“We’ve made mistakes on communication but we’re taking on the tough decisions” – Gorst

Tuesday 09 February 2016

Ministers have made mistakes over their communication and PR in the last year, according to Chief Minister Ian Gorst.

But he says that although some of the negative headlines are down to mistakes – but some are down to the fact that the Council of Ministers is taking on difficult decisions.

After months of headlines dominated by the controversial Esplanade development, a budget that hit pensioners and now the row over the site of the new hospital, there’s no sign of thing getting better with unions poised for a major confrontation on pay and plans for a £45 million health charge and a £10 million waste tax expected by July.

Senator Gorst said: “Perhaps over the last 12 months we could have handled things better but I think governments around the world complain about the media and PR.

“We actually – contrary to what people think – do not spend very much money on communication or public relations, and sometimes that is why we do not get our message across as well as we might, and sometimes we have got things to do which are difficult.

“We are rearranging and rethinking how we communicate with the public.

“There are lots of good things happening that government is providing, services that people want and appreciate. You only need to look at the Jersey Annual Social Survey to see that, but there is no connection between that perception of good service and government.

“When there is a good news story, we don’t make the most of it.”

Senator Gorst declined to give examples of areas where he thought that poor communication had resulted in problems – but defended the Council of Ministers for taking on difficult decisions instead of just ducking them to avoid negative headlines.

He said: “We have got some difficult decisions to make. We have got to deal with preparing ourselves further for ageing demographics, we need a new modern hospital – that is absolutely clear and picking a site and thinking about those issues is always going to be controversial.

“Making sure that we are paying enough for health is controversial. We need to make sure that health is sufficiently funded because you look elsewhere where it’s not, we don’t want to get to that place.”