Not what it says on the tin.

One of the 'features' of our system of government in Jersey is that it is small, flexible, agile. That was the mantra we heard when justifying cutting the number of senators from 12 to 8. No matter that in the opinion polls a few years earlier retaining the Island wide mandate was the most popular option. Notably, least popular– moving to a single election day -was the one that the States implemented. Anyway last Thursday George Osborne presented the UK government budget in parliament. The election had been on May the 7^th. We had or elections on October 15^th 2014, but still we do not have the medium term plan – in effect our financial plans? Where is the agile, efficient decision making there?

I was intrigued to read that an “acute shortage” of staff for mid-level positions in finance companies means that ministers have to drop restrictions on bringing in staff from overseas. One wonders where those former mid-level staff who were previously employed have gone. It also somewhat undermines the case for the new Finance Centre. If finance companies have not invested in training up staff it suggests they do not see a particularly bright future. Are we to expect the Finance Centre is to be filled by incoming companies and staff? The main rationale for the J-cat system was to ensure we have trained up locals to do exactly these roles. It seems that failed and the new employment and housing set up is no better. No wonder then the Planning and Environment Minister is calling for more empty offices to be turned into flats.

http://www.bailiwickexpress.com/jsy/news/lack-staff-holding-back-finance-recovery/

http://www.channel103.com/news/index.php?storyid=41851&s=11 empty offices should be converted to flats.

If you are inclined you can download the minutes of States sittings from the web site at http://www.statesassembly.gov.je/Pages/Hansard.aspx If you take the pdf download option you can then search it for items. In this case I did for the sitting of the 23^rd June. In 80 pages there is not a single mention of climate change, pollution, the WHO news that glyphosate if likely a carcinogen, fishing, farming, food. Even the word quality only gets one mention in reference to low-quality schools, and environment only appears as part of Planning and Environment Minister title. There are pages on car parks however.

Pressing ahead with waterfront developments planning for more people, where to put more cars and even a sunken road while the latest news, from 2 different teams is that we are pretty much guaranteed 10 feet of sea level rise. All is suborned to the short term growth addiction. Getting it strategically wrong and doing so in the most inefficient manner conceivable. It makes you weep

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/10-feet-of-global-sea-level-rise-now-inevitable