From Alan Holmes.
AS a Jersey resident may I express the utter disgust I feel at the incredible amount (read waste) of monies spent on endless inquiries, reports, then more further reports on inquiries etc, etc. It goes on and on and achieves absolutely nothing in the end (ie, no responsibility and no accountability).

The singular main reason for this continuing saga is, I believe, the lack of proper written procedures duly signed and countersigned by people who in the event of mismanagement (or worse) will not only be held responsible but will be held accountable by law for their actions on behalf of the people of this Island.

By making the ‘responsibility and accountability’ aspects crystal clear to all concerned it would most certainly focus the individuals’ minds on the task in hand and this should rightly be so, bearing in mind the very large salaries these senior people are paid, and just to be clear the ‘responsibility and accountability’ would most definitely cover the political spectrum as well.

Just to jog people’s memories it should be pointed out that our first Chief Minister (Frank Walker) stated quite clearly at the very start of ministerial government that ministers and chief officers would be held accountable for their own activities and department’s activities respectively. This simply has not been the case.

The truly horrendous costs of these vast mountains of documents -nearly all of them brought into being because of a lack of proper controls in the first place – could have been avoided if proper quality control procedures were in place (eg, ISO 9000 series).

These simple, long-established quality assurance procedures would save the taxpayers of this Island millions in wholly unnecessary inquiries, reports, consultants, expert witnesses and lawyers’ fees. Quality assurance quote: ‘Get it right first time and every time’.