THANKS to a series of revelations published in the Daily Telegraph, the political establishment in the UK has been rocked by a catalogue of scandals involving MPs’ expenses.

A sequence of events in which high comedy and low farce have combined with far too much evidence of naked greed has left Britons with very serious doubts about the probity of far too many of their elected representatives.

Figures recently published here in Jersey paint more favourable pictures not only of States Members but also of the public sector’s chief officers. It is true that Health chief executive Mike Pollard had an uncomfortably close encounter with trouble over his compensation claim for missed guitar lessons, but, in general, there is little evidence that either our politicians or our senior civil servants have been riding the expenses gravy train.

It is, of course, true that opportunities for riding that train are far more limited here than on the other side of the Channel, where MPs have claimed for such absurdities as moat cleaning, bags of horse manure and floating duck houses. By and large, our politicians and their advisers seldom appear to claim for anything more controversial than hospitality, travel and similar out-of-pocket expenditure – which is exactly how the system ought to be run.

Although it seems that neither States Members nor chief officers had anything to hide in respect of expenses, details of their spending are not released automatically. It required applications under the Code of Practice on Public Access to Official Information to secure access to the figures. In the light of the furore in the UK, such applications were clearly warranted – if only to clear the air and remove any suspicions among the Jersey public that anyone here was playing fast and loose with the public purse.

The applications also demonstrated that our freedom of information code can be effective, though some might say that because there was little in the data revealed to upset anyone, there was never likely to be any impediment to its disclosure.

Cynical or otherwise, this objection to the fundamentals of the present code is valid for two important reasons. Firstly, the code includes so many exceptions and excuses for non-disclosure that a veil could always been drawn over any truly sensitive information. Secondly, a code which relies on voluntary co-operation is not and never will be a substitute for a fully fledged law which compels compliance.