THE grand plan to create a new body – the Jersey Enterprise Board – to develop surplus States property and to help co-ordinate development on the Waterfront, elsewhere in St Helier and, potentially, in other parts of the Island is now in abeyance.
In essence, the proposed board, which was rapidly known to all and sundry as JEB, was intended to be the big brother of the Waterfront Enterprise Board, WEB.
Had the proposal for JEB’s creation not been shelved amid the furore caused by the revelation that Waterfront developers Harcourt are facing lawsuits in Las Vegas and Dublin (the latter involving land on the St Helier Waterfront), the States would have been asked to sanction the creation of a quango with responsibility for disposing of surplus public property for the benefit of Islanders.
Given that the States own and administer some 900 properties reckoned to be worth £1.6 billion when they were valued in 1999, the potential scale of JEB’s role becomes clearer.
But properties, surplus or otherwise, would not have been handed to the new body – set up as a limited company – on a plate. Property would have been assigned from Property Holdings, the new entity responsible for the administration of States property, with the agreement of the Treasury Minister.
JEB would also have been involved in a network of relationships with the Regeneration Task Force, the Urban Partnership and WEB, which would have become its subsidiary. In addition, the long-term masterplan for development, approved by the States, would have been the overriding framework for development.
The Regeneration Task Force consists of the Chief Minister, the Ministers of Treasury and Resources, Environment, Transport and Economic Development, and the Constable of St Helier. The Urban Partnership includes bodies such as the Chamber of Commerce, the Institute of Directors and professionals such as architects.
JEB’s shareholders would have been the Chief Minister and the Treasury Minister and its managing director would have been Stephen Izatt, the present managing director of WEB.
Sounds complicated? Well, it was.
JEB is now firmly on the back burner as controversy swirls around potential Waterfront developer Harcourt and its lawsuits in Las Vegas and Dublin, but the scrutiny sub-panel, chaired by Deputy Collin Egré, which presented its report on 12 June, identified structural pitfalls which had nothing to do with the scandal but everything to do with vagueness, financial risk and the shortcomings of WEB, which can be seen as a model for its grander successor.
Amid the litany of objections raised by the sub-panel, certain observations stand out. For example, the sub-panel’s report says that there was ‘a general lack of clarity around JEB’s involvement in the development process’, that ‘little attention has been paid … to the perceived failings of WEB, which is a very similar model’, and that the body would be entrepreneurial to the extent that it would experience ‘far greater exposure to risk than most public-sector arrangements’.
Deputy Egré and his fellow sub-panel members seem to have reached the conclusion that JEB might jeopardise the return the public might receive for the disposal of States assets, and also that major losses might be incurred if the wrong commercial decisions were taken.
As a result of these and other doubts, the sub-panel recommended that last December’s report on an Enterprise Board should be revisited and that other possible structures, including more straightforward public-private partnerships, should be investigated.
It also recommended that the rationale of the Regeneration Task Force should be reconsidered, not least because the present structure requires it to report to the Council of Ministers even though five of the council’s members are already among its officials.
Tellingly, the report also urges a review of the effectiveness of WEB in achieving its objectives to date. It also quotes objections voiced about the alleged shortcomings of WEB by submissions to the sub-panel.
One asserted: ‘I believe that WEB has been a disaster for Jersey. In my mind it is an example of development gone horribly wrong, with an ugly mass of inappropriate buildings.’
Another said: ‘I think most Islanders would regard what we have ended up with at the Waterfront has not been what they hoped for. How much of this is down to the organisational model?’
Even Chief Minister Frank Walker now has his doubts about WEB. Asked in the States last week if he could say that he was entirely happy with the body’s performance, he said, without hesitation: ‘No, I cannot.’
Meanwhile, one of the potentially contentious powers of JEB would have been the ability to create special-purpose companies to undertake specific ring-fenced development projects, adding another layer of complexity between what was happening in the real world and States control.
The sub-panel’s report says: ‘States ability to influence and control issues may be further eroded in the context of individual subsidiaries of JEB, the special-purpose companies referred to in the report supporting the proposition.
Again, the level of complexity proposed was judged to be out of proportion compared with the needs of a small, self-contained community.
In this case, Scrutiny has helped to ensure that the Island has not been railroaded into the acceptance of measures that the sub-panel not only found wanting in structural terms, but also saw as a hastily contrived element of a larger but still ill-formed plan.
Panel members reported that they were ‘unable to understand the need for JEB to be established so urgently, without first allowing time for Property Holdings to complete its Strategic Property Plan, and for the Island Plan review supported by appropriate masterplans to be completed’.
Article posted on 24th June, 2008 - 2.45pm
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