ExCo Report 17th November 2009
20 November 2009
The first meeting of the new Executive Council was held on Tuesday afternoon as the opening of the Court took place in the morning. That is why this summary is being done on the Wednesday.
Two of the new EXCO were absent overseas – Tony Green and Ferdy Gunnell. Ferdy was selected by his fellow Councillors to attend the Overseas Territories Consultancy Council (OTCC) in London and so he left on the RMS last Monday. These two were replaced by Derek Thomas and Brian Isaac respectively. Thus absent Councillors from both East and West were replaced by members from their own constituency.
I began the meeting by reminding Members of some of the changes under the new Constitution, especially that the Governor must now accept the advice of EXCO on most issues and I indicated that I would always strive for consensus if at all possible.
We began by reviewing the minutes of the last meeting. I reported that I had had a meeting with the Chamber of Commerce to discuss a wide range of issues. That meeting had been dominated by discussion of the withdrawn Terminal Handling Charge and I relayed the Chamber’s view that the RMS should be regarded primarily as part of our infrastructure and not as a commercial venture. However I also relayed the reality that DfID has made this government responsible for the financial performance of the ship, so we have to deal with the situation as it is and not as we might wish it to be. I have not yet been able to have a meeting with those traders who are not part of the Chamber of Commerce and have asked my PA Joan Yon to make sure that she contacts all those who might wish to come to such a meeting. If you are a small trader and like to be involved, please contact Joan.
The meeting moved on with each of the Senior Officers present outlining the existing situation with regard to their particular responsibility. The Attorney General suggested the range of legislation that should be looked at in the coming session. It was an awesome list with 25 Papers, Ordinances and Policies identified. Among the most important were: a proper regulatory framework for the Media, a revised Road Traffic Act, a new Pensions Law, a review of the Public Health Ordinance, new Environmental Legislation, a Bankruptcy law, a new Companies Ordinance, and new Employment Legislation. Clearly a great deal of work lies ahead of us, and all 12 Councillors will be discussing with the Attorney General where they believe the initial priorities lie.
The Chief Secretary then gave a brief outline of the present work of the Office of the Chief Secretary. In addition to the normal workload there is a great deal of work being done as part of the Public Sector Modernisation Programme and Members will be brought up to date on this in detail in the near future. There is also going to be an Away Day for Heads of Department next week where the workings of government within the context of the PSMP and the new portfolios held by Councillors, will be addressed.
The Financial Secretary then spoke about the financial situation of this government at the end of the first half of the financial year. We have collected tax rather faster than anticipated and have not yet been able to spend on infrastructure and other improvements as we had planned. So there needs to be a speeding up within government if we are to achieve all our targets although in some areas we are very short of adequate capacity. Obviously some underspends are lost for all time in that we are not able to carry them forward, and we will be paying special attention to these over the remaining months of the year. It was also reported that we have adopted a far more systematic approach to budgeting for the year ahead and that although our consumption of electricity continues to rise and so is above last year, it is not as high as we had expected.
Members questioned the situation with regard to the wind turbines and the Financial Secretary indicated that she expects all six to be in working order before Christmas. This does not mean we will have the unusual sight of all six working at once, but it does mean that up to five could be turning at one time. Apparently all six would unbalance the grid in some way. There were many questions on the subject of the wind turbines as new Councillors have not been involved in earlier briefings; so a future briefing was promised.
I then raised a number of issues and among them was the strong recommendation that we approve the construction of an ossuary to house in an appropriate manner the human remains that were unearthed by the archaeologists working in Rupert’s Valley last year. The ossuary will be a stone building that will provide the focus of a memorial to these captives that died on the very threshold of freedom. There could well be a Visitor Centre in Rupert’s as well that would make information on the history of the Valley widely available.
Having started at 2 pm the meeting finished around 5 pm and I felt that we had made a good start in being introduced to a range of complex and searching issues that will dominate our thinking over the coming months.
Andrew Gurr
Governor
17th November 2009