13/5/2008

Training local people for top jobs

THE new chief officer of Planning and Environment, Andrew Scate, who will take up his post in August, can be assured of a warm welcome from Islanders. He can also be confident that he will have every opportunity to exercise the skills and employ the experience he has gained as a
senior public servant working for Southampton City Council and other administrative bodies.
However, irrespective of Mr Scate’s personal and professional qualities, a question mark must hang over his appointment – or, more accurately, the general strategy for identifying and employing officers at the top of Jersey civil service hierarchy. The question to be posed is, of course, what happened to the policy of training Islanders so that they could slip easily into top posts when they fell vacant?
It is clearly true that there will be occasions when important public sector jobs must be filled by candidates from the UK or even further afield. Indeed, many such appointees have proved their worth over many years. But in spite of this, the number of senior staff who are parachuted in from elsewhere strongly suggests that the succession planning that the States have espoused so enthusiastically as a principle is not being realised in practice.
If this is indeed the case, there are a number of reasons why the policy should be revisited. To begin with, it is all too evident that the process of recruitment from the UK can be expensive. It was, for instance, revealed that recruitment consultants were paid £35,000 to locate Mr Scate’s predecessor, Paul Nichols, who worked in the Island for only 18 months before resigning. That £35,000 could have paid for a substantial amount of training aimed at bringing on local talent.
Then there is the question of particular knowledge of Jersey and the factors which make its public sector such special environment. With the best will in the world, anyone moving into it from any similar institution in another jurisdiction must take time to come up to full speed.
Finally, are we really to believe that the ranks of our civil service are so impoverished in terms of talent that it is always necessary to bring in new people? As well as being a very doubtful proposition, this is deeply insulting to a great many individuals who serve the community so diligently and so well.