States boss vows to restore public trust

Guernsey's top civil servant has said he has a lot of work to do to rebuild trust in the island's government.

It comes after Policy and Resources Vice-President Gavin St Pier described £42m of States IT projects as an "unconscionable waste of public money" .

Boley Smillie, chief executive of the States, will lead a review of how projects within the government were managed after he said technology transformation had "failed on multiple occasions over many years".

Scrutiny member Deputy Haley Camp said she was not convinced the review would lead to any real action, while Deputy Mark Helyar called for accountability from civil servants.

Mr Smillie said: "This has cost us at least £42m looking back on projects which have been admitted have not delivered anywhere near what the States wanted.

"I think the worst example of it all is the original MyGov project which ran from about 2019 to 2023 - it cost £18m and my stark assessment is that we've achieved very little if nothing from that scale of investment."

Mr Smillie said rebuilding public trust would "not happen in 24 hours".

"It will take time, but it's a personal commitment I can give to the community that we will be completely transparent in [the] way that we're going about it and there will be answers to those very simple questions that people will want to hear," he said.

The top civil servant said although he was critical of IT projects he praised frontline staff.

"They're doing a really good job, it is constantly secondary to these big transformation projects that have failed to deliver," he said.

"We have some excellent public service servants across the front line of the States of Guernsey and the wider public service... the vast majority are doing an excellent job, but with one arm tied behind their back."

Deputy St Pier said projects across the last five years had "frankly been a disaster".

"We are determined that there should be accountability and there should be openness and transparency not only with States members but with the public," he said.

"The public have an absolute right to know what on earth has gone on here - I think it was described as a shock and it is shocking for everybody to hear and I think people will understandably be both frustrated and also angered as well.

"It's simply unforgivable."

He said the States would work hard to "rebuild trust and confidence".

"IT projects everywhere both in government and outside government are notoriously challenging to deliver on time and on budget, however, that is absolutely no excuse," he said.

"The public have a right to expect higher standards and the States have clearly failed to deliver that over the last four or five years."

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