This content has been automatically generated from the original PDF and some formatting may have been lost. Let us know if you find any major problems.
Text in this format is not official and should not be relied upon to extract citations or propose amendments. Please see the PDF for the official version of the document.
Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel Quarterly Hearing with the Chief Minister
THURSDAY, 10th OCTOBER 2013
Panel:
Senator S.C. Ferguson (Chairman) Deputy R.J. Rondel of St. Helier
Witnesses:
Senator I.J. Gorst (The Chief Minister)
Senator P.F. Routier MBE (The Assistant Chief Minister) Mr. J. Richardson (Chief Executive Officer)
Mr. P. Bradbury (Director, Corporate Policy)
Topics Discussed:
- Population and Migration Page 2
- Government Reform Page 14
- Access to Justice Page 17
- Modernisation Programme Pages 18 and 25
- Higher Paid Positions Page 24
- States Pay Offer Page 28
- FATCA Page 29
- External Relations Page 30
- Social Policy Page 35
- Housing Page 39
Senator S.C. Ferguson (Chairman):
If we can start, the President will just have to catch up with us. You have, I think, the health warning notice there, which you may well have seen before regarding the conduct of the hearing. Welcome to the quarterly public hearing with the Chief Minister; and welcome, Chief Minister, to the Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel. I wonder if for the information of the ladies doing the transcription you could say who you are and what your position is please. I apologise for being so few of us but James is not back in circulation yet and Deidre had a holiday which was prebooked and so cannot be here.
The Chief Minister:
I was looking forward to your new member grilling us.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Can I point out that some of the people who do transcripts are gentlemen as well? Not just ladies. Equality. If we could start with population and migration. Are you able to provide us with an update on the population policy and the long-term planning strategy?
The Chief Minister:
Yes, we are. That fits squarely in the responsibility of Senator Routier and Paul. As I said in the States last time I was questioned on this matter, we have taken the decision to segregate the two issues and we will come forward with an interim population policy which will follow the lines of the policy that was outlined in the Strategic Plan until we are able to have that wider debate, which will flow from something that we are calling Jersey 2035, which is about long-term planning. But the two Pauls could give you more detail in that regard.
Assistant Chief Minister:
Certainly we are meeting later on this afternoon to look at the initial draft of what want to bring forward to the States as the interim policy. Obviously it will not be, as we were initially thinking, part of the big plan which the Chief Minister has just spoken about but it will reflect some of the themes which will be met and what we will hopefully do is have a document which we will be able to share with you as soon as we possibly can, once the Housing and Work Advisory Group have signed it off. Then there will be a document which we can bring to the States for a debate sooner than we had previously anticipated because we were talking about April of next year, debate on the population. But we intend sort of being able to do that a lot sooner.
Deputy R.J. Rondel: January time sort of thing?
Assistant Chief Minister: Hopefully, yes.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Will you have a solid registration of existing workforce? Will it be reliable that you capture?
Director, Corporate Policy:
Yes. We have talked before at length about the Population Register because obviously the law came in beginning of July so it is relatively early days, 3 months. When I have last been here what I have said is the first major calibration will be around the manpower returns, which are due for the period end December, and the results of those manpower returns are out in April next year. Thereon, the Statistics Unit publishes population estimates in June next year.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Why does it take so long from December to April when I would suspect that an awful lot of people send in their population returns by computer?
Director, Corporate Policy:
An awful lot of people do; in fact the majority do.
Senator S.C. Ferguson: So why does it take so long?
Director, Corporate Policy:
But invariably you have people that do not return by the due date, invariably there is a degree of chasing. The Statistics Unit put a lot of quality assurance into the production of those statistics and there is a lot of data there, something like 7,000 employers who submit. So in that context what seems...
The Chief Minister:
No, and as we know the Statistics Unit act independently of our unit and they publish the dates of publication in advance so that Ministers cannot interfere with them. They set their target dates and they give themselves sufficient latitude to quality assure that whatever it is that they are publishing. So I do not think it would be appropriate for us to say, although your point is well made, could it be done quicker? Well, perhaps it could but we do not interfere with when they are publishing their
information. I do not think it would be right for us to interfere because it would indicate that then we would be setting a date for political advantage and that would not be right either. So we take the good and the bad whenever it comes and they will give a timetable of when they are publishing all their stats a year in advance.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
So they rely on the information you give them once you have collated that from the manpower returns?
Director, Corporate Policy: Correct.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
What percentage of returns are not available to you on time? Is it sufficient enough that it causes an issue to give them that information?
Director, Corporate Policy:
It is difficult to say. Yes, it is because the manpower return process and the employment stats they produce as a result of the Census, so it is not a sample on which they extrapolate or make estimates. It is the complete set of data. I cannot talk for the Statistics Unit but I am fairly confident it would want the whole set of data before they publish their results.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
It might be useful to know - not right now - what percentage you do not receive by the time you normally require them.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
It is a bit of a clunky process.
Director, Corporate Policy:
If it is a helpful comment; we recognise that we need to align it with other reporting mechanisms and we are developing a means of aligning it with the I.T.I.S. (Income Tax Instalment System) so there is...
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
That would be a lot easier because at the moment by the time you have hunted through your files for where you wrote your password down, because you cannot select your password...you can select part of it but not all of it.
Director, Corporate Policy:
It is clunky and should two departments be chasing two separate returns and should you be doing two separate returns? So it is not the intention this year.
Assistant Chief Minister:
But I suppose what we need to think about is although the information may come in with I.T.I.S. on a monthly basis it is whether the Stats Unit are going to be producing an overall figure...
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Yes, but at least you will be able to provide them with the information.
Assistant Chief Minister:
Yes, they would still want to maintain their processes to do it.
The Chief Minister:
It is sort of two different issues. The clunkiness of the current process around submitting of information needs to change, as Paul has outlined, we should be trying to...that is part of what reform is all about, ensuring that people only have to provide information in a joined up way and as infrequently as required for the official statistics. That is one thing. What then the independent Statistics Unit do with it and what is a suitable size for their work is another issue altogether. Perhaps it might be helpful if we ask them to provide a note on that area or that side of it as well.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Just to be clear: the interim population policy has been drafted?
Assistant Chief Minister: Yes. I only had it last night.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
But you have been through it 3 times already, have you not?
Assistant Chief Minister:
I have read it this morning, last night and we are having another session about it later on this afternoon.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
You hope to bring that to the States some time in January, possibly February.
Assistant Chief Minister:
Hopefully it will be lodged before that. But debate well before the date we originally said in April.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Have you left sufficient time for Scrutiny?
Assistant Chief Minister:
We will hopefully be able to get you the document as soon as it is in a good shape for it to be released.
Director, Corporate Policy:
We have had tentative initial discussions. I have a meeting with Ministers this afternoon as to their level of satisfaction, we will then finalise a timetable and put Scrutiny in that timetable.
The Chief Minister:
Hopefully you will see the genesis of our decision to segregate the thing because, as Paul said, the manpower return information will not be available until April, the other report not until June, so it seemed far better to get on and do the interim policy. If we have to wait until June, and then we are wanting to roll out a very big debate around the strategic document of which only population will be part of it we are then running up to the election and we do not want to do that. We want to have a policy in place, be it for however long, in the intervening period because it is now 2 years...not quite 2 years but it is a good 18 months since we approved the policy that we are following in the Strategic Plan.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Which leads us on to: is it still your plan to publish and debate a long-term plan in 2014 before the election?
The Chief Minister:
It is our plan to publish it. It will be a long-term strategic plan and that is in a very good place. But then there is a lot of information gathering and work needing to be done under it. We have had some discussions around the Council of Ministers' table whether we should put a lot more detail on that prior to the election or whether we should do the work and then let the next Assembly decide on all that detail. We are currently thinking that it is better to do a lot of the work so that we are in a good rounded place for the next Government to come and say: "Okay, there you are."
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Is there a danger that they might unravel all that work?
The Chief Minister:
No, I do not think there is a danger that they will unravel the work because when you see the document, it is very much a strategic long-term plan: "This is the direction." It is looking...framework. It was not quite what I was going to say. I was just wondering whether you have seen copies.
Senator S.C. Ferguson: Yes.
The Chief Minister:
So basically you have the big balancing themes of economy, environment and community, so building a framework round those themes, and then there is a lot of detail that needs to come underneath that.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Yes, because you must surely need to put some numbers on things and look at the trends.
[14:15]
The Chief Minister: Exactly right.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Because this was the advantage I think of the New Zealand one, where they identified the trends and somewhere in it I think it said that the sort of silver tsunami was nothing like the problem they thought it was going to be. But these are trends which you are going to put numbers on, are you?
The Chief Minister:
Absolutely, and this is why we took this decision to separate because some of the qualitative numbers would not be available until mid or late of next year and we are always conscious then that that is not a good time to ask politicians to be making decisions.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
You will just get pilloried, will you not?
The Chief Minister:
We do not mind that; we are used to it. [Laughter]
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
If we could just go on to more the housing and work legislation now. There have been concerns raised by members of the public, which have been reported in the media, regarding the application process for new registration cards, in particular the entitled registration cards. How are these issues being addressed by the department and, indeed, the Population Office?
Assistant Chief Minister:
I share your concerns about people who found the process difficult. I think what is not recognised is that already within the system there are, I think, preapproved 30,000 people who could go in with just photo identification and get their card very simply. The issues arise around those people who have not perhaps interacted more on a regular basis in the period of, say, 10 years or, in some cases, it is 30 years if they were not Jersey born and have gained their qualifications. But I have responded in a letter to questions which have arrived today, which you have just had. But hopefully that will answer your questions, but we do recognise there is some work that needed to be done with people gaining access to information from the education records. That is a piece of work that needs to happen, which Paul can update you on the latest position because he has been in close contact with the Education Department.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Thank you. I know you have given us a letter, I have not read it because it was only just put in front of me, but I went to get my card and it took less than a minute I think, so thankfully they tracked me, every little angle about myself.
The Chief Minister:
That is how we knew you were here today. [Laughter]
Assistant Chief Minister:
Does that mean you are changing your job? [Laughter] You do not need it unless you are changing your job or moving.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
But it does seem to be a little odd that these kids were being charged for it.
Assistant Chief Minister:
Yes, that has been resolved. That should not have happened in the first place.
Senator S.C. Ferguson: It really was silly.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
I wonder if Paul could just explain, because I have not read the letter, what steps are made to help alleviate that problem, if it is possible to.
Director, Corporate Policy:
The solution has many facets but the simplest way to say this is if somebody walks into Social Security and they say they are residents, it is based on their period at school, we will ask them to give us consent whereby we contact the school and we do it for them.
Deputy R.J. Rondel: Brilliant. Okay.
Director, Corporate Policy:
In addition, we will continue to work with the Education Department on a more integrated, electronic, I.T. (information technology) solution.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Why was that not done before? Is it just something that came up?
Director, Corporate Policy:
For a long time we have had this process of go to your school, get your school record. It so happened we launched the law in July, so we had lots of school leavers, and you need this confirmation now for work. So there was just a bigger volume than perhaps we anticipated with everything else that we were doing. We had been working with the Education Department all year on this integrated solution in terms of data flowing between the two departments but it is quite a complex thing to achieve, and we had not achieved it by the time the law came in. So we sought to respond quickly. We appreciate the complaints and that is why we have put in this measure. We will contact schools. We will continue to work on the longer term solution. We will continue to work on integration.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
So at the moment you are taking all the pressure off the children looking for work and it will be done by the department through Education?
Director, Corporate Policy: Yes.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Has there always been a charge then?
Director, Corporate Policy:
Some schools have always charged, yes.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
I think it is more so the private schools.
Assistant Chief Minister:
The volume of people asking for that, because it was only for if you were transacting for a housing permit, but what is happening now is because people are getting jobs more regular than they are changing house, so that is why the volume of requests for school records to be checked has increased. But I think what we need to accept as well, unfortunately a lot of the records in the Education Department are on paper-based records from many years ago and stored at the Archives Centre. They may not even be at the school itself, so for some people whose records go back quite a distance it is a piece of work that needs to be carried out.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Okay, and that will happen. Are there any other areas of people that you have found are having particular problems, whether it is elderly, pensioners or others highlighted?
Assistant Chief Minister:
Obviously a lot less but I think what I want to try and avoid is people being worried that they need to get a card when they do not need one. It is only if you are going to change job or move house that you need a card. I think they might be starting to get out through media hype and all the rest of it. But expectancy queues of pensioners at Social Security trying to get a card and they do not need one. I really want to emphasise that it is only if they are going to move accommodation.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Yet, on the other hand, the more people that have them the better for you eventually because you will have...
Assistant Chief Minister:
We probably have them on the records anyhow because, as you say, you went in and got your card within a minute, is because your records are known. You are a known person.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Since the implementation of the new law, how many new entrants, immigration, have been registered? Do you have that figure?
Director, Corporate Policy:
I have figures for registration cards and the figures for registered registration cards, i.e. people less than 5 years. The first 3 months we issued 1,300.
Assistant Chief Minister:
That does not answer the question. It is not new entrants.
Deputy R.J. Rondel: He has not finished yet.
Director, Corporate Policy:
That is out of 7,000 cards in total. What I do not have - and, again, I am going to have to come back to you and provide - is a breakdown between that 1,300 of registered people from those who are here less than 5 years and have just been here 2 years and are getting a job, and those who are genuine new people coming.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
That is the figure I am trying to establish. What is the amount of genuine...
The Chief Minister:
The number of new registered new entrants on to the Island is what you are asking, which is not the figure that Paul quoted.
Director, Corporate Policy:
No, it is not. But if you want to characterise it, prior to the law you would be looking at approximately 3,000 people registering per year, so in that 3-month period around 750 you would expect normally.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
So there was 1,300 under 5 years residency.
Director, Corporate Policy:
And of those you would sit here today and think approximately 750 would probably be new but I will come back to you with that figure. But obviously there is lots of churn in this; there are people registering and people leaving at the same time.
Deputy R.J. Rondel: Yes.
The Chief Minister:
And people in that under 5 years tend to be ones that might change jobs more frequently as well because of the sectors in which they are in, more seasonal. So you would expect them perhaps more to be coming in thinking: "We need the card, we are changing jobs" even though they might have been here 3 or 4 years.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
In July there is an awful lot of farm workers that go back and then come back again. So you will let us have those figures.
Director, Corporate Policy: Yes.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Thank you very much. The other one I wanted to ask on population. I think I mentioned to you in an email there has been a couple of establishments in King Street having refits recently and I was concerned and I believe that the re-fitters were from the U.K. (United Kingdom) coming out to fit U.K.-established shops and a lot of them were builders/carpenters. Were they granted a licence to operate in the Island, and if so why?
Director, Corporate Policy:
The policy is less than 10 days they do not need a licence, it is an exemption. More than 10 days they do need a licence and there is a £500 fee for that licence up to 3 months. In the generality the shopfitters, if it is a national brand they will have a national contractor so our approach is, and we said this, is to issue a licence and levy a fee and when we came forward with the law the policy was about making sure that we generated revenue out of businesses coming to Jersey to undertake short pieces of work.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
We are generating revenue but we are not generating jobs for local people and when I saw, sort of, basic carpenters and that, those are the very people we should be trying to help locally and if that shop owner was a local business they would be employing a local person.
The Chief Minister:
We have to be careful, do we not, about what is a local? There are a number of franchises which have opened on the High Street over the course of this year, the last 12 months, and those franchises operate on the model that you take the franchise. Everything is contracted to a set. They do exactly the same in every shop and there you have one contract and they reduce their costs by doing a global contract, and the balance is do you want that brand on the High Street. If you do, you have to abide by their contracts. If you do not want that brand, okay, you do not have it. So I do not think that is something you would expect government policy to interfere with because I think that would be inappropriate.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
I understand and I fully agree with you that it is important.
The Chief Minister:
It is a far bigger question about whether we want our High Street to look like everybody else's High Street, but that is another debate.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
It does not detract from the fact that small local shops who perhaps have to end up paying premiums and who do pay tax locally, are perhaps being disadvantaged by U.K. firms bringing in cheaper labour.
The Chief Minister:
If you take the example I have just given about the U.K., the international franchises, that is a Jersey registered company, so the franchise is international but it is a Jersey company that is bringing them here.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
They bring the workforce in as well to be able to fit out that shop.
The Chief Minister:
They bring the workforce in to be able to fit them out but let us be quite clear, that Paul and his team are being very strict on the actual full-time licences that they are getting to operate the shop.
Deputy R.J. Rondel: Yes. It is a different issue.
The Chief Minister:
That is what the long-term work is. Not just the 10 days that it takes to fit the shop out.
Assistant Chief Minister:
That is the balance and also, as Paul identified, is that they are paying a licence fee now to come in to do that work, if it is more than 10 days, which is more than what used to be in the system.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Thank you. Just one more on population. What is the population number the departments are currently working on when developing policies and long-term plans; for example, the hospital, new school numbers?
The Chief Minister:
The hospital number is slightly more complex because it is not just the population inflows, it is experience of what is happening now. It has been throughflows - is a technical term for the hospital - patient throughflows, the ageing of the population rather than just the entire population number. But departments are using the 125 heads of household number for planning purposes.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Thank you, just to be clear on that.
The Chief Minister:
That does not mean to say that that is what is happening because that is a planning assumption rather than what they are working to the Strategic Plan direction.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
If we look at government reform. When we last met you told us that work was underway on changes to the States of Jersey Law in respect of the powers and responsibilities of the Chief Minister in managing his portfolios, how is this getting on?
The Chief Minister:
I and my person that is doing this piece of work for me met with P.P.C. (Privileges and Procedures Committee), met with the Chairmen's Committee, and it was agreed by P.P.C. that their subcommittee would bring forward their work for the in-committee debate, which they did yesterday, which we all enjoyed.
I have today received an invitation to attend upon P.P.C. to decide a way forward. I have also initiated a meeting with the President of the Chairmen's Committee and although I have not yet gone back to P.P.C. I think it will be sensible if the President of the Chairmen's Committee and myself attended on P.P.C. together so that we can drive it forward now to a decision point. I think there are some very clear steers about what was and was not acceptable. There was some clear steers about if we are making changes to the Executive we should make - I would not use the word "equivalent" - but you understand what I mean when I say that to Scrutiny as well. So both sides need to be strengthened. I think another clear message that came yesterday, and we will have to go away and think and consider how we can do this, is the desire from the Scrutiny side to have appropriate resource and appropriate funding for the advice or researchers to sit alongside their very good work that your officers already do, and I think that will be an important area that we need to bring forward as well.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Yes, I do not quite know how you are going to do it, but one of the problems, as I mentioned during the debate, is the fact that there is a certain amount of: "There, there, dear. Well, it is a lovely idea but we are not going to do it" from the Executive and sometimes the Civil Service side where Scrutiny will come up with ideas and they get sort of: "Yes, well" and this is a problem. Nobody likes criticism. I do not like it either. But it does happen.
The Chief Minister:
I get worried if I am not being criticised. Something is going wrong. I think it is tricky because sometimes it comes down to then a political decision and I know one or two people said that they felt that when the Assembly does not agree with Scrutiny that undermines Scrutiny. I do not hold with that view, just like when I think that a Minister does not get something through the Assembly I think that is part of our independent system. You cannot take the Assembly for granted and it is not a good thing if we do. Therefore sometimes Scrutiny will come up with proposals and the Assembly will not support them. We have to try. I do not think it is ever or I hope it is never personal, we have to try to make sure it is not.
Senator S.C. Ferguson: Not, it is not. It is business.
The Chief Minister: Yes, that is right.
Senator S.C. Ferguson: This is the whole thing...
The Chief Minister:
If we can help to overcome that feeling, which was articulated yesterday, by giving greater support to Scrutiny then that can only be a good thing.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
It is not just the power of the Chief Minister to hire and fire but also the breadth of his portfolio. On the one hand you have the Ministry for External Affairs, which you have kind of set free, to a certain degree, or you have appointed a Minister to take that part, but you have also taken...
The Chief Minister:
I would not say I have set them free at all. In fact, if you look at the footfall in my office over the course of the last however many days we have had of this week, I think you will find that staff from the International Affairs Department have been in more than any other department. So they are definitely not set free in that respect but, yes, we have created the important ministerial role to set as a Minister in that department.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
But on the other hand, you have just had the proposal that Justice Policy and Resources become part of your responsibility, so you may have slightly diverted one portfolio and you have picked up another. How are you getting on organising all these?
The Chief Minister:
We are enjoying it. I mean it just goes to show that sometimes if you...when people do enjoy their work and do think it is interesting, exciting, some would say it is a bad thing, you appeal to that and you get a lot more out of them. So one of the individuals in the International Affairs Department is doing international affairs but he has a very good person under him. He has also been running with the machinery of government work. He has also been running with the justice policy work. John would know this better than me, but he is thoroughly enjoying it because he is being involved right across government and because he is enjoying it, it means we are getting the work done, which puts me in mind that I should be sharing with you the proposed terms of reference and methodology for the Access to Justice review as well, as I appreciate your input on that, which will be the first piece of work that comes out of taking on the Justice portfolio.
Senator S.C. Ferguson: What is the Access to Justice?
The Chief Minister:
It really arises out of concerns about legal aid, and I personally did not feel that just looking at legal aid was appropriate. If we are going to look at the funding of legal aid we need to look at whether people are able to access justice across the board where if there are concerns there are good arguments on either side about the way we structure our legal aid. But equally there are good models elsewhere in the world, take Germany for example, they have an insurance-based legal aid system. So there are things that we can look at elsewhere but it is important we put it in the context of the Access to Justice and not just funding of legal aid because you can do something here. I was at the launch of Family Mediation in Jersey one night this week, I do not know which night it was. [Laughter] They have just relaunched themselves. In the United Kingdom legal aid was removed for family or divorce-type cases. It was thought that that might encourage the use of mediation. But the reverse happened because it is often lawyers that push people through to mediation and say it would be far better to go and have it dealt with mediation. What it had done was increase the number of litigants in person before the court which then, okay, you have saved on legal aid but suddenly your court services budget is ballooning because of all the extra work involved with non-expert people appearing before the court. That is why I do not think you can just separate it out and do the one piece of work.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Where have you got with that? You have drafted terms of reference?
The Chief Minister:
Yes, we have got some draft terms of reference. They have got a draft process and, as you will have heard from the States questions this week, Deputy Tadier , who has been very interested in this from the start, wants to come in and see me. He has got some suggested changes. I very much want to engage the legal profession and the court services in the process early. There is another view that you could see them as conflicted and they should not be engaged early, which is why it would be very useful for you, as a Scrutiny Panel, just to look at that.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Yes, because going to law is impossible for middle Jersey.
The Chief Minister:
That is a very good point. Is the difficulty those on legal aid access, are they the ones that are struggling to access justice, or is it those who are above legal aid but cannot afford the costs of what we all accept is an expensive law in Jersey, partly because of the international nature of a lot of the practices.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
I think it is both lots. I think there are two problems there, surely. I mean the cost of legal aid because people are becoming more litigious perhaps, and the fact that some people cannot go to law because it is too expensive. Anyway, I am sorry. If you carry on with the modernisation. We tend to sort of talk round things and therefore we have answered all the questions.
The Chief Minister:
You have to be careful not to enjoy these meetings.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Modernisation programme. Are you able please to give us an update on the progression of the three work strands of the modernisation programme?
Chief Executive Officer:
The three work strands are customers, which is the external facing customers, staff and services. I will talk about each of those briefly. Customer services we originally branded as e-government, but clearly there is a lot more than just e-government in customer service across the organisation. The work we are doing at the moment is we have engaged with KPMG who are undertaking the work to review all of the access points of the customers, how we can transfer as much as possible through a property structured programme on to electronic medium, so it makes it much easier. The obvious one is avoid duplication. So if someone has got to go to one office then have one transaction in one office rather than have to go to a multiple of States offices, so it can make quite a big difference to the customer. That is certainly the direction that a lot of authorities in the U.K. have gone and governments have gone into which we are looking at some very good examples of that.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Sorry, when you say you have engaged KPMG, they have moved and you commission them?
Chief Executive Officer:
Yes, we went through a competitive tender process and they won the tender for that. Their work is to work with us and departments to produce a fully costed business plan that demonstrates the benefit to the customer. What we have got to do to get there, and there is a big process involved in getting from where we are today manual to electronic, how long it will take, how much it will cost, so we have a properly costed business plan to move in a transitional way to electronic government wherever we can have that transaction electronically with the customer and the citizen.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Have you thought about the problem of having one bank account to pay money in?
Chief Executive Officer:
E-payment is part of it. We started e-payments two years ago but there have been problems because we have not necessarily had that joined up approach. So there has got to be a single entry point for the customer, the citizen, so that if they want to pay their bill they can pay it through a single entry point and what happens behind the scene will happen without them seeing...
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
But I thought you were working on that. How long ago was it when I first mentioned it to you, 3 years?
Chief Executive Officer: Two or 3 years.
Senator S.C. Ferguson: And you are still not there?
Chief Executive Officer:
Because what we have moved to now is a much broader piece of work, which is about trying to get all elements of government into the same place. In the past it was being done piecemeal so I think when we spoke 2 or 3 years ago, if I remember rightly, paying for parking?
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
No, it was a number of things but it just seemed that you should have a single point where you pay and then the money just gets peeled off and posted to the correct ledger account.
Chief Executive Officer:
That is exactly what we are doing now.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
And you have still not done it?
Chief Executive Officer:
That is part of this e-government transformation programme.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Yes, but you have a bank account with a bank that has been doing this for years. Why has it taken so long?
Chief Executive Officer:
I think you certainly have to refer to the Treasury and Treasury Department but certainly where we are going now is to make sure that the transactions for the citizen, whether it is through e- payment, e-forms, there is a single point of entry and what happens, happens behind the scene.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Are you going to take credit cards as well as debit cards?
Chief Executive Officer:
That is something I have to refer you to the Treasurer on.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Because I know that at the moment you only take debit cards, which is causing a certain amount of problems for people.
Chief Executive Officer:
I cannot give you that level of detail at the moment but it is something we can find out for you.
Senator S.C. Ferguson: Thank you.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
When do you think this may well happen; the public will be able to use...?
Chief Executive Officer:
Our aim is to start rolling it out certainly in the new year. The business case should be finished by Christmas and we have got to assess...
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
But particularly the payments side of it as everybody that sets up, so payment as debit cards, credit cards...
There are a lot of functions you can pay for already online. There is obviously the question about credit versus debit cards needs to be looked at. But we do need to make sure that as we roll this out that we can roll it out in a way which is phased because there is a lot of work to do in terms of taking not just payment but making sure the forms come online, making sure that the communication, once the form comes in online, is then disseminated and distributed to all the departments that need that information.
[14:45]
The Chief Minister: Social Security plan to be...
Chief Executive Officer:
Social Security are the lead department for most of the transitional work we are doing at the moment because they are the ones that probably have most transactions with the customer on a range of services. So Social Security are effectively being a pilot for this, so we approve concept in Social Security and from that it is much easier then to roll it out across other departments to know what works there, and the link then with Social Security and Tax. That is the e-government side of it. I will go on to the service area next. We have been running a pilot scheme in Health and Social Services for the last 9, 12 months on what we call "Lean", leaning the services. Very successful. We have had some very good results so far. We are just setting up...in fact we just started this week training with setting up the Jersey Lean Academy, which is the name we have given to training all departments and many staff. There are about 200 staff to go through in the next 6 to 9 months on Lean training at the various levels; from awareness through to qualified Lean delivery people. We are certainly then looking at all departments using Lean but not - this is the important bit - just within their own department but cross-cutting because what we found in the trial so far is that what we start off in one department is impacted upon by another. Unless we get that department working together with the other one you do not get the benefit of the two.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
How has that been received?
Chief Executive Officer:
We had a workshop or conference back in May, 200 staff attended. Very positive and it was that that gave us the springboard to say everyone is on board for this, benefits coming out through some very good examples. No one could say it was not worth doing. It had to be. So that is now in train and running. So we are looking forward to that effectively being spread across all
departments from the frontline service provider, all the way through to the sort of more admin functions, and my department going to be doing some Lean, looking at how we can streamline some of our admin services. So that is the Lean section. The last section is the staff area. So it comprises of terms and conditions of employment, working extremely well with the main unions. Very pleased with the partnership approach we have developed. The first time I think in my career where I have seen all the 4 main unions coming together and saying: "We are working with you, the employer", and developing and agreeing new policies, new terms and conditions of employment. Quite some way to go, I have got to be honest about things, but it is a major move which is fantastic for us because it makes it so much easier to negotiate with one body, which effectively is 4 main unions and our employee relations team to get agreement.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Have you got anybody that is sitting outside of that that is not willing to engage?
Chief Executive Officer:
No, I do not think I can say that any departments or any unions or associations who are not engaged. We have already got agreements with some for modernised terms and conditions and brought in 2012 and 2013. The Prison Service have got new agreements which is a modern approach which we wanted, which was the first one to come in. Fire and Rescue agreed one in 2013 and we are working now on a major one with the nurses to make sure that we get a far more streamlined approach for nurses because of the recruitment and retention problems we have had with bringing nurses to Jersey. So very positive and very pleased with progress on that.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
How many months away are you from developing more?
Chief Executive Officer:
The policies are just rolled...I think we have got 70 H.R. (human resources) employee related policies and we are boiling that down...we are hoping to have it somewhere around 30, which are then 30 new agreed policies, which will be common as far as they can really. They cannot all be, as far as they can be common across all employing sectors.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Because I gather that certain of the kind of fitness criteria are causing a certain amount of problems with some of the unions, I think.
Chief Executive Officer:
There are obviously some associations...some sectors of the workforce have different employment and different physical working conditions than others, so we cannot have just one blanket across the piece. So we have got to reflect on that. I think the area you are probably referring to more is in the negotiations around the pension scheme. We have got to recognise that certain sectors of the organisation will obviously have difficulty working beyond a certain age than others. We have got to reflect that.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Yes, it just occurred to me when I was sort of reading about it. Are the conditions which are being set out up to date? Do they perhaps need reviewing, do you think?
Chief Executive Officer:
That is the whole point of moving from 70 to 30. We are not just taking 70 and boiling down 30. We are reviewing all of them, which is a huge piece of work to make sure we reflect modern practice, take modern practice from the U.K. and other areas, jurisdictions, and then the benefit of having the main unions working with us is that they can put forward ideas from their unions, their headquarters in the U.K., and we can take best practice. That is why I am very pleased with the way it is working at the moment.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Yes, because obviously if you travel a bit you sort of see things like combined control rooms for the uniformed and emergency services.
Chief Executive Officer:
That will come from two areas. One is joint working, working together, which is the best that I have seen it for a long while. But it is also about Lean. It is once we start looking at can we improve our service, well, yes, because there is someone over there that is doing a very similar job bringing it together. Not just in control. There are quite a lot of areas which we are looking at. The other areas within the staff bracket of the modernisation programme is learning and development. We have just launched a level 7 Modern Manager Programme. Maybe where we have been running Modern Manager Programme in the States for grades probably 7 to 9, it is a level 3 programme, and 9 to 12 is the level 5 programme, we have just launched a couple of weeks ago the first level 7 programme, which is for the next tier of senior managers. We have also commissioned Ashridge Management College to provide senior officer, which is in the A grade director, training. So for the first time for a long while we have now got a development programme in place for all staff from sort of junior grades, all the way through to chief officers, chief executive.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
And yet the jobs that are mentioned in the Evening Post, I think it says of the 27 posts approved by the S.E.B. (States Employment Board), 20 of those were filled by people who were not previously States employees.
Chief Executive Officer:
Sorry, Chairman, we have got to be careful here. Of the ones that...
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
I mean it is quoted in the J.E.P. (Jersey Evening Post) it must be right.
Chief Executive Officer:
It is correct but the reason for that is the vast majority of those that are approved by the States Employment Board are higher paid posts and the vast majority of those are in Health and Social Services, which are for clinical consultants, so that is why the number is high.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
If you could tell us it would be helpful.
Chief Executive Officer:
We can provide that. It was going to be published yesterday but that is why the list is high. But what I was going to go on and say is that having now launched a comprehensive development programme we have been criticised, and probably rightly, for having to go off Island to do much, and this development programme is very much about saying certainly when we get to the level 7 and the Ashridge programme, is to make sure that we are developing our senior staff for the next more senior role. That obviously will take a bit of time because we have to get staff through the programme but that is the whole purpose of doing it. There is a lot of time and investment but I think it is absolutely essential.
Deputy R.J. Rondel: Those are held off Island?
Chief Executive Officer:
No, the level 7, we bring a training organisation to Jersey, we run them here ourselves and Ashridge come to Jersey as well because it keeps our costs down.
The Chief Minister:
You have medical staffing manager, external; you have got trauma and orthopaedics consultant, external; you have got emergency medicine consultant, emergency medicine consultant, consultant external, external.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
An emergency medical consultant, what is that?
The Chief Minister:
You have got managing director of General Hospital, external. You have got anaesthetics associate specialist. You have got emergency medicine associate specialist, you have got a psychiatric consultant.
Senator S.C. Ferguson: That is 4 we have just heard.
The Chief Minister:
All external. So I am just answering your point that the J.E.P. very helpfully raised, if I might say so.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
But an emergency medicine consultant need not necessarily be a medical or clinical consultant.
The Chief Minister:
If you are asking us technical questions about...I am just making a point.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
As long as I have been in the States we have been talking about proper succession planning. If this is genuine and, I am sorry, I am not saying it is not genuine, but if this works then I will be delighted because we have a lot of talent and it is being totally ignored, or it has been in the past.
The Chief Minister:
It is a very difficult area. But Jersey is in many ways unique. Therefore if we can properly train people who are already here to take on the jobs then that is by far the best approach.
Chief Executive Officer:
The final section we are looking at is performance management in the States. So we are just rolling out a new performance management system which will eventually replace the old performance and appraisal system. It is very much focused on 4 key areas, which will be encouraging staff to evidence their performance through a fairly simple system. We have only rolled it out two weeks ago. We have been trialling it this year and I have used the word "rolling it" a couple of times purposely because it has the word "R.O.L.E." in it. So it looks at 4 key distinct elements. R is relationships. O is organisation. How you fit in and what you do in the organisation. L is your learning and development. It probably has not had as much attention to in the past. And E is how you engage with either your colleagues, politicians, citizens, et cetera. So each one of those 4 will be evidenced to demonstrate how you are performing. Then you can put your learning and development around any areas that need further development. It is very much about making sure that they are properly evidenced and the competencies around them.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
But surely the problem with our performance management was the fact that it was not being done. It is not so much how it was being done. It was not being done.
Chief Executive Officer:
I think I will differ slightly. I think it was being done but it probably was the consistency of it and the fact that the performance measures against the old competency profiles in a modern organisation may not have quite fitted. So it was difficult to measure. This is a much more functional, practical way of saying: "How do you perform in your job in the organisation and externally to meet your customers?" or wherever you are serving.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
The previous Auditor General did a report on performance management, did he not?
Chief Executive Officer: Yes,
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
The problem as he saw it was the fact that it was not there.
The Chief Minister:
I think he used the word "patchy", did he not?
Chief Executive Officer: Yes.
Senator S.C. Ferguson: Yes. Yes, absolutely.
The Chief Minister:
Which I think is a good way to describe it.
Chief Executive Officer:
It was a fair comment. The reason for that was because the performance was measured against a set of competencies which were quite difficult to measure someone who is doing a frontline job, but competencies set that you were measured against did not necessarily match what you were doing out on the frontline. So this is very much saying, what do you do, and then you measure your competency against your role, and that is why we use the word "R.O.L.E.".
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Are you doing proper exit interviews?
Chief Executive Officer: Yes.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Because that has been another area that was not just patchy, it did not exist.
Chief Executive Officer:
We are certainly making sure...well, I certainly make sure that senior staff who go have an opportunity of an exit. They do not always take it. It is not compulsory. It is voluntary. I always offer it and I certainly make sure any senior staff that leave are given the opportunity to make sure they can either see me personally or they see their line director, but they do not have to do it.
Deputy R.J. Rondel: What is the latest situation?
[15:00]
The Chief Minister:
Can I just say, the problem with this subject as reform, we sit and chat here and it all sounds a bit management speak and dull, does it not? But if you look at some of the things that are going on at Social Security, 95 per cent of staff have been to the Lean awareness session. They have got 60 yellow belts, 10 green belts, and what they are doing is fantastic, so I think it might be good because the Ministers on the board went down to Social Security and met some of the people involved in this, and saw first-hand what they were doing. It might be useful if you went and had a couple of hours with them, give you the same presentation they gave us, and it is quite inspiring to see what they are doing rather than just us trying to map...
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
I think it was 5 years ago when John Seddon sat across the table from us and said...and his stuff is Lean but he does not name it: "You do this and we can save you 20 per cent on your expenses straight away." So, yes we like to see that it is...
The Chief Minister:
I think it would be far better than us just talking.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Yes, absolutely. I agree. If we could note that.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Yes, okay. Moving on, what is the latest situation with regard to the pay offer?
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
I said that without moving my lips. [Laughter]
The Chief Minister:
What have you heard that I have not?
Senator S.C. Ferguson: I do not know. You tell us.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Is there a latest situation? Do you have an update?
The Chief Minister:
Yes, you know the ones that have accepted.
Chief Executive Officer:
The current position is the number of smaller groups that have formally accepted and large groups have not formally accepted but they are working, as I have said before, very well with us on developing new terms and conditions. One of the criteria is come January 2014 the 3-year
agreement is that they get 4 per cent. Understandably there is some concern from them, but equally from the States Employment Board, as to the 4 per cent was...part of the 4 per cent is in recognition of delivering the modernisation programme. So the question had to be asked and it has been addressed is what criteria are there that we have to meet in order to get the 4 per cent. So the States Employment Board worked and agreed a second criteria that need to be met in order to get the 4 per cent. The unions have that and they understand, I think, accept it. So we now have an agreed position in terms of if the States Employment Board are comfortable with the criteria set down obviously with the negotiations we have got to make sure we meet them. It is quite tight. We have got a couple of months to go before we get to the end of the year but we have got to make sure we meet those criteria in order to satisfy S.E.B. and the unions to get the 4 per cent.
Deputy R.J. Rondel: Right, that is clear.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
What is the current situation in respect of the various F.A.T.C.A.s (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act)?
The Chief Minister:
Good. We had hoped to sign by the end of October but I am conscious that the last week of October is half term, so I suspect it will fall into the first week of November that we sign.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Is that the U.S. (United States)?
The Chief Minister:
They will be in a position to sign both.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
How firm are we in regard to the terms of the F.A.T.C.A.s? I mean are we in the position where we have agreed all the details and so on?
The Chief Minister: Yes.
Senator S.C. Ferguson: So when may we see them?
The Chief Minister:
That is a very good question. We have got the details. We obviously have not signed them yet because I have to go and sign them. I am sure that we can send you a copy of where we are with them.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Thank you. I am not sure, have you moved everything across to the Minister for External Relations now? I am conscious that we are asking you External Relations questions.
The Chief Minister:
You know why you can ask me External Relations questions, do you not? Because we carry out their functions concurrently.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
How are you going to make sure that we do not have the current situation with France, or the recent situation, does not get repeated?
The Chief Minister:
Let us be clear that the O.E. C.D . (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Peer Review Group, when it comes to co-operation, have marked us as ... they have these terms "but largely compliant". So we only have this issue with the French who are trying to suggest that we are non-co-operative but all other jurisdictions who have been through that peer review process and submitted to it say that we are largely compliant, so I do not think we will be considered by others as being unco-operative. But as part of our engagement with the French and doing all that we can to try and ensure that we are not listed as unco-operative in January, we are also reviewing the regulations, and I expect to be bringing forward some changes to those and get on to them in very short order. Just almost doubly making sure.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Are they maintaining their stance since you have spoken to them last that we are on their black list?
The Chief Minister:
Do not forget we are not on it yet. They are proposing to list us as unco-operative from January. As I say, we are doing all that we can. We have had a meeting in London. Officers have met in Paris last week and meeting again next week. So we are continuing that engagement, doing all that we can.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Have you had clear instructions from them as to what we have to do to be removed from that list?
The Chief Minister:
What they are saying to us is that they want to make sure that a number of files with regard to requests for information are in a position to be closed.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
And you believe we could meet that?
The Chief Minister:
As I say, we are doing all that we can to try and ensure that that is the case.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
You previously have spoken about your belief that inter-Island co-operation with Guernsey should be fostered. What are the next steps you will be taking in this area given that there are some areas, like the Aircraft Registry, where that kind of fell away, but we do have a joint Brussels office and so on. To use your words from a few moments ago, it seems to be a bit patchy.
The Chief Minister:
From my perspective, I believe that closer co-operation is fundamental to both of ours future. So I think it is extremely important. It does not mean to say that I think we will work together on everything and be able to work everything out because we will not. There will be cases when either one of us might think that our own specific economic interests are served by a particular course of action and the other might not be satisfied with that. That was proved to be the case with the Aircraft Registry. We felt that a particular course of action was advantageous to both Islands. Our colleagues did not agree with that assessment and so in actual fact we have gone our own particular ways. We have to accept that with any relationship.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
By doing that we have ended up slightly on the back foot in terms of timescale.
The Chief Minister:
I would not say we are on the back foot but we are certainly what will appear to be a slower timescale than Guernsey, yes.
Going on from this: the Brussels office, how do we split the funding with Guernsey? Do we do it on the basis of economic size or...?
The Chief Minister:
I do not know that off the top of my head. We use what I think is the general international norm for these things, which I cannot remember whether it is size of economy, but I think it is something like that, yes.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
What plans are in place to deal with the E.U. (European Union) and U.K. demands regarding tax avoidance given that normal tax avoidance is perfectly legal?
The Chief Minister:
It depends what we mean by the word "normal tax avoidance".
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Was it not Lord...I cannot remember. 1929, where he said that if the tax people come after your...one of the Law Lords. If the taxman comes after your assets with a shovel you are quite entitled to shovel them away out of his way. I will get you the quote.
The Chief Minister:
I cannot recall it either but I think I know what you are alluding to. I think that we have shown and played our part with regard to what is coming out of the U.K. and that of Europe. We said that we wanted to be part of the G5 pilot and that is still working away. We have asked for the O.E. C.D . Mutual Convention to be extended to us. I have approved the law drafting for that, so that we will be in a position to, when that comes back, lodge that. Once the States have approved it then the U.K. will ask the O.E. C.D . to extend that, so that will happen. We are signing the two F.A.T.C.A.s with the U.S. and U.K. We produced our action plan arising out of the G8, as have other G8 nations. So I think we are in a very positive position in that regard.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Just on External Relations: could you comment perhaps on the office we have in the Far East and how they are performing and what actions because obviously when I went out to Singapore for the C.P.A. (Commonwealth Parliamentary Association) I had a couple of meetings with local banks and officers out there, and there is huge growth, we know, out in that area and it is very important. What they felt, telling me, that Jersey perhaps could brand itself a lot better that it has done in the past, and it is imperative they do because the amount of office development in Singapore, we are
sort of lagging behind but in terms of expertise we have still got it over here, they felt. Do you have any...
The Chief Minister:
You have asked me a number of things there in terms of office development, which is why Ministers are committed to delivering the Waterfront development because there is now no category A office space available. Local international finance firms obviously are considering and wanting to move into top quality space, new businesses will only generally be attracted if they have a choice of space to go to. We know that businesses now want a smaller but open plan space, so that they are flexible like, as you are saying, there is out in the Far East, in Singapore and elsewhere. It does not mean to say that they are going to resemble those places in the Far East or be high rise, but it does mean that we need to make sure that there is a supply of category A office space. That is one thing. I think you are also asking about the work that our representative offices do out in Hong Kong...
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Absolutely, to capture some of that growth.
The Chief Minister:
...Shanghai and Beijing, out in Abu Dhabi and Mumbai. Obviously those representative offices are under the remit of Jersey Finance, with the exception of the managed office space in Beijing, under the China-British Business Council, the C.B.B.C., which is a located Jersey office which comes under the arm of Economic Development. The one in Beijing, that is a brand new office. I think Nora is in Jersey next week or in the near future so you could easily meet with her. But she is an outstanding individual and I have no doubt that we will be winning and supporting bringing business to Jersey. The other offices; could they be doing more? Well, they are already doing a lot. We have already seen the number of deposits from the Middle East in Jersey increase substantially over the last number of years. That is through the good work that Shaun and his team are doing out in Abu Dhabi.
Senator S.C. Ferguson: Not entirely, surely.
The Chief Minister:
Like anywhere.. well nothing is...
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
I mean the general economic state in the Middle East is such that it favours a place like us, does it not?
The Chief Minister:
We have to be careful of thinking that these things happen by accident. I think we are in a world now where we have to go out and win business and sustain it.
[15:15]
So, yes, there has been the historical desire for those in the Middle East and the historical association with the United Kingdom and therefore you might think we get business off the back of that. That of course is the case. But in today's world we have to go out and win it because, as Richard is saying, places like Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, themselves are doing exactly that. They have far greater resource to put into it than we have. So it is again us trying to punch above our weight.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
But we have got advantages that perhaps some other jurisdictions have not; political stability.
The Chief Minister:
Yes, political stability, a good trust law, well-respected independent judiciary you have got a long history of making good judgments when it comes to the financial services sector, and that accounts for a lot. English language, all those things. But unless we are out there promoting ourselves it is very easy to go off the radar.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
It does not matter if you have got the best mousetrap in the world, you have got to go and market it. Yes, absolutely. I agree.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
A lot of them, Cayman Islands and B.V.I. (British Virgin Islands), were the ones that were well known and Jersey perhaps needed and does need a bigger branding presence, particularly at certain seminars at that.
Senator S.C. Ferguson: Right, social policy.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Social policy framework is due to be reviewed and refreshed. How is that work progressing?
Assistant Chief Minister:
We have recently established the Adults Policy Group and the Children's Policy Group, which is replacing the old social policy team that was around previously. The Children's Policy Group has been around for quite some time but the Adults Policy Group has only just been established and it is the both of those bodies which will be looking at all policies regarding social policies. We are working on quite a lot of things recently, I was reminding myself in preparation for this meeting of all the things that we are doing has been quite impressive. The Safeguarding Panels which have just been established under the chair of our new safeguarding independent chair has been pulling together a lot of the departments and working together to ensure that all the right policies are in place for safeguarding not only children...
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
But we have never really debated it all, have we?
The Chief Minister:
The Social Policy Framework?
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Yes. I do not think it has ever been debated.
Assistant Chief Minister:
No, that is not something that...
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Will it not be brought to the Assembly for debate?
Assistant Chief Minister:
We had not intended to do it. It will be part of the long-term framework that will be coming forward. Certainly that will be a feature in that. But certainly these pieces of work individually are required to be done. I mean we cannot stop and not have the safeguarding policies in place. That has to happen because that has come out of the work that happens for the historic child abuse. It was identified that we had to have these things and we have just got on and done that.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Yes, but should the policy framework not be brought to the States for debate?
Director, Corporate Policy:
Just to talk about in terms of...we were talking about long-term vision and framework before. Our view is that social policy needs to be embedded within that framework. It needs to be part of the broader framework. Certainly in terms of how it has been comprised it would fit neatly within the community however in that framework. In the meantime, the drive has been around the Children's Policy Group, progressing its agenda, and establishing the Adults Policy Group. So you have two ministerial policy groups directing social policy for two different cohorts. As the Assistant Minister said, the Safeguarding Board make sure in practice that they are...the Safeguarding Board's report through to the Chief Minister's Department, the department is not providing services, and co- ordinate the work for the various departments.
Assistant Chief Minister:
That seems fairly straightforward to me. But I mean on the understanding that we knew that it was going to be part of this big framework, we know that it fits in with everything else. We did not see it as a standalone item really.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
Perhaps that is something we need to discuss, Chairman.
Assistant Chief Minister:
Just to give you a flavour of the sort of things that the Adults Policy Group and Children's Policy Group have been focusing on, things like community transport. There has been quite a big piece of work carried out with regard to filling in the gaps which the ordinary public service...we are working very well with the LibertyBus service. They know, because they are a social enterprise, that there are areas of support in transport required for people with disabilities, elderly people and perhaps where they are not on ordinary bus routes, and also supporting people who attend some of the day services as well. There are lots of areas of work, but that is one piece of work that has been going on which we are really pleased with. Another one is we have been looking at the need to have a review of how host families, for instance, students who come to the Island, the safeguards are in place with regard to host families because currently there is no requirement for host families to have any check carried out on them. So we need to ensure that we are working on some mechanism to ensure that is in place.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
That is people like the STS students and people like that to come over?
Assistant Chief Minister:
The existing colleges as well, yes; St. Brelade 's College.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
What about there have been recent reports in the media the States have been focusing on social policies but no funding. They have not explained how they are to be funded. Where is the funding coming from?
Assistant Chief Minister: What particular thing?
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
For developing the social policies.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
There was a very good article I think last Saturday in the Evening Post.
Assistant Chief Minister: It passed me by that one.
Senator S.C. Ferguson: An article by John Henwood.
Assistant Chief Minister: Sorry, I did not read that.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
He was really quite concerned that we were developing social policies without giving consideration to how they were going to be funded. So what is your comment?
The Chief Minister:
There is another article in today's Jersey Evening Post putting the counterview.
Senator S.C. Ferguson: I have not got to that yet.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
She stopped at the pictures. [Laughter]
Assistant Chief Minister:
I think you are aware that this...
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
We have never debated the policy. We have never debated the social policy during the whole time I have been in the States.
The Chief Minister:
But I do not think the particular article to which we are referring was talking about the social policy framework anyway. It was talking about what was considered to be propositions which were of a - I do not want to use the term "social nature" - but minimum wage, long-term care. I cannot think what other things there were. But we are very...yes, Control of Housing and Work Law. You could take the position that you want to divide economic and social and say you are either for the economy or you are for the social whereas we do not take that view. Not wholly anyway. We need a strong economy to be able to deliver the social policies that we want and the social provision that we want. You cannot have one without the other. There sometimes appears to be a disconnect between what the Legislature is doing and what the Government is doing. So I say that day in and day out, Ministers are out promoting Jersey, are trying to encourage economic development in Jersey, trying to encourage inward investment in Jersey. Yet, at the same time, we make no apology for saying that we are a quietly reforming government that wants to put in place appropriate social provision and bring forward proposals that deliver that social provision.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Precisely. Will you be bringing the overall social policy for debate so that we look at it?
The Chief Minister:
I am not sure how that would affect what we are doing on policies around long-term care, on policies around minimum wage.
Director, Corporate Policy:
Sometimes there is a danger in too narrowly defining social policy. We take the lead that the Strategic Plan set out a whole range of policies and social policy is embedded throughout the health, housing, long-term care, getting people back into work. It is quite difficult to take out what is social policy and what is economic policy or what might be environmental policy. I think that is why I suggested at the start that social policy should be developed as part of the long-term framework embedded within it.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
But the long-term framework is very short on numbers.
The Chief Minister:
Are we talking about the long-term framework though, Jersey 2035?
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
There is the long-term framework in total but the States has never debated the social policy. We are just saying: "Why not?"
The Chief Minister:
That is a good question. It has been in place since 2005-6.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
But it has never been debated.
The Chief Minister: No.
Senator S.C. Ferguson: Why not?
The Chief Minister:
You are asking me a question why other people did not do something and I do not know the answer to that.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
One of the priorities for the Council of Ministers was housing. How would you rate the success or otherwise of this, in this term?
The Chief Minister: In what respect?
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
In delivery of housing. I mean it was one of the pressing issues and...
The Chief Minister:
Indeed, and I do not quite know what your particular view was but we have brought forward the Housing Transformation Plan, we have invested millions of pounds in starting to upgrade the social housing provision, we have brought forward changes to the Island Plan to zone sites for affordable...
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
That is going to be brought forward.
The Chief Minister:
No, we have brought it forward and now it has been consulted upon, and it will be for States Members to agree those sites. That might be difficult. We do not take that for granted. But unless we do that then there will not be the delivery that we know that we need because you look at the Island Plan and the Island Plan intended that in the short term those sites would have delivered the much needed housing which is currently not being delivered. At the same time in the Budget, which we will be asking Members to vote on in December, there will be money being asked for there to invest hundreds of millions of pounds into housing.
Deputy R.J. Rondel:
So why was the previous Island Plan supported without these sites earmarked to deliver housing? What they said was that the States would deliver that housing on their own sites, which has failed to materialise; would you agree?
The Chief Minister:
That was the idea but when you start to look at those sites the police station was delayed so there has not been able to be the building on the site of the old station that would have happened had the police station been brought forward earlier. So that would have delivered housing. There is new housing going to be delivered on some of the housing sites, on J.C.G. (Jersey College for Girls) as well. So has it been a slow start? Yes. But are we in the process of delivering? Yes, we are. But there will still be some difficult decisions for the States to make.
Deputy R.J. Rondel: Absolutely.
Assistant Chief Minister:
May I just add that the Strategic Housing Unit has now been established since it has been agreed by the States and that is going to help to progress things a lot faster as well. There will be a real focus on it.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
But given the fact that all these social policies are expensive, and we have never debated them, are we going to have a debate?
The Chief Minister:
Well we are debating every individual policy and proposition as they come forward.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
We have never added it all up.
The Chief Minister:
I would argue...they are expensive but there is a cost of not doing these things.
[15:30]
There is a cost of not providing appropriate housing for people. There is a cost of not providing appropriate long-term care for people. There is a cost of not transforming our health service and providing a new hospital for people. Those costs, some of them are financial costs but some of them are costs to a community.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Do we not have to put them at the front and say: "Okay, folks, if we do this, if we do that, if we do the other." Instead of doing them piecemeal...
The Chief Minister:
It sounds as though I disagree with you whereas I do not because that is what the long-term Jersey 2035 is all about. What sort of future do we want for our community and if we want this then it will cost us this. If we want this that will mean we will have to do this.
Assistant Chief Minister:
When we did the Medium-Term Financial Plan, a lot of the social policies are among that, and they are all costed and we all had an opportunity to look at those things that were going to be there. The States agreed the Medium-Term Financial Plan. There is lots of good positive stuff in there. Can I just add a couple of other things about social policy, if I may, because there is a lot going on? I mean the Charities Law, we have been out to consultation on that. We are developing that. It will be coming forward with legislation towards the spring of next year. There was a bit of concern that some people had that the initial consultation period was a bit short. We recognise that. We are going to allow a longer consultation process for when the law comes forward and we
have spoken to a lot of people about that and they seem more satisfied they are going to have that longer period for the law. The law does support third sector organisations. They are asking for this legislation to be in place. If they have got the recognition that they are...we are running out of time, I do apologise. But certainly I mean that is one piece of work that is happening positively, which I think we are pleased about. The other thing I would just like to mention is the United Nations Rights of the Child legislation. We are progressing that as well and hopefully the Island will be able to sign up to that pretty soon. I will leave it at that.
Senator S.C. Ferguson:
Right, thank you very much indeed, Ministers, gentlemen. Here endeth the public session.
[15:33]