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19th November 2013
3.9 Deputy J.M. Maçon of the Minister for Education, Sport and Culture regarding an internal review into the starting pistol incident at a secondary school:
When will the internal review into a serious incident at Le Rocquier school involving a starting pistol be completed and what access, if any, will States Members have to this report?
The Deputy of St. John (The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture):
This is now the seventh question relating to the incident and the answers remain the same. The review, as the Deputy says in his question, is internal which means that it will not be released. It contains confidential information relating to individual staff and students and therefore will not be made public. With regard to when the internal reviews will be completed, the internal reviews have now been completed. However, I would refer the Deputy to an answer to written question 10, which gives a lot of detail as to the total of 5 investigations into the incident.
- Deputy J.M. Maçon:
Can the Minister please outline what the findings of that review were and what action will be ongoing from those findings?
The Deputy of St. John :
The review is internal which means that it will not be released and I will not be talking about it in public. Most of the actions have been carried out from the review. There are a few still to come.
- Deputy T.M. Pitman:
Is the Minister still open to his offer that I can meet with his Director, and be informed of this in confidence? All these details so far have left some of us feeling not quite satisfied.
The Deputy of St. John :
I am certainly committed to discussing any policies that might flow out of this but it is policies that we are concerned with. As far as the details of the review are concerned, they are internal and they are not for general publication. The scrutiny process, of course, is also there to review any policies or procedures that need to be carried out.
- Deputy T.M. Pitman:
Supplementary, please. The Minister did offer that I could meet his Director. What has changed about that? We had both agreed that it was to be in confidence and not for publication. That is not in issue here. Is that offer now closed from what I am hearing?
The Deputy of St. John :
I will just repeat the answers I made. This is an internal review. We have taken this The Bailiff :
I think the question is whether you have changed your mind from what you said to Deputy Pitman previously.
The Deputy of St. John :
My understanding of what I said to Deputy Pitman previously was that we would certainly be able to discuss any policy changes or details which might have come out of that inspection but there are things which are of a confidential nature and I am directed by 2 laws. One of them is data protection and the other is the Code of Practice on public access to information. There is nothing really here that we need to do other than to move on. The school, the staff, and most importantly, the family involved now need to be
The Bailiff :
It was a limited question, Minister, so please
The Deputy of St. John :
Sorry, Sir, I am going to continue, the family involved now need to be free to move on. The Bailiff :
Minister, I have said you have answered long enough on that one. Are there any other questions? Then, Deputy Maçon, do you wish a final question?
- Deputy J.M. Maçon:
While it is very difficult to analyse what the policy changes might be without knowing what the findings are of that particular report, can the Minister please outline what policy changes are going to occur from this incident going forward?
The Deputy of St. John :
Again, I would refer the Deputy to the written answer. The question of health and safety policies in the school are going to be reviewed by an independent health and safety adviser. There may be changes of policy there. That will be provided specifically for the school governors and there is also a Health and Safety Inspectorate review perhaps which will inform the Law Officers of the incident and if there are any legal requirements under the Health and Safety at Work (Jersey) Law 1989 that are relevant. Disclosure of information, I am afraid though, is restricted under that law. A copy of their report will be forwarded to the Attorney General. I cannot really add any more.