States Assembly | R-51-2019

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STATES OF JERSEY

STATES GREFFE BUSINESS PLAN 2019

Presented to the States on 7th May 2019 by the Privileges and Procedures Committee

STATES GREFFE

2019 R.51

REPORT

Introduction

This document sets out what we, the States Greffe, do; our specific aims for 2019; our thinking at this stage about our future plans; how the States of Jersey's values apply to us; the risks we face; and the resources at our disposal.

The plan is intended to provide greater clarity, for the Public, States Members, and States staff, about our role and our objectives. It was approved by the Privileges and Procedures Committee in April 2019. In addition, we will shortly be publishing the States Assembly Annual Report for 2018, which includes, amongst other things, an assessment of progress in implementing the commitments we made in 2018.

What is the States Greffe for?

The purpose of the States Greffe is to support parliamentary democracy in Jersey. We do this by –

Supporting the work of the States Assembly and its Committees and Scrutiny Panels (we also provide a secretariat to a number of States bodies, including the Council of Ministers, the States Employment Board and the Jersey Overseas Aid Commission).
Supporting all Members of the Assembly in discharging their parliamentary duties.
Informing and educating the Public about the work of the Assembly and elections to the Assembly.

What do we want to achieve in 2019?

The core business of the Greffe involves supporting the work of the Assembly and its Panels and Committees. There is a regular cycle of meetings of all these bodies, for which documents must be assembled or prepared, distributed, published and archived; and following meetings, there will often be actions arising which Greffe staff must implement. Sittings of the Assembly are supported by staff from across the Greffe – including by producing and distributing the documents which are debated, assisting with the production of the transcript of the meeting ("Hansard") and operating the camera equipment for webcasting.

In addition, we will continue to organise the programme of weekly term-time visits to the States Chamber by schoolchildren in Year 5. We also organise the annual Youth Assembly, in which students from the Island's post-16 schools and college debate topics they propose, and we support the annual Rotary Club peace' debate.

The Greffe also supports a wide range of international activity, including meetings of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians, the annual commemoration of Commonwealth Day, the

Commonwealth Youth Parliament, the Assemblée Parlementaire de la Francophonie, and the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly.

Our aim is to undertake all of this work to a high standard, maintaining and enhancing our reputation for professionalism, integrity and delivery to the often challenging timescales demanded by the political process.

In addition, in 2019 we have the following objectives –

We will assist the Privileges and Procedures Committee in responding to the report of the international mission which observed the 2018 election. We will support the Committee in identifying and addressing the principal barriers to higher election turnout. We will continue to work with the Comité des Connétable s on reform of electoral registration, in particular exploring whether People Directory data can be used to enrol eligible people automatically on the electoral registration. In addition, we will consider how digitising election registers may facilitate the introduction of electronic voting. We will consider how we can increase the diversity of candidates standing for election and provide them with more assistance to stand, which was identified as a priority for the States in the Common Strategic Policy. We will also undertake a review of election costs, following the Assembly's agreement to a proposition on this matter.
We will undertake a project to find out what resources Members need in order to discharge their various responsibilities effectively, and we will identify how those resources can be provided.
We will develop a strategy covering how we help educate the Island's schoolchildren and students about the Island's political system and how the Assembly works, working with the Children, Young People, Education and Skills Department.
We will review the resource requirements for the scrutiny function, with a view to putting in place a more robust staffing structure which better meets the requirements of the Chairmen's Committee. We will continue to provide more digital first' scrutiny output. We will also assist a working party on improving legislative scrutiny to develop a better system for scrutinising proposed Laws and Regulations, taking account of the likely resource requirements of any change.
We will continue to identify and implement modest improvements to our website, and will consider larger-scale improvements for implementation in 2020. We will continue to base improvements to our external communications around the website and our social media output. We will assess how we can use Office 365, once implemented, to improve our business processes.
We will review our e-petitioning facility with a view to identifying any improvements which we can make, and we will do more to inform people who have signed e-petitions about how the issues of concern to them have been debated in the Assembly.
Having undertaken some work to scope out an online guide to how the Assembly works, which will help demystify the Assembly's procedures and explain parliamentary jargon, we will begin publishing sections of the guide.

We will prepare for the re-letting of our contracts for the transcription and webcasting of Assembly, Committee and Panel proceedings; and we will continue to work with our transcription provider on a new template for the production of Hansard, so that Hansard may be published in a more accessible and searchable format.
We will host the British Islands and Mediterranean Regional Conference of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians in September 2019.
We will support the executive committees of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the Assemblée Parlementaire de la Francophonie in delivering their ambitious programmes of work.
We will support the committee organising the commemoration of the centenary of women's suffrage in Jersey in 2019 so that its initiatives are successful. We will also take steps to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the civic unrest in 1769 which led to changes in the Island's governance.
We will continue to work with the Bailiff 's Chambers on improvements to the security of the States Building, and aim at the same time to improve public accessibility. Our aspiration is to open up the Assembly building to the Public more often than is possible at the moment.
We will continue to develop our records and information management so that we are fully compliant with data protection best practice, under the new GDPR regime.

The Greffier of the States and his leadership team will consider how the States Greffe can best be organised to undertake all of these strategic priorities effectively.

The Greffier of the States has line management responsibility for the Principal Legislative Drafter, and they will continue to work together during 2019 to assess ways in which the Greffe and the Legislative Drafting Office can work more closely together, particularly in terms of making better use of new technology.

The Comptroller and Auditor-General is undertaking a review of aspects of the governance of non-ministerial departments. The States Greffe will collaborate fully with this work, and will respond promptly to her recommendations, working alongside the other non-ministerial departments.

Our work responds directly to the needs and requirements of States Members and we will be flexible and, if necessary, take on additional projects as the year goes on, reprioritising existing work accordingly.

Looking ahead

We are beginning work on a number of initiatives which we expect will come to fruition in 2020 or later. These include –

The possibility of Jersey hosting a British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly conference in 2020.

Commemoration in 2021 of constitutional changes in 1771, including the publication of the Code of 1771 (law code) and the decision that the Royal Court could no longer legislate, leaving the States Assembly as the Island's only legislative body.
Responding to the refurbishment of Morier House, the timing of which is currently uncertain.
Broadening our youth engagement work to encompass other groups.
Continuing work on whether and how digital ID could be used to support electronic and online voting.

How do we want to achieve our objectives?

The values of the States of Jersey are integral to the way we work. These are –

Customer focus: we aim to provide timely, relevant, and professional information, advice and support to States Members and the people of Jersey.
Constantly improving: we challenge ourselves to improve the way we work and the services we provide.
Better together: we work effectively every day with colleagues across the States and throughout the Island.
Always respectful: we exist to serve the people of Jersey and are always respectful in our dealings with them.
We deliver: we pride ourselves in delivering high-quality services at pace and getting it right.

Measuring and benchmarking

Parliamentary outcomes can be difficult to measure – if turnout falls at an election, to what extent can that be attributed to the publicity campaign about the election, the quality of candidates, public perceptions about whether the election needs to deliver change, or something as simple as the weather?

However, the website redesign, and our increasing use of online tools, provides us with opportunities to measure how successful our communications are at being read and shared. We have begun to gather data on the reach of our online communications, and we will develop this process further during 2019.

We have used the Jersey Opinions and Lifestyle Survey to gauge public attitudes to the election and politics in Jersey in general, and in 2018 we worked with the executive to commission an opinion poll to help identify barriers to election turnout. We will use this information to develop plans for boosting turnout in 2022.

We informally benchmark our work with other Commonwealth jurisdictions, which is one of the benefits provided by our membership of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and we will continue to develop this in 2019.

Risks

The Greffe's risk register contains the following risks –

Single point of dependency	High reliance on certain individuals who perform key tasks, for whom there may not be adequate cover when they are absent.
Catastrophic loss	A major event (fire, flood, etc.) renders Morier House or the Assembly building unusable or similarly affects a key IT system.
Unauthorised disclosure of sensitive data	Sensitive information (e.g. personal, political, commercial), whether stored electronically or in hard copy, is subject to unauthorised disclosure.
Sudden change in political context	Demands placed on the Greffe change suddenly due to a change in political context.
Change	Loss of morale due to changes in working conditions/ pay, etc./ changes to job roles.
Recruitment and retention	Difficulty in retaining staff and in recruiting people with appropriate skills.
Blurred boundaries between political and managerial roles	Lack of clarity on appropriate decision-making processes.
Information management	Loss of key information or difficulties in locating such information due to problems with information management policy and its implementation.
Safe and healthy working environment	Failure to ensure that the States Greffe is a safe and healthy working environment.
Low political engagement on the Island	Our work, and the Assembly as a whole, is undermined by low political engagement in Jersey.

Risks are regularly monitored by the Greffe's senior leadership team. Resources

As of 1st April 2019 we are a team of 26 people (24.4 full-time equivalents), although we are in the process of recruiting 2 new members of staff.

Our budget for 2019 is £5,111,342, which is a little more than in 2018, as we successfully bid for additional funds for new initiatives such as the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians' Conference we are organising in September. Of this, £2,430,200 is provided to pay States Members' remuneration. Pay and associated costs of Greffe staff amounts to around £1,730,000. This leaves around £950,000 to pay for everything else, from the rent on the States Building to the transcription of Hansard.

States Greffe Business Plan 2019