I can hardly wait. I’m like a child looking forward to Christmas. However in my case Father Christmas has been replaced by the Minister for Economic Development.

You see I’m eagerly waiting for his department’s new Economic Growth Plan, although whether it’s the equivalent of a brand new train set or a garish cardigan knitted by a great aunt, remains to be seen.

So far the Minister has given few hints. He did tell the Chamber of Commerce that the new Economic Growth Plan will build on the previous plan and develop some of the existing policies. Well that’s good. We don’t want to make any sudden moves that might scare the horses. However the signs are not good for the train set. It looks like it will be the same old boring cardigan.

For those readers who can’t remember what the old plan said, I’ve tried to find out for them, because frankly I was a bit stumped myself. I like to think that I follow these things quite closely, but the number of times I’ve heard the contents of this plan used to support a particular course of action in the past few years has been close to zilch.

Never mind. We didn’t really need a growth plan then – we had growth in any case.
Nevertheless I was determined to find out what this plan says, but even Google was stumped. I managed to stumble on some very broad principles in speeches and business plans, but they were so all-encompassing that it would be very difficult to envisage any kind of alternative strategy.

So there was a great deal about productivity growth and competitiveness and the need for enterprise, innovation and skills. That’s not a plan: it’s simply stating the blindingly obvious.

So can we expect anything better from the Economic Growth Plan Mark II?
Well the first thing to say is that at least the Economic Development Department hasn’t brought in a lot of expensive consultants to tell us what to do (well, at least I don’t think they have). This is good, but it’s a bit odd really. If we are throwing money left, right and centre at consultants in other areas, why do we think we can do the most important of all jobs ourselves without any help from outside? Could it be that this plan is not being given the importance it should have?

There is certainly not much evidence that the States has taken any notice of the old plan, so perhaps they don’t expect much from a new one. So they certainly won’t bother to use up scarce resources when we have plenty of other consultants to pay for.

So this may be just an indication of the basic problem. The truth is that economic growth has come very low down on the States’ list of priorities. Yes it was supposed to be part of a three-pronged attack to save the Island from the worst ravages of the economic crisis.

We know that is the case because the Treasury Minister has told us so in speech after speech. But that’s about as far as it’s gone. Spending cuts and the restructuring of the States that this requires has been by far the number one priority, followed fairly closely by increased taxation. But trying to promote economic growth or even have a decent debate about it has come a poor third.

Ministers will no doubt counter this criticism but pointing out the tremendous efforts that have been put into the skills strategy and ensuring that the unemployed find work. That is undoubtedly true, but that has little to do with economic growth. Developing skills is not part of an economic growth plan. It’s an essential public service. In our particular circumstances, it is vital whatever happens to the economy.

We’ve also had the economic stimulus package which obviously helped to save jobs that would otherwise have disappeared. The States are very sure that this has been a great success, but whether it has actually contributed to economic growth or been merely a temporary sticking plaster, remains to be seen.

Perhaps the new growth plan that is due to be published shortly will help bring this altogether into a coherent strategy for developing the Island’s economy over the next ten years. It won’t be easy for two reasons – the lack of money and the lack of long-term thinking.

Throwing money at a problem obviously isn’t the answer, but it does help to have a little money available to try and implement the plan. EDD doesn’t have it. Once again this illustrates the low priority given to economic development.

All of this will make it very difficult to devise a plan that has any kind of impact, and certainly it will remain much easier to keep hacking away at public services.

This is a shame really, because EDD itself has shown what a little money and a lot of effort can achieve. Jersey Enterprise has helped dozens of entrepreneurs, created many new job opportunities and attracted inward investment. But next year EDD’s budget is being cut and because promises have already been made that tourism will retain its budget, less will therefore be available for Jersey Enterprise.

As a fair chunck of that budget goes on skills development which is, as I say, an essential public service, there’s not much left to help promote any new economic growth plan. That’s unless it’s so wishy, washy that no one really needs to do anything.

The staff at EDD will no doubt continue to produce rabbits from the hat, but their predicament does rather illustrate the importance attached to economic development by the States, ie not very important at all.

In the short term, they are right, of course. Nothing in the new plan will help our current predicament. That would have required some effort going into the old plan some years ago. But that would have needed some long-term thinking, and we don’t do long-term thinking. We’re so very much better at short-term panic.