States Assembly Annual Report 2020
16 July 2021
The States Assembly's 2020 Annual Report has been published by the Privileges and Procedures Committee (PPC). The report outlines what the States Assembly (including Scrutiny), the States Greffe and the Legislative Drafting Office delivered during 2020.
Noteworthy points include the States Assembly:
- Being the first Commonwealth jurisdiction to move its proceedings entirely online
- Meeting for a total of 334 hours, almost 144 more hours than in 2019
- Adopting the Covid-19 (Enabling Provisions) Law, which allowed the Assembly and the Government to introduce timely, emergency legislation to manage the effects of Covid-19
- Inclusion of Jersey in the UK and EU's post-Brexit Trade and Cooperation Agreement
- Selecting Overdale as the site of Jersey's new hospital
- Approving PPC's proposed electoral reform
Throughout 2020, Scrutiny Panels and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) continued holding the Government to account. Significant work carried out by Scrutiny during 2020 included the publication of reports examining:
- The proposed Jersey Care Model
- Government's Covid-19 response
- The site selection of the Future Hospital
- The move of Prior Year taxpayers onto a Current Year Basis.
In 2020 the States Greffe's new Digital and Public Engagement team organised Jersey's first Democracy Week and the Legislative Drafting Office drafted over 100 pieces of secondary legislation related to Covid-19.
Deputy Carina Alves, Chair of the Privileges and Procedures Committee, said "The Assembly can be proud of how it tackled the challenges of 2020 and ensured that Jersey was able to determine its own response to Covid-19, decided democratically and with ministers' decisions subject to robust questioning and challenge. 2020 was a test of the resilience of Jersey's democratic system, one which I am pleased to be able to say that we passed."
