DESCRIBING a plan as, “a blueprint for maintaining and improving Island life,” is rare. Even today, when new initiatives are routinely oversold to cut through the noise, we still don’t hear such language often. So, is that positioning of this week’s launch of a programme to make financial services competitive again, justified?
For the Minister responsible, Deputy Ian Gorst, the case starts and ends with the numbers, which will already be familiar to readers of this newspaper – what’s now being described as the ‘financial and related professional services sector’ pays for the Government’s health and education budgets combined, plus most of our social security benefits. Case closed.
It was made abundantly clear this week that despite repeated attempts to spread them out a bit over the last two decades, they have failed, and our eggs all remain firmly in that one basket.
The problem is that there are many other places around the world now who want to shake that basket, with Jersey lying in 31st place in the Global Financial Centres Index, as published by the City of London thinktank, Z/Yen.
In recent years, pointing that out has been seen as “too negative” and liable to undermine confidence.
However, this week’s report and presentation was clearly intended to deliver a harsh dose of reality, leading to a fundamental shift in mindset. The term “wake-up call” is overused; but at least now, Ministers could not be any clearer that the attitudes which have led to excessive regulation, overlapping remits, out-dated technology and simply making it too hard for the customer to do business here, all need to urgently change.
That report does list specific measures which must be taken, many of them relating to necessary law & policy changes, along with much clearer responsibilities, and increasing investment (subjects which sit very firmly within the Government’s ambit) – but underpinning all of it is a change in attitude.
And that is notoriously difficult to achieve. Good intentions are irrelevant when political priorities are buffeted by the daily swirl of events, as one look at international events proves. Time is a precious commodity, and we are only ever a crisis away from the short-term rule-book having to be ripped up and rewritten. And then there’s the election.
The fact that there is now a clear plan, and one which seems to have been met (a little strangely) with universal approval is positive; the fact that we are now being open about the position of our main industry, equally so. Staying the course to deliver the change needed remains the area of concern.
