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5.9 The Deputy of St. Martin of the Minister for Home Affairs regarding the cost of the Metropolitan Police Review of the Haut de la Garenne investigation and of redacting the Wiltshire Report:
Wonder if I will get any answers this time. Will the Minister inform Members of the cost of the Metropolitan Police Review of the Haut de la Garenne investigation, and of redacting the Wiltshire Report, and advise when the rest of that report will be published in line with assurances given in July 2010 and in R.8/2011, and whether the statements made to the Wiltshire Police by the former Chief Officer of the States of Jersey Police will be published?
Senator B.I. Le Marquand (The Minister for Home Affairs):
The answer to the first question is £60,153.38. The answer to the second question, the cost of redacting the Wiltshire Report, I cannot give an accurate figure for this because it has been done in-house by existing States staff members, but the best estimate of the total cost which I can give is approximately £6,600 in terms of staff wages, pensions, et cetera. The answer to the third question is that I am disappointed that we still have not got this final form of the redacted version of the full document. I had meetings with the officer dealing with this not last week but the week before to
deal with one particular specific difficulty. He now tells me that he is hoping that it
will be ready for the week of the States sitting of 1st March, and I am hoping that as well. The answer to the fourth question is that statements made by the former Chief Officer of the States of Jersey Police to the Wiltshire Police will only be published if I have the express consent and agreement of the former Chief Officer of Police, which I do not have, but even then having read these documents I am aware that there would have to be a redaction process to remove the names of non-public facing individuals.
The Deputy of St. Mary :
Can I just a quick question of clarification?
The Bailiff :
No, sorry, it is the Deputy of St. Martin to ask this question. [Interruption] Senator B.I. Le Marquand:
I did not catch that question.
The Bailiff :
What are you asking, Deputy of St. Mary ?
- The Deputy of St. Mary :
I thought I heard £62,000 for the cost of the Wiltshire Report. I cannot believe that is right.
Senator B.I. Le Marquand:
I think the Deputy did not hear the question I was answering. The question I am
answering is the cost of redacting the Wiltshire Report, and I am saying as best we can estimate that in the whole process will be of the order of £6,600.
- The Deputy of St. Martin :
I note that when the initial redaction was carried out it was carried out in July 2010. Can the Minister inform Members how long it took to redact the initial report to have it ready by July last year and why it has now taken some 8 or 9 months to further redact the second copy?
Senator B.I. Le Marquand:
I am afraid I cannot remember precisely how long it took to redact the initial matters because I cannot remember the precise date on which work started on that, but my feeling is it was in the order of about 2 weeks, but I am not sure of that, but of course it was given very, very high priority at that particular time. The officers involved,
particularly the senior ones, are very busy people and I cannot always be asking very
busy people to drop everything else and to give priority to the work of the Home
Affairs Department because they have lots of other things to do.
- Deputy T.M. Pitman:
I hope this is not too wide of the original question. Given the last question to the Chief Minister and the Minister of Home Affairs' answer, does he perhaps agree that with all these mounting costs the best way to avoid these constant groundhog days is perhaps for him to now throw his weight behind that Committee of Inquiry and all these loose ends can be tied-up and we can find out why bone turns into coconut and all that sort of thing, put it to bed?
Senator B.I. Le Marquand:
Well, of course the Deputy of St. Martin has now lodged an amendment suggesting that the Committee of Inquiry be in an entirely different area. Frankly to have a Committee of Inquiry in this area would be a complete waste of public money. I have long said to the Members of this Assembly that whatever they may have thought about the costs of the Wiltshire investigations, bearing in mind that there were 2
separate investigations, at the end of the day they will have provided us with extremely thorough and professional reports in relation to the areas of the management of the historical abuse inquiry in relation to Haut de la Garenne. I still maintain that position, and now to have another report on top almost becomes into a situation of best of 5.
- The Deputy of St. Martin :
Just to add, I do not think my amendment really is seeking what I think Deputy Pitman was alluding to, so maybe rest assured to Members. The Minister said he dealt with this redacting as high priority to get it produced to the States by July 2010. It was also just the time when the Chief Police Officer was retiring, and would the Minister explain to Members why he thought it was so important to get a redacted report to the States just as the Chief Officer was retiring and now take so long to produce the whole report and not indeed seek the assurance from the Chief Officer of Police that his statement could be used, because I am sure if he was asked he would be delighted?
Senator B.I. Le Marquand:
I had a number of different motivations in relation to getting this out in July. Firstly, I had a motivation that the public of the Island of Jersey had been waiting patiently for a very long time to find out what really happened, and I wanted to get that out to them as soon as I could. Secondly, I had the motivation that I wanted to do so before the end of the summer term, as it were, because we were very shortly going to be entering the summer break and I wanted to do it early enough to enable Members to assimilate it so that they could ask me questions, and thirdly, I wanted it to get out before I made the announcement in relation to the fact that the Acting Chief Officer was not going to seek to pursue being the Chief Officer so that it was clear that he had been exonerated by the report, that what he had said previously was correct and fully supported, because otherwise there would no doubt have been all sorts of snide comments and innuendos to the effect that he was cutting and running because there was something in the reports that did not support him. So, I had 3 motivations.