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Chairmen's Committee
Record of Meeting
Date: 10th January 2012 Meeting No: 4
Present | Deputy S.G. Luce , Vice-President Senator S.C. Ferguson Deputy J.M. Maçon Deputy J.H. Young Deputy K.L. Moore |
Apologies | Deputy T.A. Vallois, President, ill |
Absent |
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In attendance | For items 2 – 6 inclusive: Connétable of St. John Connétable of St. Martin Deputy Power Deputy Hilton Deputy Reed Mrs. K. Tremellen-Frost, Scrutiny Manager [all items] |
Ref Back | Agenda matter | Action |
| 1. Minutes of previous meeting The minutes of 12th and 19th December 2012 were approved and signed. The minutes of the Part B meetings of 12th December 2011 and 4th January 2012, having been approved, were accordingly signed. |
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12.12.11 Item 11 510/1(63) | 2. Presentation on Scrutiny to all States Members The meeting received a briefing on the draft Scrutiny presentation to be given to all States Members on 20th January 2012 at St. Paul's Centre with a sandwich lunch being available from 12.15pm. The presentation, subject to some amendments, was approved by those present. | KTF |
12.12.11 Item 20 510/1(64) | 3. Blackberries for Scrutiny Members The meeting considered the previous decision of the Chairmen's Committee that all Scrutiny Members who wanted one should be provided with a Blackberry using Scrutiny funds. However, following some concerns expressed by a number of Scrutiny Members, the meeting agreed that, should any Scrutiny Members want a Blackberry they should pay for their own rather than use public funds. Deputy Maçon requested that his dissent from this decision was recorded. |
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12.12.11 Item 5 | 4. Filming of Scrutiny Hearings Given the Committee's previous decision to hold all Scrutiny meetings |
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510/1(46) | in private, the meeting considered standardised procedures for filming Scrutiny Hearings. It recalled that a focus group was considering the feasibility of webstreaming but in the interim agreed that:-
Senator Ferguson and Deputy Maçon requested that their dissent from a) and b) above recorded. |
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510/1(45) | 5. Inclusive Scrutiny meetings The meeting considered the value of holding quarterly Scrutiny meetings for all Scrutiny Members to discuss Scrutiny policy. This had been agreed at the training days in December 2011 and it was agreed that these meetings should be scheduled during States lunch times. In order to provide some structure, these meeting would be meetings of the Chairmen's Committee to which all members would be invited and consequently an agenda would be prepared and a record of the meetings taken. | KTF |
510/1(65) | 6. Media statements The meeting noted that the Code of Practice for Scrutiny Panels and the PAC stipulated that responsibility for communication with the media rested with the Panel Chairmen, or could be delegated as appropriate ie: to Sub-Panel Chairmen. It was also noted that the same applied to general Scrutiny matters when the responsibility rested with the President of the Chairmen's Committee, or was delegated to the Vice-President in the absence of the President. It was agreed that if contacted by the media in respect of general Scrutiny matters, Members should refer the media to the President. All Scrutiny Members who were not Chairmen withdrew from the meeting at this point. |
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| 7. Panel Activity Reports These were noted |
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516/31 | 8. Draft SoJ Police Law 201- (Ed/HA Panel) The Committee noted the scoping document for a review into the Draft States of Jersey Police Law 201-. It was also noted that the Panel had currently commissioned an adviser who had undertaken work |
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| previously for Scrutiny on this matter who would assess whether the legislation was fit for purpose. The Committee welcomed this piece of work. The Committee also noted that, in order not to delay the debate, the Panel would be likely to produce Comments rather than a full Scrutiny Report, however, the Panel may decide that further work needed to be undertaken. |
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| 9. Cross-cutting review topics [Sub-Panels] The Committee considered some cross-cutting subjects namely; Youth "Un"employment, Medium Term Financial Plan, Property and Land Use, Economic Growth Strategy and Skills Strategy. It agreed that a central list should be maintained of these larger issues. It was noted that the majority of Panels were starting with "small" Panel based reviews and would consider bigger cross-Panel reviews at a later stage. |
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516/31 | 10. Conflicts of interest: Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel The Committee noted that the two Connétable s on the Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel might be conflicted in terms of scrutinising arrangements for oversight of the Honorary Police. However, the Honorary Police were not included in the Draft States of Jersey Police Law 201- but the Connétable s' position with regard to the Police Authority will be reviewed at a later time. |
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465/1 (176) | 11. Local media standards: former Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Sub-Panel recommendation The Committee gave lengthy consideration to a recommendation of a Sub-Panel of the former Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel that a broadly-based Scrutiny Panel should be established to examine the issues regarding local news coverage encountered during the Sub-Panel's review. The Committee received and considered a report on this and on how the Sub-Panel's recommendation might be taken forward to a broader review of media standards in Jersey. It agreed that such broad matters did not fall within the remit of any of the individual Panels and therefore was outside all Panels' remit. It also noted that Scrutiny did not have the powers to establish such groups. With specific regard to the media, the Committee noted that there was an established route for complaints. Finally it considered the process it would need to undertake to permit Scrutiny to establish broad areas of review which fell outside the Scrutiny remit and agreed that as it currently had a large amount of work on its portfolio, it was not minded to pursue this. The former Sub-Panel Chairman would be contacted about this matter. | TV/KTF |
12.12.11 Item 27 510/1(3) | 12. House of Commons – visit by Panels/PAC These were being organised by individual Scrutiny Officers on behalf of Panels. It was noted that it had been suggested that one or two Panels should combine given the overlap of membership between some Panels. It was agreed that the Scrutiny Office would proceed with the organisation of arrangements. | Scrutiny Office |
12.12.11 Item 27 | 13. Training provision The Committee was advised of complications in identifying suitable |
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510/1(3) | training providers in Chairing Skills in the political environment at a reasonable cost. It was agreed that training in Questioning Skills was more important than in Chairing and agreed that Chairing training should not be pursued. |
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| 14. Meeting dates of Chairmen's Committee - clash with Planning Applications Sub-Panel meeting dates Having noted that a suggestion to move the Planning Application Sub- Panel dates would bring about a clash with some Chairmen's Committee meeting dates affecting Deputy Maçon, it was noted that the Deputy would be sending apologies to Planning in order to attend the Chairmen's Committee meetings. |
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510/1(66) | 15. Numbers of witnesses attending on Panels The Committee considered previous practices in respect of the numbers of Officials that Ministers brought with them to attend on Panels at the table for Review hearings. The Committee also considered that Panels should be determining who appears as witnesses with a right to speak and agreed to a paper for the next Committee meeting. |
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| 16. Ministerial Responses These had been received on Protecting the Marine Environment and the Issues surrounding the financial management of Operation Rectangle. |
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