Electoral Commission: appointment of members.

STATES OF JERSEY

ELECTORAL COMMISSION: APPOINTMENT OF MEMBERS

Lodged au Greffe on 12th April 2012

by the Privileges and Procedures Committee

STATES GREFFE

2012   Price code: B  P.39

PROPOSITION

THE STATES are asked to decide whether they are of opinion

to refer to their Act dated 7th March 2012 in which they agreed that the Electoral Commission should be comprised of 3 members of the States, one of whom would be Chairman, together with 3 other persons with appropriate skills and experience who were not members of the States, appointed by the States on the recommendation of the Privileges and Procedures Committee following  a  recruitment  process  overseen  by  the  Jersey  Appointments Commission; and

to  appoint  the  following  persons  as  members  of  the  Electoral Commission in accordance with the decision of the Assembly –

Dr. Jonathan Renouf ;

Professor Edward Sallis, O.B.E.; and Mr. Colin Storm.

PRIVILEGES AND PROCEDURES COMMITTEE

REPORT

The Privileges and Procedures Committee is pleased to present this proposition to the States  in  relation  to  the  membership  of  the  Electoral  Commission. The  selection process  was  undertaken  by  a  panel  under  the  chairmanship  of  Mr.  Alan  Merry, Chairman of the Jersey Appointments Commission, and the Committee is grateful to him and to the other members of the Selection Panel for the very comprehensive process they undertook to recommend the 3 members.

The report of the Selection Panel which gives full details of the process followed and biographies  of  the  nominees  is  attached  at  the  Appendix.  The  Privileges  and Procedures Committee is grateful to all those who applied to join the Commission and particularly grateful to the 3 nominees for offering to serve. The position is a purely honorary one and the Committee is pleased that members of the public have shown a willingness to give up their time to work on the Commission.

Financial and manpower implications

Although  the  States  voted  a  budget  of  £200,000  for  the  work  of  the  Electoral Commission in the Annual Business Plan 2012, the 3 nominees are all serving in an honorary capacity on the Electoral Commission and will only receive reimbursement for expenses. Dr. Renouf is based in the United Kingdom and it will be necessary to refund his travel expenses so that he can attend meetings.

The Commission is being supported by an officer of the States Greffe who will work full-time on Commission work until December; and it has been necessary for the States Greffe to take on a temporary additional member of staff to cover the work normally undertaken by the officer working for the Commission. The overall cost of the Commission's work is nevertheless expected to be significantly less than half of the £200,000 budget allocated.

APPENDIX

ELECTORAL COMMISSION – APPOINTMENT OF MEMBERS

In accordance with the States decision of 7th March 2012, the entire recruitment process was overseen by the Jersey Appointments Commission. Mr. Alan Merry, Chairman  of  that  Commission,  chaired  the  Selection  Panel  and  was  involved throughout  the  process.  The  role  of  the  Appointments  Commission  included  the following –

• To approve –

• The role and the person specification;
• The advertisement, the information pack and media to be used.

• To agree the procedures to be followed and to be involved in the short-listing, interviewing processes and the decisions taken.
• To ensure that all applicants were satisfactorily assessed against the agreed criteria.
• To ensure that the procedures and decisions were fully documented

In a letter to the Chairman of PPC at the conclusion of the process Mr. Merry wrote:

"The Appointments Commission confirms that the recruitment process has met its requirements for the openness of competition, impartiality, equality and selection based on merit".

Mr. Merry  was  joined  on  the  selection  panel  by  Mr. Julian  Rogers  from  the Appointments Commission. The other members were Senator Sir Philip Bailhache , as Chairman  of  the  Electoral  Commission,  and  Senator  Sarah  Ferguson  from  the Privileges and Procedures Committee (the Chairman of PPC was unavailable on the day scheduled for the interview).

An advertisement was placed in the Jersey Gazette for 3 nights (see Annex) and a media release was issued which allowed the recruitment process to be referred to in other media outlets as well.

A total of 25 applications were received by the closing date and an initial short-listing process was undertaken by the Selection Panel. The Panel assessed the candidates against the following requirements –

• Experience of hearing conflicting evidence/views and coming to a reasoned conclusion;
• Experience of working in a team and of working together in a co-operative way to reach a consensus view;
• Experience of being in the public eye and willingness to accept criticism in what will be a highly politically sensitive role;
• Experience that will provide a balance to the political experience already on Electoral Commission through the 3 States members;

• No pre-determined views on the issues being looked at by the Commission;
• Knowledge  of  current  political  structure  in  Jersey  and  history  of  current composition of the Assembly;
• Knowledge  of  electoral  systems  elsewhere  (particularly  in  other  small jurisdictions);
• Understanding of attempts since 2001 to amend composition (e.g. Clothier report and subsequent steps, PPC propositions between 2004 and 2011);
• Understanding of reasons for failure of reform proposals to date;
• Ability  to  understand  and  interpret  statistical  information  (e.g. relative constituency sizes);
• Regular availability between May and December 2012 to attend meetings.

When assessing the 25 applications, the Selection Panel gave particular weight to the need for applicants to have experience in hearing conflicting evidence/views before coming to a reasoned conclusion and to be able to work in a team and come to a consensus view. In addition, candidates were short-listed on the basis that they could provide a balance to the political experience already on the Commission through the 3 States members, and that they had not expressed (in the media or elsewhere) any strong  views  on  the  matters to  be considered by  the  Commission. There  were  a number of candidates who brought extensive knowledge of the political system in Jersey and who had other relevant experience but who were not short-listed because they were not considered to provide the necessary balance to the political members on the Commission.

Nine candidates were short-listed, but unfortunately one was unable to attend for interview. Eight candidates were therefore interviewed by the full Selection Panel on Wednesday 4th April 2012.

Following the interviews, the Selection Panel was unanimous in recommending that Dr. Jonathan   Renouf ,  Professor  Edward  Sallis  and  Mr. Colin  Storm  should  be nominated to serve on the Commission. All 3 nominees showed that they had relevant skills and experience for this work, and the Interview Panel was satisfied that they will, in particular, all be able to approach the work in an objective way with no pre- determined views.

Brief biographies of the 3 nominees are as follows – Dr. Jonathan Renouf

Dr. Renouf  was  educated  at  Hautlieu  before  studying  geography  at  Durham University. After graduating with a BSc, he went on to study for a PhD at Durham and undertook research on the history and politics of the Durham Miners' Union from a geographical perspective. Since 1989, Dr. Renouf has worked for the BBC working on Newsnight and as a Producer for Tomorrow's World and Horizon. He was Series Producer from 2005 to 2010 for a number of BAFTA-nominated and award-winning

programmes, and has recently worked as Executive Producer on the series Wonders of the Universe' and Orbit – the Earth's Extraordinary Journey'. Dr. Renouf brings a range  of  analytical  skills  and  knowledge  of  political  systems  from  his  research background and his professional career and, although he was educated in Jersey and has been interested in Island politics since his teenage years he will, as a UK resident, bring an outside perspective to the work of the Commission.

Professor Edward Sallis

Professor Sallis was Deputy Principal of the City of Bristol College from 1989 to 1997 when he was appointed as Principal of Highlands College, a position he will be retiring from this summer. As Principal, he has overseen a doubling of full-time student numbers at the College and a significant increase in its reputation with the establishment of a University Centre and the achievement of Partner College status with Plymouth University. He has recently worked with Jersey Finance, the Jersey Bankers' Association and Plymouth University to establish an on-Island financial services degree, and he has also contributed to the work of Skills Jersey to assist young people who might otherwise be unemployed. He was responsible for Jersey's first British-Irish Council knowledge economy project on bridging the digital divide, and also chaired the strategic review of 14 to 19 education in Portsmouth and South- East Hampshire for the Learning and Skills Council. He has been Vice-Chairman of the Institute for Learning (the further education lecturers' professional body) and has recently attended meetings with senior UK politicians of all parties in this capacity. He has always taken a strong interest in Island life and is a Trustee of the Jersey Heritage Trust.

Mr. Colin Storm

Mr. Storm was born in Jersey and educated at Victoria College. He is a graduate member of the Institute of Personnel Management and Development. His career at Guinness began as an under-brewer, responsible for the brewing process and labour supervision on shift, but he moved into personnel management in the company and rose to the position of Personnel Director for Guinness Great Britain in 1984 before being appointed as Personnel Director of Guinness Brewing Worldwide in August 1985, a position he held until June 1990. In July 1990 he was appointed as Managing Director of Guinness International with responsibility for some 130 countries and 50 overseas  breweries,  before  being  appointed  as Managing  Director  of  Guinness Ireland Group in July 1992. In July 1997 he became Managing Director of Guinness Great Britain, before being appointed as overall Chief Executive of Guinness Ltd. in February 1998, a position he held until July 2000. In this role he was responsible for restructuring  worldwide  operations  with  the  objective  of  reducing  layers  of management and simplifying reporting. In August 2000 he was appointed as Chief Executive of the Burger King Corporation, Miami, a role that was initially for 2 to 3 months until an American Chief Executive could be appointed, but one that was eventually  extended  until  April  2001.  Although  Mr. Storm's  professional  life  has always been outside Jersey, he has always retained a house in Jersey and visited friends and family in the Island regularly. He is now retired and has moved back to Jersey permanently.

ANNEX

Advertisement placed in JEP on 12th, 13th and 14th March 2012

ELECTORAL COMMISSION

APPOINTMENT OF MEMBERS

The States of Jersey have agreed to establish an Electoral Commission to examine the present composition of the States Assembly and to make recommendations for change which will in due course be submitted to the public in a referendum.

The  Electoral  Commission  is  required  by  its  terms  of  reference  to  consider  the following areas –

• Classes of States member;
• Constituencies and mandates;
• Number of States members;
• Terms of office,

and all other issues arising in the course of the work of the Commission which are relevant to the needs stated above.

The Commission will be comprised of 3 members of the States, one of whom shall be its Chairman, together with 3 other persons who are not members of the States. On 7th March 2012 the States appointed Senator Sir Philip Bailhache as Chairman of the Commission and Connétable Juliette Gallichan of St. Mary and Deputy James Baker of St. Helier as members.

Applications are now invited for the remaining 3 positions on the Commission from persons who consider that they have appropriate skills and experience for this work. Those applying for the positions will need to show that they will approach the work in a totally objective way with no pre-determined views on the issues to be considered by the Commission.

The  Commission is  required  to  complete  its  work  by  December  2012  and while candidates will need to be available to attend regular meetings and public hearings between May and December 2012 they need not necessarily be Island residents. The position is offered on a purely honorary basis although any reasonable expenses such as travel costs that arise directly from work on the Commission will be refunded.

Applications should be sent to the Greffier of the States, States Greffe, Morier House, St. Helier , Jersey, JE1 1DD (or by e-mail to m.delahaye@gov.je) no later than Friday 23rd March 2012. Applicants should submit a CV or set out their personal details in their letter of application and should specify any relevant skills and experience.

An information sheet giving further details about the work of the Commission is available from the States Assembly Information Centre, Morier House or on request from the Greffier of the States on 441003 or by e-mail to m.delahaye@gov.je. The information sheet can also be viewed in the What's New' section on the home page of the States Assembly website www.statesassembly.gov.je.