for others – or trust; perhaps the word “mistrust” is more accurate here: doubting the motives of those who want to do things differently.
Both issues are clearly evident in the newly published report into the relationship between Government and the Parishes. It’s notable how throughout the document, the points it makes all contain variations on the same theme: recognition of the historic, and essential, role of the Parishes in binding together the strands of local life – and then noting that they need to modernise to continue, before providing reassurance that the purpose of the review is not to centralise their powers.
While they point out that many respondents were supportive of their work, the Panel also notes that some officials were not; and they clearly grew frustrated with what they term, “a wider cultural challenge: long established structures can sometimes be cautious or defensive when subject to external examination.”
Their riposte is to point out where the Parish are modernising, and encourage more of the same.
They clearly see the need to address some of the mistrust they faced, by openly stating that the review is not “threat” – that it is only by adapting to modern circumstances that long-standing organistions survive, and then drawing attention to issues relating to “transparency, accessibility, accountability and consistency”, to things which worked because of goodwill or personal relationships, rather than how they were set up.
Rightly, the review’s authors choose their words carefully – clearly they have experienced a lot of sensitivity to their work, and they are also mindful both of how important the Parishes remain to Island life, and the need to protect what clearly works well.
But that doesn’t disguise their core conclusion, which to put it bluntly, is that the Parishes need to adapt to survive, that the process of modernisation needs to speed up and that tradition and change are not mutually exclusive.
Helping them to do that is something which should concern us all, not just because of the local democracy and community that they provide, but also because of the raft of practical, and often voluntary, local services which they administer.
Quite simply, the Islands needs a well-functioning parish system, it is not something which only comes alive in the Temps Passé pages of this newspaper; effective, and efficient, local representation and service administration are an essential part of the Island’s future, and the Parishes are there to provide it.
