Charlie gets his quallies?

The SOJ gravy train continues, full steam ahead.

According to a report in today's rag (July 27th), our old friend, SOJ Chief Executive Charlie "my way or the highway" Parker, was given full "entitled" residential status by the previous government as a condition of his contract before he took up residence in Jersey. Because apparently, a £250,000 yearly salary and practically dictatorial control over government departments wasn't enough!

"How did this happen?" you ask. "I thought you had to live in the island for ten years to get your quallies!". Ordinarily, that's the way things work - if you've only lived in Jersey for seven months, like Parker, you'd only qualify for "registered" status, the lowest status. Since Parker is a senior civil servant, ordinarily he would be given "licensed" status - better than "registered", but still with a whole host of restrictions. Crucially, "licensed" status goes hand in hand with remaining an "essential employee" - if you get sacked or leave your job, you're back to square one. However - and I didn't know this until today - a sub-clause in the law that established these categories allows the government to grant quallies to individuals in "exceptional circumstances". What "exceptional circumstances" were used to justify treating someone who at the end of the day is just another civil servant to a status everyone else has to either be born into or earn - and then keeping this whole thing on the down-low until local hacks exposed it? According to former senator and ex-Assistant Chief Minister Paul Routier's report on the case, it was the "quality of Mr Parker as a candidate" and the "consistency of his track record in delivering change" that convinced the previous government to bend to Parker's demand for quallies - apparently, the massive insult that would send to the thousands of hardworking islanders without quallies, or the fact that Parker was already set to be paid hundreds of thousands every year, or just the oversized ego that demanding something as coveted as quallies, the moment he stepped off the boat, shows, weren't considered.

Who on earth does he think he is?

Ignoring the fact that Parker has so far been a decidedly low-quality, ineffective Chief Executive, failing repeatedly in his attempts to face down public sector unions, the fact that Parker made those sorts of demands - and the fact that the government bent to them - is frankly outrageous and insulting. Whatever yarn Parker's spokesmen spin about Parker "being here for the long term" and his "commitment" to disempowering our elected representatives and trashing the civil service "delivering a modern, one-government public service", any idiot can see Parker's real motivations for demanding quallies. As we all know, Jersey is a tax haven. Residency here comes with a much lower tax rate than in the UK, so if you're able to move your pension to the Channel Islands, you get to keep a lot more of the cash - at the expense of the UK taxpayer, obviously. Armed with his quallies, not only can Parker buy, sell and lease any property, but will also have full residency here in Jersey forever, tax benefits and all. Parker is 57, and given the sort of salaries he's been living on, both in his previous jobs and in this one, we can assume he's a very rich man - retirement is only a decade away. Once Parker has finished his crusade against the last vestiges of democracy Jersey has left "silo mentality" and "disjointed government", he'll be able to quietly retire here, and the UK taxman can kiss goodbye to ever getting anything back from him. Even better, the details of this cosy little deal were never actually revealed to the public, which is why we're finding out via the front page of the JEP, several months after the deal was closed. Trebles all round! Transparency in government? My arse.

I've commented before on how repulsive I find the gravy train that the States' top managers have all jumped on. It's not just Parker - his four pet sycophants (Stephen "oh yeah!" Hardwick, Jacquie McGeachie, Camilla Black and Anna Daroy) have been treated perhaps even more outrageously well than Parker. While Black and Daroy remain in consultancy positions earning £1300+ a day, Hardwick and McGeachie are in official positions earning significantly upwards of £100K/year (their salaries haven't yet been publicly revealed, but since they're set to appear in the SOJ 2018 accounts published next year, we know they're on upwards of £100K). Are this lot really worth it? Was no-one local good enough? Why on earth do we need to pay anyone such a ridiculous sum?

It's sickening, and this current story makes it all the more. Whatever inflated view of himself he has, Parker is supposed to be a public servant, not a robber baron. The gravy train shows no signs of slowing, and none of us know where it ends.

Is this really the kind of civil service we want?