I made the following speech at the February 2016 States meeting
Sir, I really don’t understand why this policy letter hasn’t grabbed as much attention over the last few weeks as others. You’d have thought we had lots of other more important matters to consider.
This report has slipped under the radar. However, the truth is that it sets out some really important recommendations that go to the heart of public service reform, providing a joined up service to users. By doing that we can achieve greater value for money. These are the themes that will run through much of what we will be debating over the coming weeks with CYPP, SLAWS in particular.
It is this policy letter that sets the scene and by supporting it we will be able to give impetus to the change that is needed through enabling cross-departmental working and a more efficient service.
At the PAC public hearing a couple of weeks ago, on lessons learnt from the FTP, we questioned the Minister and States Treasurer on the meaning of enabler projects. These really were the projects that wouldn’t not necessarily save money directly but would enable transformational change. It was these rpojects that for various reasons did not really take off.
Now this is an enabler project, something that has the potential to enable transformation.
On p521 of Vol 2 of this Billet on SLAWS, it states;
‘Need for better data systems has long been recognised’.
As part ofhte 2001 States report of the LTC Insurance Fund it was proposed that social services establish a minimum data set system to monitor the need and provision of LTC. This system was never established.
‘Significant progress towards a more person-centred system could be achieved if these data protection issues were addressed in an appropriate way to allow for greater ease of patient data sharing between professionals in approporiate sessions.
I totally agree, which leads me to my real concern over this policy letter and that is the timescale. It states that the programme of work is likely to span approximately 5 years. I’m concerned that, given the history of the implementation of IT projects that this sounds too general and could lead to drift, particularly given the major data protection issues that will need to be resolved.
However, I am supportive in principle and believe that this register is going to be essential if any significant progress is to be made in public service reform.