Following my post on Lyndon Farnham's 2014 Manifesto, he has been good enough to respond to question I raised in my blog and privately, and I post his response below.
My original post:
Manifesto 2014: A response to a critique
By Lyndon Farnham
I was recently reviewing my 2014 manifesto, which I do on a regular basis, and was feeling reasonably pleased that I had, or so I thought, managed to achieve most of the goals that I set myself back in 2014. Not so, according to my Facebook friend Tony Bellows of ‘Tony’s Musings’ fame who has critiqued said manifesto in a rather critical but useful way.
After hearing my wails of anguish at his comments Tony, being the decent chap that he is, invited me to respond so here it is:
Tourism is performing well and that is thanks to the Visit Jersey board chaired by Kevin Keen and the team at Visit Jersey lead by Keith Beecham. The establishment of Visit Jersey had been dragging its heels for years – it was agreed in principle back in 2005 by the then Economic Development Committee Presided over by former Deputy Gerald Voisin. I was Vice-President at the time.
Imagine my frustration when I took over the Economic Development portfolio in November 2014 and it had still not been done. The issue was very quickly dealt with and Visit Jersey was up and running in early 2015. John Henwood was the first Chairman and appointed Keith (with my full backing) and the fortunes of Tourism industry started to improve once again. Kevin Keen took over from John in 2017. They are both excellent leaders and are responsible for, together with their board and Keith leading his team, the current renaissance we are seeing in the sector.
My role is to encourage them, support them, ensure they are adequately resourced and provide a strong legal framework to enable the sector to thrive. So, whilst the success cannot be accredited to me solely, I am sure that if the results were not so good it would be all my fault without question!
Economic diversity is very important for our small island which is why my department is working collaboratively with other states departments and stake holders to support business sectors outside of financial services. My department facilitates this in a similar way to Visit Jersey and Jersey Business leads on this https://www.jerseybusiness.je/
We have also established Events Jersey (Super League Triathlon) https://events.jersey.com/ and Farm Jersey https://www.farmjersey.je/ which leads us in to the Rural Economy Strategy (RES) and food security policy.
The (new) RES 2016 – 2020 was delayed by a year, in part by uncertainty and delays to the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) and BREXIT, but also in part due to the lengthy negotiations around its structure; the strategy departed from area-based payments to payment based on performance and I did not want it adopted until I was sure it was ‘right’ for the industry and for the Island. It was published in 2017 and is due to run 2017 - 2021 with a mid-term review in 2019.
Actually, the delay in ministers, officers and the industry’s view was not wasted at all but was beneficial as it allowed government to build consensus with stakeholders and, very importantly, significant social capital accumulated as we all went through the process. This then enabled the Action for cleaner voluntary initiative and Rural Initiative Scheme (RIS) financial support for placement fertiliser equipment to ‘spin off’ and as a benefit many work streams linked up.
An update to the Draft Food Security Strategy (DFSS) was commissioned to be part of the RES 2017/21 and was published onto the States of Jersey (SoJ) website in 2018. This ‘‘Review of Jersey’s Food Security’ contains options to consider rather than actions to implement and will be considered by various government officers in the coming months.
The DFSS was originally produced in 2012 under the Rural Economy Strategy (RES) 2011-2015 entitled ‘Sustaining and Growing the Rural Economy’.
The food security issue in general was discussed/addressed across various RES policies; PR 11 announced the production of a strategy to examine key challenges: climate change, energy and water security, competition for land and future demand for food. PR 12 aimed to conduct a processing infrastructure survey and PR 13 committed to retention of an abattoir service. PR 14 aimed to establish a secretariat service for a ‘Jersey Food and Farming Partnership’ which aimed to consolidate positive behavior in the food chain.
This entity was precursor to the Jersey Export Group, later evolving into Farm Jersey which in the current RES aims to bring together business support services provided by EDTSC, JPPL and Jersey business, plus, where suitable any other SoJ support mechanisms that might assist the original food security goals set out in both reports.
Fort Regent! Given the size of the task and the amount of money likely to be required it is not surprising that politicians have been unable to agree on the way forward. Nevertheless, the Fort Future Group has been established under the Chairmanship of EDTSC Assistant Minister, Connétable Steve Pallett, and will be reporting to the new States Assembly. For the record I remain a strong supporter of Fort Regent and recognize the huge potential for islanders that the Fort represents. I remain committed to delivering a really good solution as soon as possible.
Condor has been a challenge but we have made some progress. My goal is to see a reconfiguration of the fleet and a restructuring of the current operating agreement. I am having positive discussions with Condor and their owners Macquarie Group with a view to achieving this. These discussions are ongoing and will remain a priority for me if I am reelected.
Manches Iles Express (MIE) have launched a greatly enhanced inter-island service which will provide an additional 20,000 plus seats between the islands at about £35 return. Officers of my department and their Guernsey counterparts are exploring opportunities (and costs) with MIE with a view to adding some more sailings to the service. Whilst the new timetables are not perfect, due to their existing commitments and tidal ranges, they do represent a good improvement and I do hope islanders and visitors support MIE so that we may increase the schedule further in 2019.
I am currently working on some ideas to improve inter island air travel reliability and costs but this is proving more challenging to the point that we may need legislative changes to achieve our goals.
I have asked Ports of Jersey to take over the operation of the failing Jersey Aircraft Registry and would like to acknowledge the work of Assistant Minister Deputy Murray Norton (who asked to be delegated this challenge).
Collective responsibility sits awkwardly in the current machinery of government. I thought collective responsibility would work but, in my view, it has proved not to be the case. Many ministers have felt uneasy at being coerced in to making decisions against their own judgments or their department’s interests. The changes agreed recently (P1/2018) may rectify this and although collective responsibility will no longer be enshrined in law I am sure it will be there in a code of conduct somewhere. Having said that it is fair to say the we have a healthy tension at times within Council of Ministers (CoM) and make some tough decisions democratically after strong (and sometimes lengthy) debate!
Whilst I can disagree with many of my states and ministerial colleagues I respect them all for doing what they do for our island and despite the detractors we are in reasonably good shape here. We have a strong economy, more people in employment than ever before and we live on a beautiful island.
The economy is important because we must create the wealth to help those in our community that need help. There is no point in having full employment and a billion pounds in reserve if hard working islanders require income support to maintain an acceptable standard of living. Finding a solution to this is just one of the challenges that is at the heart of my reasons for being in the states.
And now to start on my 2018 manifesto..
Fort Regent! Given the size of the task and the amount of money likely to be required it is not surprising that politicians have been unable to agree on the way forward. Nevertheless, the Fort Future Group has been established under the Chairmanship of EDTSC Assistant Minister, Connétable Steve Pallett, and will be reporting to the new States Assembly. For the record I remain a strong supporter of Fort Regent and recognize the huge potential for islanders that the Fort represents. I remain committed to delivering a really good solution as soon as possible.
Condor has been a challenge but we have made some progress. My goal is to see a reconfiguration of the fleet and a restructuring of the current operating agreement. I am having positive discussions with Condor and their owners Macquarie Group with a view to achieving this. These discussions are ongoing and will remain a priority for me if I am reelected.
Manches Iles Express (MIE) have launched a greatly enhanced inter-island service which will provide an additional 20,000 plus seats between the islands at about £35 return. Officers of my department and their Guernsey counterparts are exploring opportunities (and costs) with MIE with a view to adding some more sailings to the service. Whilst the new timetables are not perfect, due to their existing commitments and tidal ranges, they do represent a good improvement and I do hope islanders and visitors support MIE so that we may increase the schedule further in 2019.
I am currently working on some ideas to improve inter island air travel reliability and costs but this is proving more challenging to the point that we may need legislative changes to achieve our goals.
I have asked Ports of Jersey to take over the operation of the failing Jersey Aircraft Registry and would like to acknowledge the work of Assistant Minister Deputy Murray Norton (who asked to be delegated this challenge).
Collective responsibility sits awkwardly in the current machinery of government. I thought collective responsibility would work but, in my view, it has proved not to be the case. Many ministers have felt uneasy at being coerced in to making decisions against their own judgments or their department’s interests. The changes agreed recently (P1/2018) may rectify this and although collective responsibility will no longer be enshrined in law I am sure it will be there in a code of conduct somewhere. Having said that it is fair to say the we have a healthy tension at times within Council of Ministers (CoM) and make some tough decisions democratically after strong (and sometimes lengthy) debate!
Whilst I can disagree with many of my states and ministerial colleagues I respect them all for doing what they do for our island and despite the detractors we are in reasonably good shape here. We have a strong economy, more people in employment than ever before and we live on a beautiful island.
The economy is important because we must create the wealth to help those in our community that need help. There is no point in having full employment and a billion pounds in reserve if hard working islanders require income support to maintain an acceptable standard of living. Finding a solution to this is just one of the challenges that is at the heart of my reasons for being in the states.
And now to start on my 2018 manifesto..
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