Elaine Gray is Guernsey’s new President of the Chamber of Commerce, the first woman to hold the position in the organisation’s 212-year history
Elaine’s a partner at law firm Carey Olsen and head of the dispute resolution and employment team, advising on commercial litigation, employment, data protection, competition and trust law and IP matters at local and international level.
She talks to Rosie Allsopp about taking over presidency of Chamber at what’s arguably the most difficult time in its history and for business in living memory.
When Chamber president Elaine Gray and I meet there’s a sense of cautious optimism in Guernsey. The Bailiwick had been free of Covid-19 in the Bailiwick since 30th April, over the summer politicians agreed a financial stimulus package of £250m. with the possibility of further funds to ‘build back better’ and an outline recovery strategy called Revive and Thrive.
Working together
The strategy doesn’t just look at business, but the Chamber of Commerce is working alongside government with the aim of steering it to prudently invest that money into projects that will help the economy flourish and with it, the island’s population.
It’s a sign of a closer partnership between Chamber and the States, which began when the pandemic hit.
“It was a completely unprecedented situation for the States and we do sometimes forget that there wasn’t a rule book or a roadmap. People were writing support schemes that have never been done before,” says Elaine.
Chamber assisted the States Business Support team to support the stricken business community across the various sectors to cope with the sudden shutdown of commerce.
Looking back, it’s easy to forget that this hadn’t been done before but the implications of getting it wrong could have been catastrophic.
“The States Business Support Team hoped that they would get it right but sensibly recognised that there would be times when the support would need to be tweaked. There have been bumps along the way but the support has been really good and we have been really grateful within Chamber to work closely with the States team. Sometimes we’ve been talking to the States people daily, several times a day.”
A roadmap for the future
That relationship will be just as important as the task of creating a detailed Revive and Thrive Strategy gets underway.
As Chief Minister Deputy Gavin St Pier has previously acknowledged, £250m. sounds like an eye-watering sum of money – because it is – but when you look at the sheer size and scale of projects that could be a possibility, it’s a drop in the ocean. Elaine says Chamber has been very much welcomed by government and will feed into the creation and implementation of the strategy.
“At the recent Chamber lunch Gavin St Pier gave us recognition for our support and the data that we provided during lockdown. And that’s what we are there to do, to represent our members and explain to government what their situation is and make sure that hopefully we help government get the right policies to keep the business community and thereby Guernsey alive and thriving.”
Chamber has consulted both at board level and with the heads of its industry sub-groups knowing only too well that the next three months are a crucial period in Guernsey’s recovery. There’s a clear understanding that there’s one chance to get it right from the start.
“We have also changed our structure to make sure that we’re as ready and able as we can be to feed into government’s work as possible. We will come up with the top 10 Chamber priorities that will be the collective view of Chamber.
Competing demands
“Chamber is a broad church with representation from business across all sectors and we are in an ideal place to help government. It is difficult for government, with all of the different demands they face. The one million pounds that would get you X amount of medicine would also let you buy school books, or improve cable access. We understand that there are lots of competing demands and believe it would therefore help government if we convey a really strong clear message about what we think are the key projects for Guernsey plc.”
Guernsey has been more fortunate than most other jurisdictions. While social distancing and other restrictions are still in place in most other places, in mid-June the island moved to Phase 5 of its exit from lockdown, with life pretty much returning to normal for islanders.
The population has seized the idea of helping the local economy recover by eagerly booking staycations, buying local and supporting the hospitality industry. Walking down the High Street in August, or glancing through the windows of local eateries, you see life being back to normal – almost. The will to make it happen is palpable. The phrase “GuernseyTogether” really does mean something.
But it’s also important to remember that the rest of the world is still battling with Covid-19 and the trauma it has caused and that several places which thought they had the virus under control are learning how easily a resurgence can happen.
The virus has wiped out hundreds of thousands of lives, it has caused massive disruption to our way of life, separated families from one another for months on end, shut down schools and overwhelmed health services. There’s still no realistic prospect of a vaccine and winter is coming.
The economic picture is extremely gloomy – doom-laden, even. According to the World Economic Outlook report for June 2020, the global economy is projected at -4.9% this year. The Covid-19 crisis has had a more negative impact on activity in the first half of the year than anticipated and recovery is projected to be slower than earlier forecasts.
Global growth in 2021 is projected at 5.4%, which overall would leave 2021 GDP around 6.5% lower than in the pre-COVID-19 projections of January 2020. It’s not a great picture, whichever way you slice it.
Elaine says careful planning now is crucial to Guernsey’s ability to building back better.
“For us, the critical test for this recovery project is making sure the island gets the most bang for its buck out of the limited recovery funds available. We, and especially government, need to think strategically about the money we spend. If we spend money now, for example, on the IT infrastructure – whether that be cable or 5G – that will be an accelerator for other kinds of growth and recovery. We need to ensure that government has clear strategies from Chamber and knows the action points that we support as key priorities. Then they’ll know that they’ve got the Chamber community behind them to support that work.”
See Friday’s ChannelEye and read Elaine’s vision for helping working parents during her tenure as Chamber President
