Letter - CEO to PAC - Quarterly Hearing Follow Up - 5 November 2025

19-21 Broad Street St Helier

Jersey JE2 3RR

Deputy I Gardiner

Chair of Public Accounts Committee

Via Email

5th November 2024

Dear Deputy Gardiner

Follow-up matters from the Public Hearing on 25th September 2024

Thank you for your letter dated 8th October 2024. As requested, please find to follow the responses to the questions raised by the Public Accounts Committee for consideration.

1. Can you please provide the PAC the detailed customer feedback report as mentioned during the hearing.

This report has been provided to the Committee.

2. Can you please outline to the PAC how customers can complain about government services for those who are not online or where English is not their first language?

Feedback is encouraged from customers in any way that suits them, and our communications promote all options. This includes registering a complaint in person in any Government building, on the telephone or in writing.

If a customer does not have English as their first language, they can communicate in the language they prefer and thebigword Interpreting Service is available to support customers and colleagues for both phone calls and in person. For customers that communicate with BSL, Signvideo is available.

Online at gov.je, customers can use the translation facility to change the webpage into their preferred language.  

3. What outreach work has been done to highlight the complaints process to different community groups, including those who do not have English as a first language?

The Head of Customer Experience is a member of three Cluster groups (focussed on children, learning disability and equality, diversity and inclusion). The Cluster groups are a collection of community, charity and government representatives with an interest in the focus area. Regular attendance at the meetings means that the complaints process is continually promoted, and members/organisations have a direct link into the Customer Experience team for support if needed. These cluster groups are representative of seldom heard groups and therefore a valuable point of contact to outreach to different community groups in a way that best works for them. In addition, the Customer Experience team attend all Closer to Home events to educate/promote islanders on how to provide feedback which has also given individuals the opportunity to provide feedback at these events if necessary.

As part of the communications plan for customer feedback, we target different community groups by promoting in the JEP, on the radio and at the bus station. Posters, business cards and pop-up banners across various sites include a translation into Portuguese, Polish and Romanian for the How did we do?' feedback campaign.

Procurement  

1. We note from the PFM Accountable Officers should take into account the sustainable wellbeing (including the economic, social, environmental and cultural well-being) of the inhabitants of Jersey over successive generations when making expenditure and procurement decisions. Can you advise the PAC how you are meeting these requirements of the PFM and where these are being reported and if not why, not?

For strategic procurement activity, procurement strategies that document the golden thread' from the objectives of approved Government Plans to the proposed activity are required. Given that under the Public Finances (Jersey) Law 2019, the Council of Ministers must consider the sustainable well-being of Jersey in preparing a government plan, the procurement strategy process provides assurance to Accountable Officers that sustainable well-being has been taken into account in making such procurement decisions. In addition, social value is scored as part of the tender process.

2. Please can the PAC be provided with the policies and procedures regarding procurement used by the Commercial Services team ahead of the planned briefing on 16th October 2024.

Procurement policies and procedures can be found in Public Finances Manual (gov.je) (which is a public document) and on the Commercial Services intranet page. The Panel and Committee Officers have been provided access to this page.

3. Please can the PAC be provided, in confidence, with all approved contractors lists that can be used for engagements under £25,000.

There is no approved contractor list for engagements for under £25,000. Where spend for goods and services is less than £25,000 and there is no corporate contract in place and departments can contract / place orders in accordance with Sourcing Routes 1 and2 obtaining at least 1 quotation.

4. Please can the PAC be provided with, once it is finalised, the top 100 suppliers report and a breakdown of the number of suppliers per category within the SAP system?

The report will be presented to the Assembly. I will ensure that the Committee is made aware when it is published.

5. Can you advise the PAC what specific metrics or figures does the government use to track and assess whether the inclusion of social value in procurement has had a measurable positive impact on small local businesses?

The government does not specifically track metrics regarding social value. However, social value is used to score tenders during procurement and contracts are managed to ensure that commitments are followed through. Procurement Guidelines provide that a 10% weighting is applied in the evaluation process.

6. It was mentioned in the Assembly on the 10th September that reports covering the top 100 suppliers for 2020, 2021, and 2022 have been published, with 2023 data expected soon. Could you clarify whether this data will include information on the social value contributions of these suppliers, and if not, are there plans to include such details in future reports?

This report will not include information on social value and there are no plans to include it in future reports.

7. It was mentioned by the Minister for Treasury and Resources in the Assembly on the 10th September in relation to putting Jersey businesses first (p.56/2020) that social value is now weighted at 10 percent in tender processes. Can you provide more data or specific examples showing how this weighting has benefited small local businesses, particularly in comparison to previous tender processes?

During the implementation of Connect/Ariba, Deloitte partnered with a local firm to upskill the organisation's people in ongoing maintenance and support of SAP systems. This partnership has built up a knowledge base that did not previously exist on-island and is likely to mean that there will be ongoing local expenditure (by both GoJ and other organisations using SAP) in the maintenance and support of SAP systems. This will mean more money remaining in the Jersey economy.

Another example relates to the Opera House restoration. As part of the procurement process the contractor engaged in the work committed to train apprentices in various trades, leaving a legacy of skills in local the labour market.

8. The Minister mentioned that the Public Finances Manual (PFM) that the expenditure and procurement section of the Manual, as well as more detailed procurement procedures, have been updated on a number of occasions". Are you able to advise the PAC on the updates to the procurement procedures and manual and if there are any plans to update these further?

There have been several iterative changes to the procurement section of the PFM over past years. However, it would be impractical to describe all of these in detail in this letter. As is required by the Public Finances Law, the Committee are notified whenever changes are made. Additionally, a change log can be found at the top of the online Manual.

9. What encouragement is there in Government to take forward fair trade products within the procurement process?

A catalogue of Fair-Trade products is available on the Commercial Services web site. Risk

10. As mentioned in the hearing are you able to provide the PAC with an update on recommendation 5 of the Critical Infrastructure Resilience – Energy report "Undertake a thorough and urgent review of the emergency planning arrangements for the La Collette site including contributions from all stakeholders and using expert input" and why this has not been addressed sooner?

The current emergency planning arrangements remain valid for La Collette. However, it is recognised that the emergency response plan is due to be reviewed by the end of 2024.  The review work is aligned with the establishment of a Jersey Resilience Forum (JRF) working group to ensure that all stakeholders can contribute to emergency response arrangements going forward.

11. Key Finding number 20 in the Critical Infrastructure Resilience – Energy report "urgent action is required to put in place a robust Community Risk Register including energy infrastructure risks owned and managed by the Government and individual suppliers" are you able to advise the PAC if this has been addressed?

The Community Risk Register has been developed, with the focus on assessment of emergency risks. The register has now been renamed the Jersey Emergency Risk Register (JERR). A JRF Emergency Risk Working Group has been established consisting of lead risk assessors from within the JRF (including CNI energy sector). National Security Risk Assessment (2022) risks have been assessed as part of Phase 1 and Version 1.0 of the JERR (Not public facing) has been released. Phase 2 considers additional local risks. These have been identified. All risks are under constant review as part of Emergency Planning activity. This has been achieved with the support of additional temporary support for Emergency Planning, and now ensures that a dedicated role has been assigned to focus on risk assessment. The JERR is OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE with restricted access. Phase 3 will focus on creating a public-facing version for wider circulation. Phase 3 will be completed by the end Q1 2025.

12. The Committee welcomes the changes to the executive response template which now adopts a risk-based approach in respect of implementation. How are you, as CEO ensuring this "risk based" approach is embedded across the various departments and your direct reports?

Colleagues in Treasury and Exchequer are leading on embedding the changes to how we approach responding to reviews by the C&AG and PAC. They are undertaking a programme of engagement with departmental SLTs, as wells as a small working group of business leads. Colleagues have also initiated a workstream to review the tracker system and to improve the management information outputs to provide early warning of any emerging governance themes across the organisation, as part of our wider risk management framework. I use the reports in their current format as part of the Chief Officer performance appraisal process. Improved information will support me to further explore any issues arising in this area.

Tracker  

13. The PAC notes that the number of open recommendations within HCS has decreased by 8% from 21% to 13% between Q1 and Q2 2024. Can you inform the PAC how many recommendations does this relate to in total that have been closed in that time?

The Q2 report shared with the Committee describes that 12 recommendations were closed by HCS between Q1 and Q2 2024. Almost half of these were in relation to the C&AG report on Learning from Previous Hospital Projects – a Follow Up Review: at the time that the Executive Response was issued these recommendations were reported as having been implemented as part of BAU activity, but not closed in the Tracker. These have been recorded as closed during Q2 2024, hence the PAC's observation.

14. Please can you inform the PAC if the Long-Term Care Fund recommendation 15 (tracker number 1751) features on the Corporate Risk Register?

This risk is recorded on the long-term care project risk register. The normal corporate process, in line with the published risk strategy, would apply to escalate such a risk.

I hope this information addresses the questions put forward by the Committee. Yours sincerely

Andrew McLaughlin

Chief Executive and Head of the Public Service

D +44 (0)1534 440129

E andrew.mclaughlin@gov.je